Customer Reviews

Maria Mckee

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Three years after Lone Justice's second and last album, Shelter, lead singer Maria McKee stepped out on her own with her eponymous debut. She adds some more country tinge on some of her rootsy guitar sound, and still has that husky rock-country voice that is lilting soft on one hand, goes into an emotional crescendo the next, and even into a quasi-yodeling mode at times.

"I've Forgotten What It Was In You" veers towards country and features some nice strings. A very good opening song that sets her new material from the old.

There's a Bruce Hornsby-Dylanesque feel in "To Miss Someone", in which she plays a fragile, lonely woman going through the aftermath of an affair. "Nothing fits and everything feels wrong/I guess it's useless to deny it/I'll admit I've been crying/Guess I'm not so independent after all" she says in one verse.

OK, the moment I've been waiting for. Maria here was the originator of the wry "Am I The Only One (Who's Ever Felt This Way) a full decade before the Dixie Chicks did it on their Wide Open Spaces album. When I heard it, I thought, "Hang on a minute, I know that song!" It's country-tinged like the remake but emotionally, Maria's original is more convincing, especially when she speaks of "a wound inside of me/...bleeding like a flood."

"Nobody's Child" features her lilting and lovely highest range. This might as well be the "Bridge Over Troubled Water" on this album, a sad ballad of comfort: "Take this veil/and I'll dry your eyes/In a world like ours/you're nobody's child."

"Panic Beach" is the oft-wry and humorous story of a singer telling the events of the happenings at a bar and the antics of the "vaudeville bums" and clientele, one of whom "don't sweat, she sours and melts like ice cream in the sun." Throughout it, the struggling protagonist vows to do her time and say goodbye to the title place, even saying "I may be hungry but my rent is free."

"Can't Pull The Wool Down (Over The Little Lamb's Eyes)" has a sound that recalls Lone Justice's "Belfry" from Shelter, but with country-ish backup singers.

Heartfelt country ballad time with "More Than A Heart Could Hold" which features a gospelish choir, and she goes into a searing gospel mode herself at one point. One of the better songs here.

The bluesy and country-like "This Property Is Condemned" sees seedy life through the eyes of a poverty-ridden girl in New Orleans remembering better days. "Breathe" is of the same kind, except it's a slow ballad.

Her cover of "Has He Got A Friend For Me" is a melancholy piano-only ballad of a wallflower, described as a girl who's clumsy and shy dying of loneliness on Saturday night. The line is a question the protagonist asks her girlfriend regarding her beau. Hearing the line "And nobody wants to know/anyone lonely like me" rang a jarring chord with me. Another poignant lyric: "He wouldn't notice me passing him by/I could be in the gutter/or dangling down from a tree." One of my favourites on this album.

"Drinkin' In My Sunday Dress" reminds me one of those rambling folk-country songs on Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, wry and humorous: "My radiator growls like Elvis after Sunday dinner."

A big jump from Lone Justice's brand of roots-rock, Maria McKee's debut was the closest I came to buying country in my early days.

The woman can take you off-planet with her voice, write songs that drip with atmosphere and heart, and even make 'distressed roots' producer Mitchell Froom behave himself so that the focus here is on putting each song in a damn near perfect setting and performance.

Doesn't hurt that Brit guitar god Richard Thompson is laying down textbook tasty licks and heart-arcing solos all over the place (try 'Breathe' and 'This Property Is Condemned' for examples). Organist (Paul?) Brody shows how it should be done with his inventive and evocative textures. There aren't many albums I've heard where it all comes together better than here.

If you've heard the Dixie Chicks cover of Maria's 'Am I The Only One (Who's Ever Felt This Way)' buy this album to check out the real thing, in every sense.

Born in LA in 1964, and having released two albums with Lone Justice, this is Maria McKee's first solo album. Released in 1989, and recorded in Hollywood, Dublin and London, nine of the eleven tracks were written solely by Maria. A tenth ("More Than a Heart Can Hold") was co-written with Robbie Robertson. Featuring, among other things, a Hammond organ and strings, the best description is country-rock with a slight bluesy twinge.

The album gets off to a great start with "I've Forgotten What It Was In You (That Put The Need In Me)". Despite the title, it's quite an up-tempo number that sees Maria fairly belting out the vocals. She puts in a similar performance on "This Property is Condemned", which also features a moody bassline and rock-n-roll-esque guitars. However, it's "Panic Beach" - another of the album's livelier songs - that I'd pick as the best track. It has a great tune, great lyrics and could easily have been subtitled "When Showbiz Goes Wrong". Sometimes, it does you good to hear a song like this !

There are a couple of more gentle songs on the album - "Has He Got a Friend For Me ?", the only song that doesn't see Maria with a writing credit, is a very good example. She also gives her backing band its only break for this track, and accompanies herself on the piano. Two of the songs that were released as singles also stand out : "To Miss Someone" shows just what a nice voice Maria has, while "Breathe" is one of the few songs where things actually seem to be working out !

There simply isn't a bad song on this album, and I can't understand why Maria McKee didn't become a huge success. She has a voice that can convey the mood of a song perfectly - hurt, need, calm or just generally fed up ! Highly recommended !

As a huge Lone Justice fan, particularly of Maria McKee's amazing live performances with them, I was extremely disappointed when the band broke up so quickly after gaining national recognition in the mid-80's. Their first recording was absolutely perfect, and the second was inconsistent but contained a few of the great songs that were highlights of their concerts, and served as a reminder all these years of what they could do in person. When I read, years later, that Maria McKee had gone softer, solo, and born-again Christian, I (wrongly) concluded that was that and put her out of my mind. When a long-distance friend told me how great her early solo recordings were, I was a bit skeptical, and decided to err on the side of caution, never buying or hearing them.

Recently I decided that 15 years was caution enough, and picked up this CD. I'm so glad I did! It is extremely enjoyable, and, to my surprise, a huge improvement over "Shelter" (sorry, I can't make comparisons to her later CD's I haven't heard yet). Maria McKee's strength, in my opinion, lies more in the passion of that amazing soprono, that seems to just burst miraculously from that tiny ball of energy, than in her songwriting - some of the best Lone Justice songs were written by other band members. But the writing here, almost all her own, is actually fairly good, and the production by Mitchell Froom is restrained and perfect. It remains tasteful and timely 15 years later. The vocal performances are absolutely stunning. On the eponymous first Lone Justice recording, McKee was uniformly brilliant, but her restraint on most of the numbers on "Shelter" didn't suit her any more than the overproduction did. She varies the tempo and volume here, but cuts loose at some point on most of the songs, to very good effect. The style varies, and she never really rocks the way she did with her old band (though "Drinking in My Sunday Dress" sounds remarkably like "Soap, Soup, and Salvation"). But the passion and energy I remember from her Lone Justice days is present throughout, along with the strength of that amazing voice. While there isn't anything that hits quite as hard as "East of Eden" or "I Found Love", there is a consistently high level of energy and competence, and this recording has been in my CD player for days.

I wish I'd picked this up 15 years ago, but it's not too late - highly recommended for Lone Justice fans - I can't speak to her later work, but this CD is not a drastic departure from her earlier work, and it's uniformly excellent!

Maria McKee is easily the most overlooked female singer in music history. Quite a claim! I know, but I challenge you to find a stronger voice after, say, Aretha Franklin. There is simply no better country singer on the planet - not Loretta Lynn, not Tammy Wynette, none of the moderns - forget the Dixie Chicks, and Neko Case, as glorious as she can be, cannot begin to approach the tortured angelic ecstasy that pours out from Maria's voice. She leaves everyone else in the dust. Listen to Panic Beach off this record and experience four minutes of rapture. If you're still in one piece, try More than a Heart Can Hold for the best country gospel you're ever likely to hear! So uplifting, it's a religious experience... every time I listen I want to dissolve myself in her breath and spirit.

I'm not sure if I would have made it through the 80's if it wasn't for Maria McKee. Rolling Stone named Lone Justice the best new band, and although not a commercial giant in the US, McKee delivered. My vinyl copy of this album was worn to a nub long ago. Maria has it all, and on this album she shows us so.
Her lyrics full of drama, heartbreak, passion and anger, her voice full of joy, ferver, fear, and love. Her vocal range astounding, her pen astonishing - and although she continues to deliver (2007's Late December for instance) this is still her best.
"Panic Beach" is story of a vaudville hopefull that is sung with such optimistic anguish "I may be hungry, but my rent is free" that you want to pity her, help her, watch her, and be her all at the same time. "To Miss Someone" and "Breathe", the singles from the album are incredible. "More Than A Heart Can Hold" is a bluesy/gospel masterpiece.
McKee's voice continues to be one of the finest in music - proof that power and control does not have to mean vocal gymnastics. Her solo debut continues to hold strongly at the top of my favorite albums of all time.
Thank you, Little Diva, thank you.

In a market that is saturated with sweet sounding, feisty female vocalist it is a shame that this talent, and this album in particular, have become lost somewhere in the mire. Although the overriding sentiment of the CD is of loneliness and loss the songs contain everything that one might wish for, from the gutsy comedy of 'Drinkin in my Sunday Dress', the earnest emotion of 'more than a heart can hold' to the utter despair of Richard Thompson's 'Has he got a friend for me', surely one of the saddest songs ever written. All of these sung with a voice whose range puts most wannabee female troubadours to shame. An album that never suffers from repeated listening.

Maria McKee is one of the best vocalists working today, Blessed with a powerful, multi-octave voice and a keen eye for lyrical detail, she never fails to impress, especially on such cuts as "Am I Only One Who' s Ever Felt This Way," "Panic Beach" and the astounding "Breathe." Best known for her work with Lone Justice and her inclusion on the "Pulp Fiction" soundtrack, Ms. McKee highly deserves a large audience in the States (she's been a massive star in Britain for some time.) Buy this album--its definitely worth the cost. You will not be dissappointed!

Without question, Maria McKee is one of the most underappreciated female singers of the last forty years. Just consider it for a moment: Here is someone with a lot of talent, a fine eye for songwriting, and a lot of stylistic and artistic integrity, who keeps on making fine records year after year, beginning with those she made as the lead singer for the Los Angeles "cowpunk" band Lone Justice in the mid-1980s. And yet, despite the critical acclaim she has received and a loyal fan base she has cultivated over the years, she had hardly ever gotten any radio airplay, at least insofar as the mainstream goes; and none of her singles have charted very high on the Billboard Hot 100. In short, Maria was and remains to this day too good for American corporate radio; and as a result, one must buy her records to hear her extraordinary talent, as evidenced by her self-titled 1989 solo debut MARIA MCKEE.

Just a cursory listen to this album shows a huge songwriting gift on Maria's part, influenced to a certain degree by Dylan ("Panic Beach"; "This Property Is Condemned"); and perhaps that kind of songwriting gift is what has kept her on the fringes of mass popular favor. Like any intelligent singer and/or songwriter, she does not do little "ditties" that don't tax one's patience; you have to absorb what she is conveying. If this were still the 1970s, and she had the fortune of being around folks like Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris (women who clearly have inspired her), this would hardly be a problem; in this superficial, corporate age we live in, however, it unfortunately is. Even the two best-known songs on this album, "Drinkin' In My Sunday Dress" and "Am I The Only One (Who's Ever Felt This Way?", seem like they stepped out of the same Los Angeles country-rock movement that spawned the Eagles, Linda and Emmylou. "Drinkin'" was covered by country singer Susan Haynes in 2006 (not surprisingly, given its up-tempo honky-tonk bar band sound a la Lone Justice); while "Am I The Only One" was covered by the Dixie Chicks on their 1998 breakthrough album WIDE OPEN SPACES.

A lot of good musicians aid and abet Maria on this album, including drummers Jim Keltner and Jerry Marotta; British folk music guru Richard Thompson; and Bruce Brody. The end result is an eclectic mix of folk, country, R&B, and rock influences that should be familiar to anyone who has heard Maria throughout her career. In essence, Maria, first as Lone Justice's front woman and on this solo debut of hers, served as a bridge between what Linda and Emmylou did in the 1970s, and the alternative country movement of later decades that led to artists like Tift Merritt, Allison Moorer, and Kathleen Edwards coming onto the scene.

Maria would go on to do even more left-of-center albums in the future (LATE DECEMBER; HIGH DIVE), while also returning to a rootsier, country-influenced sound as well (YOU GOTTA SIN TO GET SAVED; PEDDLIN' DREAMS). This self-titled album, though, finds her very comfortable in a country-rock groove that is an artistic success of the highest order. Even if Maria never becomes a "big star", just on the basis of this debut album of hers, she will eventually come to be seen as one of the best female vocalists of her time and her style.

Georgia rain bring me a sound that's as sweet and as fresh as this Gem by a woman who's both "clumsy and Shy" according to her own longings, and I don't know if I know of another more passionate vocalist ma'am. May I escort her to the property that's condemned so I can share a brandy with a woman who does this classic "Property's condemned" a wall or a Lone Justice if you will. Ahh the satisfying warmth of inspiration.