CD Review - Maura O'Connell

Review of Maura O'Connell's new CD - Don't I Know - Sugar Hill Records

Irish (and Scottish and Scots-Irish) immigrants have influenced American music for over 200 years, growing our bluegrass and folk ballads, and affecting contemporary rock and country music. Their descendants have continued to contribute - John Denver, John Fahey, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Mark O'Connor, Jean Ritchie, Bruce Ormsby, Tim McGraw, John Fogerty - and countless more. Even those who only visited had a massive influence - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Sinead O'Connor, U2, Loreena McKennitt, Donovan. From Ireland, Scotland, Canada and Australia, they still come to enrich our musical experience. And the influence has gone in both directions; American R&B and rock flowed eastward across the ocean, and country music is apparently very popular in Ireland.

Maura O'Connell was born in County Clare, Ireland, into a musical family - in particular, a singing family. She was blessed with a strong, expressive voice, and added her singing to the Irish traditional group De Danaan in her early career. She says that she never truly felt at home there, however, and soon went on her own, to follow her own musical inclinations as a solo performer. Like many artists and performers, she prefers to stay clear of categories and labels, and cross multiple genres. She chooses her songs by their lyrics and quality, tending to stay close to songwriters who haven't yet made a name for themselves. Some whose songs she has recorded include John Prine, Jenny Orenstein, Mindy Smith, Kim Richey and Hilary Lindsey. Now in her 40's, O'Connell says she looks for songs that express the mature adult's emotional struggles in life and love.

About 20 years ago, she moved to America, settling near Nashville, Tennessee - the country music capital. The area and its musicians feel like home to her. Her music has great affinities with American country music, but in particular the more contemporary country whose reach has now extended to jazz and roots music. Her label, Sugar Hill, specializes in roots music and alternative country, and produces such musicians as Willie Nelson, Front Range, and many others not as well known.

Her new CD, Don't I Know, was recorded in Nashville, and is another collaboration with her producer, Jerry Douglas. Studio musicians on the album include Jonathan Trebing, Bryan Sutton, Russ Barenberg and Gerry O'Beirne on guitar, Gabe Dixon on clavinet and keys, Viktor Krauss and Edgar Meyer on bass, Shannon Forest on drums, Gabe Witcher on violin, and Jerry Douglas on lapsteel and dobro. Carmella Ramsey, Cheryl White, Harry Stinson and Don Johnson perform background vocals. The photos in the liner notes show O'Connell surrounded by stone fences and structures in Ireland.

The CD has a strong flavor of less commercialized country music, with its guitar sounds of dobro and lapsteel, its plaintive ballads and catchy tunes. But the intensely somber lyrics and tone of some of the songs help to separate her music from this category, as well as her emotional vocals. Her voice is earnest and full, yet in this CD also tends toward a sophisticated spareness as well. In Going Down in Flames and Hold On, her voice occasionally reminded me of Joni Mitchell's early country-to-jazz period, and there is even a hint of Bonnie Raitt on Didn't I and Up and Flying. Contemporary country music has been expanding greatly from its early sources; it is hard to imagine the banjo being used in jazz, but this is being done in contemporary alternative country, such as by Bruce Ormsby and others.

My favorite songs on the CD are the last two - Phoenix Falling (a song about suicide), and Time to Learn (about losing a loved one to death). These are more spare musically, and venture into more serious territory lyrically and emotionally. Overall the album deals with sadness and the bittersweetness of experience, however this adds depth to the music, rather than being a downer. It may be why the CD still has an Irish quality, rather than sounding like American country music. I haven't seen O'Connell in person, but I did see her perform in Gael Force, a concert with many performers produced in Ireland, which was shown on U.S. public television. She sang Maggie alone, and joined three other vocalists (including Mary Black and Tommy Fleming) in singing Hard Times - Come Again No More. This last song was written by Stephen Foster, the 19th century American songwriter; its sentiment seems to fit in very nicely with the Irish experience. O'Connell has a very impressive stage presence, and an obviously great effect on the audience with the warmth and strong emotion of her voice and persona.