Lori McKenna

You might not know who Lori is, but if you’re much of a country fan you’ve probably heard a few of her songs. Faith Hill recorded three of her songs for her most recent album, including the title song “Fireflies.” Faith says she heard Lori’s songs and fell in love with them. The other two songs Faith covers are “Stealing Kisses” and “If You Ask.” The added attention brought Lori’s last album to the attention of Warner Brothers and they re-released Bittertown on their Nashville label. Her newest album which comes out tomorrow if you’re reading this the day it pops up on the internet is produced by Tim McGraw and was recorded in Nashville with a session of studio musicians. Country singer Sara Evans has recorded the song “Bible Song” also.

Not bad for a woman who didn’t start singing until she was 27 and already married with three children. She made her professional debut at open mike nights in the clubs in Boston. At the age of 19 she married her high school sweetheart. Currently they have five children. She released her first album Paper Wings and Halos independently. A singer/songwriter friend of hers, Mary Gauthier (an upcoming Voice to Hear) gave her music to people she knew in Nashville and Lori signed a publishing deal with Harlan Howard’s music company.

Lori lives in Stoughton, Massachusetts with her husband and five children. Her husband is a plumber and she used to drive to gigs in her mini-van. Since the inclusion of her song’s on Faith’s last album Lori has appeared on Oprah and opened part of the Soul2Soul tour for Faith and Tim. (Unfortunately not the show I saw recently.) On her MySpace page she blogs about the tour and traveling the country with the two country music superstars. You can almost hear the awe in her words as she talks about things she never imagined happening to her, life on the road with two of country’s biggest stars and appearing before crowds that she never thought she would.

Lori writes about life in a small town and life as a Mother and Wife so convincingly because she lives the life she writes about. Her song are not strictly auto biographical, but she takes parts from her own life and mixes it with what she sees around her and creates songs that tell the truth of such living.

On Mandy Moore’s new album the former teen pop star was looking to become a more serious singer/songwriter and went to Lori to collaborate on three of the songs on the new album. This could be one of the voices that we hear now as a small, not well known singer that might be on the verge of breaking out into super stardom. Lori might be about to take that next step to becoming to a Star, but regardless of her status in the music field she will continue to release albums of heartfelt emotion and superb singing and that is enough.

The Best of 2007

I'm not going to make a top ten list, because there's no way I could make a list like that. My top picks change day to day, sometimes within the hour. One day I would swear to you a certain album is the best album of the year, catch me the next day and I'll be telling you it's a different album. So what I'm going to do here is just list what I think some of the best albums of the year were. This list will continue throughout the month, as I remember other ablums that were put out this year. If you have any suggestions feel free to comment.

1. Lori McKenna "Unglamarous"

If I was going to make a top ten, this would be somewhere in that top ten. Lori has been a favorite of mine for years, her music has been coming out on small labels until this year. Faith Hill discovered her and recorded three of her songs for her last album and that led Lori to a big label contract with Tim McGraw producing the album. They did a pretty good job of not over producing the music and trying to make her fit into what's hip. It's not my favorite album by Lori, but it's still very good and better than a lot of stuff out there.


2. Jesse Malin "Glitter in the Gutter"
This is Jesse's third solo album. He was the lead singer of the punk group D-Generation. Anyone following him from that group looking for the same will be surprised. Here he's making pop more in the vain of Ryan Adams than the loud angry punk from his former group. Ryan had a hand in this album, as in the previous three. One song "Broken Radio" is a duet with Bruce Springsteen. Jesse writes some really good story songs and his album actually is filled with a lot of hope.

3. Maria McKee "Late December"
Maria started off in the americana group Lone Justice when she was barely out of her teens. The group was destined for super stardom but never seemed to make it. Since the break up of the band she has recorded several excellent solo albums. One of her early songs ended up on the Dixie Chicks first album, giving her the financial freedom to record how she wants. She is not content to merely stick to one genre. One ablum will be her roots rock, the next could be labeled alternative. This album is almost threatrical, close to opera in some instances. Maria has a voice that can pull just about any style of music off. I enjoyed this album but I have to admit I'm more of a fan of her roots rock style.

4. Susan Cowsill Band "Live at Carrollton Station: Covered In Vinyl Series Vol. 1"
Susan is a favorite of mine. She's been around years, from the family band, The Cowsills, to the New Orlean's based Contintental Drifters, to finally her own solo career. She's still based out of New Orleans and at the local club Carrollton Station she does a monthly show where her band covers an album from someone else. They do the entire album at the show. This is cuts from different shows where she covered Joni Mitchell, Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, Cat Stevens, Fleetwood Mac and Led Zepplin. Hopefully this is just the first in what will be a series of releases. I'd like to see a release of one entire show, where she redoes the entire album.

5. Amanda Shaw "Pretty Runs Out"
Amanda is another local favorite and this is her big label debut. She's a 17 year old fiddle playing sensation. She's released two previous albums on small local labels until Rounder Records decided to grab her up. This is a good album, but not the Amanda Shaw album I was hoping for. It starts off good, with the title song, as close to theme song for Brittney as could be written. Rounder wisely teamed Amanda up with some veteran local artists in helping her craft some songs, Shannon McNally and Anders Osborne each have a hand in writing some of the material on this album. But they also try to make Amanda into a more contemporary vocalist, singing material written by popsmith Dianne Warren. In concert she does covers by such artists as the Clash and Charlie Daniels, it would have been nice to see that ability to stretch more on this album.
6. Elizabeth Cook "Balls"
The title for this album is short for the song "Sometimes It Takes Balls To Be A Woman". This is straight ahead old fashioned country music produced by Rodney Crowell.