Quick Q and A with Julie Dougherty
 by Kathy S-B  ·  14 November 2008

I’ve got to admit . . . I go way back with Julie Dougherty. Julie and her sister, Kathy, used to sing at the folk masses at my church. I always thought they were so cool. I ended up playing guitar at folk masses several years later . . . but realized how bad I was pretty early on and left the playing to the real pros like Julie!

Check out Julie’s lovely music on her MySpace page.

What’s your earliest memory of making music?

Earliest memory of making music is playing piano when I was quite young .. playing by ear. My mother played well . . . but actually making music for others was my first accordion recital . . . I began singing with my sister (professionally) when I was in 8th grade. We did some minstrel shows and college concerts . . . we harmonized pretty well together . . .

You’ve dabbled in all kinds of music from folk to r&b to jazz to Irish to country-rock. Do you prefer one style over another?

I really love all the differing styles of music I’ve attempted to sing throughout my life . . . folk music seemed more accessible when I was young, because you could accompany yourself on guitar and didn’t need a band to back you up . . . but I really love a lot of different styles of music.

You flirted with the idea of moving to Nashville and becoming more active with writing and placing music there. Was the New England scene just too difficult to give up?

Nashville wasn’t home and I’m a ‘homebody’ .. plus, there were no real paying gigs down there. Writers nights were the only thing that you could do and if you were lucky, you got to be the featured writer at some . . . but unless you had some kind of ‘deal’ with a publishing company as a writer or record deal as a singer, there weren’t many gigs to have .. so home was more appealing in that way too.

If you had to describe yourself in no more than five words, what would you say?

five words: dedicated, persistent, loyal, good friend

Here’s a desert island question: what three records would you bring with you (assuming you had electricity)!?

Anything by Richard Thompson or Mary Chapin Carpenter, Brandenburg Concertos