Juliana Hatfield (born July 27, 1967) is an American musician and singer-songwriter from the Boston area, formerly of the indie rock bands Blake Babies, The Juliana Hatfield Three, Some Girls,[1] and The Lemonheads.

She has performed and recorded as a solo artist and as one half of Minor Alps with Matthew Caws of Nada Surf. In December 2014, Paste named her cover of the song "Needle in the Hay" by Elliott Smith number 10 in a list of the 20 Best Cover Songs of 2014.[2] In 2014, she reformed The Juliana Hatfield Three, announcing the new album Whatever, My Love for 2015. In late December, Stereogum named the album "one of their most anticipated albums of 2015",[3] and on January 4, 2015 Consequence of Sound named it "one of the 50 most anticipated albums of 2015."[4]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Music career 2.1 Blake Babies 2.2 The Lemonheads 2.3 The Juliana Hatfield Three 2.3.1 First releases 2.3.2 Touring and disbanding 2.3.3 2014: Reformation and Whatever, My Love 2.4 Solo career 2.4.1 Ye Olde Records 2.4.1.1 PledgeMusic 3 Musical style 3.1 Style and influences 3.2 Lyrics 3.3 Instruments 4 Collaborations 4.1 Some Girls 4.2 Frank Smith 4.3 Minor Alps 4.4 The I Don't Cares 5 Writing and acting 6 Discography 6.1 Studio albums 6.2 Blake Babies 6.3 Some Girls 6.4 Minor Alps 6.5 The I Don't Cares 7 Works or publications 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links Early life

Born in Wiscasset, Maine, Hatfield is the daughter of Philip M. Hatfield, a radiologist, and Julie Hatfield, a Boston Globe entertainment writer.[5] Hatfield grew up in the Boston suburb of Duxbury. Despite recording a song named "My Sister", Hatfield has no sisters but she does have two brothers.[1]

Her father claimed his family descended from the West Virginia Hatfields of the Hatfield–McCoy feud following the Civil War.[6] Her father served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War.[7]

Hatfield went to Duxbury High School in Duxbury, Massachusetts. She attended Boston University and studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.[8] She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[9]

Hatfield also attended art school at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2012 in a year-long, post-baccalaureate certificate program, to study painting.[10][11]

Music career

Hatfield acquired a love of rock music during the 1970s, having been introduced by a babysitter to the music of the Los Angeles punk rock band X, which proved a life-changing experience.[12] She was also attracted to the music of more mainstream artists like Olivia Newton-John[13] and The Police.[14]

Blake Babies Main article: Blake Babies

After attending Boston University for a semester, Hatfield transferred as a piano student to the Berklee College of Music, hoping to join a band.[15] She formed Blake Babies with Freda Love and John Strohm in 1986. She sang, played bass guitar, guitar, and piano. The band was signed to Mammoth Records in North Carolina and received airplay on college radio during the early 1990s.[citation needed]

Although Hatfield shared vocal duties with Strohm in the group, she quickly stood out due to her unique vocal quality; her thin, girlish voice gave the group a youthful, innocent sound that was nevertheless belied by often-caustic lyrics and a vocal delivery punctuated frequently by harsh, distorted screams (in live performances more so than on recordings). Although the group's early work was essentially punk-oriented, they quickly settled into a sunny, melodic, and slightly jangly pop style reminiscent in style of early R.E.M. and Neil Young. Hatfield and Strohm shared songwriting credits and often sang together in harmony or octaves, creating a memorable "boy-girl" sound. The band toured the U.S. and Europe and made music videos. Hatfield received a degree in songwriting from Berklee.[citation needed]

The group disbanded in 1991, but largely due to persistence of Freda Love it reunited briefly in late 1999, performing a few shows in 1999 and 2000 and embarking on a U.S. tour in 2001. Coinciding with the tour, the Blake Babies recorded and released the album God Bless The Blake Babies which received strong reviews[citation needed]. The album featured new original songs as well as renditions of songs by Ben Lee and Madder Rose. Frequent collaborator Evan Dando also made a guest appearance on the album. After the tour, Hatfield released a Blake Babies EP titled Epilogue at her live shows featuring the band covering Fleetwood Mac, The Ramones and MC5.[citation needed]

The Lemonheads Main article: The Lemonheads

Following the breakup of the Blake Babies in 1991, Hatfield joined The Lemonheads to record their breakthrough album It's a Shame About Ray, playing bass and providing backing vocals. She played and sang with the band on and off during the 1992–1993 period. She did not appear on the band's cover of "Mrs. Robinson", which was included on reissues of It's a Shame About Ray, and was not an official band member listed on Come On Feel The Lemonheads, but did record some backing vocals for several tracks on that album.[citation needed]

The Juliana Hatfield Three First releases See also: Hey Babe and Become What You Are

Hatfield began her solo career following the Blake Babies' breakup in 1991, releasing her first solo album (Hey Babe) in 1992. The album was one of the highest selling independent albums of 1992. Hatfield recruited a rhythm section consisting of former Moving Targets and Bullet LaVolta drummer Todd Phillips, and Thudpucker bassist Dean Fisher, and thus becoming The Juliana Hatfield Three.[citation needed]

Hatfield achieved alterna-rock stardom with the release of 1993's Become What You Are (recorded under the group name The Juliana Hatfield Three). Several songs from the album received regular airplay on major North American rock stations, with Hatfield's song "My Sister" becoming the biggest hit of her career, with a #1 placing on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, and the video becoming an MTV staple..[citation needed]

"My Sister" was based on a real person: Hatfield's older brother's girlfriend, Meg Rafferty, who lived with the family while Hatfield was in high school. She enjoyed Rafferty's eclectic record collection. Rafferty also took Hatfield to see the Del Fuegos and the Violent Femmes, which inspired her to form a band.[1]

"Spin the Bottle" was used in the soundtrack of the Hollywood film Reality Bites (1994). Hatfield also made the cover of Spin magazine..[citation needed]

Hatfield was profiled in a number of girls' magazines[which?] at this time and addressed serious issues faced by young women in her songs and interviews. About this period she says: "I was never comfortable with the attention. I thought it had come too soon. I hadn’t earned it yet."[13] She gained notoriety in 1992 for saying that she was still a virgin in her mid-twenties in Interview magazine. In a 1994 interview for the magazine Vox, she said she was surprised by the effect 'outing' herself had: "I think there are a lot of people out there who don't care about sex, but who you never hear from, so I thought I should say it. The magazine I did the interview for is full of beef-cake hunky guys and scantily-clad models, so I thought it would be really funny to say that I didn't care about sex in a magazine that's full of sex and beauty – but no one really got the joke."[16]

Touring and disbanding

In 1995, following the success of Become What You Are she released her follow-up album, Only Everything, in which she "turned up the volume and the distortion and had a lot of fun".[13] One reviewer describes it as "a fun, engaging pop album".[17] The album spawned another alternative radio hit for Hatfield in "Universal Heartbeat". In the video Hatfield portrayed a demanding aerobics instructor. Before the tour for Only Everything, she released Phillips and hired Jason Sutter, Ed Slanker on guitar, and Lisa Mednick on keyboards. Two weeks into the tour, she canceled the tour.

In her memoir, Hatfield writes that she was suffering from depression severe enough to be suicidal. She disagreed with the decision to avoid talking about her depression.[18] The drummer was replaced by Phillips, and touring resumed with Jeff Buckley as the opening act.

In 1996, she traveled to Woodstock, New York where she recorded tracks for God's Foot, which was to be her fourth solo album (third if not counting Become What You Are, which was recorded with the Juliana Hatfield Three), intended for 1997 release. After three failures to satisfy requests by Atlantic Records to come up with a single, she asked to be released from her contract. The label obliged but kept the rights to the songs recorded during these sessions. Atlantic had paid $180,000 on the recordings.[19] "Mountains of Love" and "Fade Away" were released on a greatest hits collection entitled Gold Stars, while "Can't Kill Myself" was available for download from Hatfield's website. The remaining tracks surfaced on bootlegs, which she disapproved of, and she has rarely played them live.[19]

In 1997 Hatfield toured with Lilith Fair, an all-female rock festival founded by singer Sarah McLachlan.[20]

2014: Reformation and Whatever, My Love Main article: Whatever, My Love "If I Could" excerpt "If I Could" displays Hatfield's playful lyrics and vocal delivery. The song was released in 2014 as a promo single for Whatever, My Love, an upcoming album on American Laundromat Records. Problems playing this file? See media help.