Paula Frazer

Paula Frazer's angelic voice first gained recognition under the band name Tarnation; she released 3 albums with various musicians under the Tarnation name: I'll Give You Something To Cry About (Nuf Said Records), Gentle Creatures (4AD) -- which Rolling Stone included in its list of definitive Americana records -- and Mirador (Reprise Records in US, 4AD in Europe).

These albums reflect a deep love of American styles like traditional and 1950's style country and folk, while being just as influenced by the music production styles of Phil Specter, 60's British Dream-Pop and even Ennio Morricone's Spaghetti scores.

Paula Frazer has been singing since she was a child, growing up in the Smokey Mountains of Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia, where her father was a minister and her mother a piano teacher and leader of the church choir. She grew up and eventually found her way to the great city of San Francisco.

Paula spent the better portion of the eighties and early nineties playing with various bands (Frightwig, Pleasant Day, Trial, Cloiter and Virginia Dare), but it was not until she formed Tarnation that she found a catalyst for her songwriting and singing accomplishments.

Tarnation started as a classic example of San Francisco alternative country music. But what made it different from other bands was the quality of the songwriting, exemplified in "The Game of Broken Hearts", and in Paula's immediately recognizable voice, a voice that has the clarity of Karen Carpenter with the soul of Billie Holliday or the Carter Family singers. She has also sung on other artists' records including Cornershop, Dan "the Automator" Nakamura with Sean Lennon and Mephisto Odyssey.