Biography

Catherine Judith "Kate" Markowitz (born 28 April 1956) is an American singer-songwriter known as a backup singer who has recorded and performed with a number of singers, most notably James Taylor but also Willy DeVille, Shawn Colvin, Mylène Farmer, Don Henley, Billy Joel, k.d. lang, Lyle Lovett, Graham Nash, Randy Newman, Warren Zevon, and John Kaizan Neptune. She is the daughter of the late film and television soundtrack composer Richard Markowitz.Markowitz had a platinum-selling single in Germany in the 1990s under the pseudonym Kate Yanai. The single began as a Bacardi Rum jingle that she recorded for the European market. The jingle was so popular that she was asked to transform it into a song about "summer love" rather than rum. She co-wrote the lyrics and recorded it (with Arnold McCuller, David Lasley and Valerie Carter on backing vocals) under the pseudonym Kate Yanai. Called "Bacardi Feeling (Summer Dreamin')," it went to Number 1 within two weeks in Germany, where it stayed for seven weeks, selling well over 500,000 copies. In 1994 she released a second single "Cry, Cry Louise" which reached number 61 in Germany.In 2003 she produced her first album, Map of the World, on which she wrote or co-wrote a number of the songs.