Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Cate Gartner of American Idol Season 22

Idol returns to ABC on Sunday, Feb. 18 with the coaching trio of Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan back intact.

Here’s more about Cate.

* She’s a teenage singer-songwriter from Aledo, Texas, and a member of the Texas Country Music Association.

* Cate released “Fairytale Endings,” her debut album featuring seven songs, in June of last year.

* She writes on social media that she had recorded five of the seven demos for the album in 2021 before taking a year-long break from the project.

* That’s because a few weeks into her junior year of high school, she learned she was pregnant. “It was terrifying,” she says in introducing a touching song about the experience called “The Place That I Call Home.”

* That’s a song she wrote for her baby, suggested by Drew Hill, her co-writer and guitar teacher, though she’s already written half a song with the same intent. They finished the song about three weeks before her son was born.

* “This is the most vulnerable I’ve been probably ever, but this is the most meaningful song I’ve ever written,” she says. “And if it can help at least one girl in my situation, I’ll be happy.” You can check out a snippet of the song below.

* As for “Fairytale Endings,” Cate says she worked on it for about four years, starting as a “young girl who didn’t know much about anything … I’m grateful to be able to release this album and hope it can be as inspiring to others as it is to me.”

* Cate has more than 14,000 followers and more than 300,000 likes on her TikTok, where you can watch her cover hits by former Idol standouts Carrie Underwood and Gabby Barrett.

* Far and away her most popular post is a cover of Taylor Swift’s “Mary’s Song” while her grandparents enjoy a 50th anniversary dance.

* And another Taylor cover — “Never Grow Up” — shows that Cate was bitten by the music bug at a very young age. It features a photo of a young Cate strumming a guitar nearly as large as she is.

Cate on social media:
Instagram
TikTok
Facebook
YouTube

@categartnermusic The Place That I Call Home 🩵 I hope this song is an inspiration to those who are in the same position i was, as well as anyone who hears it #theplacethaticallhome #singersongwriter #original #teenmom #baby ♬ original sound – cate gartner