Kat Edmonson
Kat Edmonson is an American singer and songwriter known for vintage pop with a jazz touch. She was born on August 3, 1983, in Houston, Texas, and grew up with a single mother who loved songs from the Great American Songbook. She wrote her first song at nine. In 2002 she moved to Austin to pursue music after a year at the College of Charleston, briefly worked in real estate, and then decided to make music her full-time career.
Edmonson first gained national attention after auditioning for American Idol season 2, where she reached the Top 48. Her self-released debut album, Take to the Sky (2009), reached the Top 20 on Billboard’s jazz chart. Her 2012 album Way Down Low was funded by Kickstarter and earned praise from The New York Times and NPR, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. The Big Picture (2014) followed on Sony Masterworks and also topped the Heatseekers chart.
She has performed at major venues and festivals, including the Taichung Jazz Festival in Taiwan, Tanglewood, and the New York City Jazz Festival. In 2010 she opened for Lyle Lovett on his U.S. summer tour, and he invited her to perform “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” on The Tonight Show. Lovett joined her on the track “Long Way Home” on Way Down Low.
Edmonson has appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, Austin City Limits, and A Prairie Home Companion (2013 and 2014), where she reprised her Cat Mandu character. She has toured widely in the U.S. and Europe, including a Montreux appearance in 2013 and openings for Jamie Cullum, while sharing stages with artists like Michael Kiwanuka, Chris Isaak, and Gary Clark Jr.
Other credits include collaborations with Lovett on Angels Sing (2013) and a role in Woody Allen’s Café Society (2016), where she played a Les Tropiques Night Club singer. Her songs have been used in film and TV, such as “Lucky” in Admission and a Coca-Cola Olympic ad, and “If” on the Netflix series Russian Doll; “Dark Cloud” was featured in the opening of the film Closure. In March 2024, she performed the Sinéad O’Connor song “In This Heart” at a tribute concert for O’Connor and Shane MacGowan at Carnegie Hall. In 2015, she appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman with Asleep at the Wheel to promote Still the King, a Bob Wills tribute album.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 20:29 (CET).