The release and popularity of LaMott's CDs led her to become a regular at New York's more prestigious clubs, such as Tavern on the Green and The Oak Room at the Algonquin, where she broke house records for attendance.
Matz signed on to orchestrate LaMott's fifth album, Listen To My Heart, and this CD brought her large national attention.
[4] As a young girl, LaMott would sing along with Barbra Streisand records, according to her father, a supervisor with the Dow Chemical Company in Midland, Michigan.
[4] At 17, she was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, an incurable medical affliction that involves difficult intestinal problems and chronic pain and arthritis.
[4] Her early years in San Francisco became a pattern of singing gigs and hospital visits, running up medical debts and taking any jobs to pay the rent.
[6] In March 1995, LaMott was diagnosed with uterine cancer, yet she postponed a hysterectomy in order to record Listen To My Heart, an album that took only a remarkable two days to complete.
[4] According to conductor and composer David Friedman, who wrote many of the songs which she performed, LaMott's life featured two threads: her illness and her talent, and the "two things peaked at exactly the same time".