Diary of a Mod Housewife

Amy Rigby | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 20, 1996)
• Original Release Date: August 20, 1996
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Koch Records
• ASIN: B000001SMD
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #217,600 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Time For Me To Come Down

2. Sad Tale

3. Beer And Kisses

4. 20 Questions

5. Down Side Of Love

6. The Good Girls

7. Knapsack

8. Just Someone I Had In Mind

9. Don't Break The Heart

10. That Tone Of Voice

11. Didn't I?

12. We're Stronger Than That

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Want to Take Amy Rigby Out for a Beer, February 10, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Diary of a Mod Housewife (Audio CD)

I cannot believe that I am the first person to review this wonderful cd. But as a Manhanattanite and having stumbled in from a club at 3am (early here, but I am, lol, getting old at 35), I just put on this cd. And fell in love with this wonderful music all over again. On a personal note, "Down Side of Love" got me through a horrendous love affair (the kind you drag all your friends out to dank bars and whine over beer; this of course after you've bored them with tales of how you have LA LA DA DEE DAH found true love, unlike the rest of the poor down-trodden world). Ah, sigh, get this album, will ya? And tell Amy I would like to buy her a beer.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reflections Of A Former Child Bride, July 3, 2008

By 

Mike B. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Diary of a Mod Housewife (Audio CD)

My review title is a line from her song "Sad Tale", but Amy Rigby's choice of "Diary Of A Mod Housewife" is even better for this collection. These are the songs of a (then) 30-something rocker mom and divorcee as she looks backward and forward at her life.

Rigby has an interesting history. She was born in Pittsburgh, but relocated to New York in her late teens. In the 80's she was with a band called the Last Roundup, and then The Shams - an all female folk pop trio. She made some good connections. The Shams only album, "Quilt", was produced by Lenny Kaye of the Patti Smith Group - and was an early release for the alt-country label Matador. Married to drummer Will Rigby of The dB's, she had kids and settled down in Brooklyn's Williamsburg section.

This 1996 solo debut is produced by Elliot Easton of The Cars. He does a great job, but this doesn't sound anything like his band. Like her husband and his group, Amy was an East Coast-er enamored of West Coast sounds. At different times this record evokes the music of The Byrds, The Mamas and The Papas, and The Lovin' Spoonful. On some songs Rigby displays the sassy, flippant attitude of Nancy Sinatra.

Amy's duet with John Wesley Harding on "Beer & Kisses" would've been perfect for Nancy and Lee Hazlewood. "20 Questions" resembles the latter duo's "Jackson", or Nancy's "These Boots Are Made For Walking". In both songs Rigby's addressing her man in a no-nonsense manner. She had split from Will Rigby by this time, but it couldn't have been too bitter - he plays here on a couple tracks.

I love The Mamas and The Papas, and Easton captures their glorious sound on two songs. "The Good Girls" is the highlight of the whole CD, and should've been a hit single. It barrels along with the same soaring harmonies as one of M & P's faster hits like "I Saw Her Again Last Night", while the album closer "We're Stronger Than That" is more similar to their slower "Dream A Little Dream Of Me".

"Down Side Of Love" and "Just Someone I Had In Mind" would suit the Everly Brothers, and show her country/pop affinity to great advantage. Indeed, in 1999 she moved to Nashville to pitch songs. In 2006 she moved to France with her singer boyfriend Wreckless Eric, and they recently married.

Amy Rigby has since released other good albums, but this one will always be my favorite. It's perfect in every way, and was one of the most fun and enjoyable records of the 90's.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Gem -- Both the Album and the Artist, June 30, 2006

By 

James Carragher (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Diary of a Mod Housewife (Audio CD)

I saw Amy Rigby tonight at the South Street Seaport in NYC. Under occasional strong rain that scattered the two or three hundred in attendance to cover, she did a fourteen or fifteen song set with the same irreverence, intelligence, vulnerability, and resilience that marks each of her albums. I'm still partial to this first one, for it includes at least a half dozen memorable slices of bittersweet life, both single and married. It concludes with We're Stronger Than That, a slightly off-key hymn to a struggling relationship that, she concludes, is worth keeping despite all its flaws. Before then, she dishes up Time for Me to Come Down, the very country flavored Beer and Kisses, Down Side of Love (left off her best of collection, 18 Again. Bad choice.), Knapsack, Just Someone I Had in Mind, and Don't Break the Heart (ditto on 18 Again). A great writer and observer ("That tingling feeling when you're first holding hands/Gives way to dealing with a list of demands." "We lived on beer and kisses/All hopped up on love and foam."), Rigby can also be a formidable rocker, here with a country edge, harder on some of her later CDs. She belongs in anyone's collection.