Katrina Elam Biography

Katrina Elam photo courtesy of Universal Records South

With the powerful new single "Love Is" as her calling card, Universal Records South artist Katrina Elam, has burst back onto the music scene as she readies her sophomore album, Turn Me Up for its Nov. 14 release.

As on her self-titled 2004 debut CD, the petite, doe-eyed beauty with the astonishing voice wrote most of the songs on her new project, including "Love Is" which is already being embraced by country radio.

Now 23 and newly married, Elam, known as "Kat" to her friends, brings a new maturity to this project, produced by Jimmie Lee Sloas and Tony Brown. The artist the Chicago Tribune described as "easily among the most promising of Nashville's latest field of newcomers" has also added a wealth of performing experience, having recently opened several months of dates on Rascal Flatts' Me and My Gang tour. She previously toured with Keith Urban in 2004 and 2005.

Elam's talents first turned heads as a teenager. Performing since the age of 9, by 15 the native of tiny Bray, Oklahoma, had been named female vocalist of the year by both the Oklahoma Country Music Association and the Oklahoma Opry.

She went on to become the Oklahoma Opry's youngest ever entertainer of the year. Fellow Oklahoman Vince Gill, who first met her as a teen, says even at that young age Elam's "God-given talent was undeniable."

By age 16 she was signed to a music publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music and she moved to Nashville shortly after finishing high school in 2002.

Her debut album was described as "vocally stunning" by Country Weekly magazine, and onetime tour mate Keith Urban praised the "womanly soulfulness" of her music in a People magazine feature on Elam.

That soulfulness comes to the forefront on her new album, sure to wow critics and win this young talent legions of new fans.