Tarnation

San Francisco-based Tarnation originally comprised Paula Frazer (vocals/guitar) with other band members who have gone separate ways.

Raised in Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia, a tiny village (pop: 260) in the Smoky Mountains region, Paula sung in her minister father’s church choir while her music teacher mother played the organ and piano.  Steeped in classic American traditions from an impressionable age, Paula would sing “mostly religious hymns and gospel. But we listened to lots of things around the house, like Billie Holliday, Gershwin, Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers.”

Sautee Nacoochee was as pretty as a postcard, “but a bit lonely”. Good training, then, for the lonesome-prairie emotion built into Tarnation’s make-up.

Paula now records under the name of Paula Frazer and Tarnation.