Mary Margaret O’hara

1988

Miss America -  100%

A candidate for the most singular, special singer-songwriter album of all time. Blending country, pop, jazz, folk, and lounge music, O'Hara creates a singular experience like nothing before or since. In a perfect world, this would be the music that is played on the radio, as the band plays impeccably to Mary's unpredictable vocal acrobatics. Each song is a masterwork of a different kind: “To Cry About” opens gently with O’Hara’s Magical voice crooning us into a trance and making us think this will be a typical country-folk influenced album….but it’s so much more. The next song “Year in Song” blasts us out of that trance like a hurricane, the vocals become confused, scrambled, unsure of them self and yet the band plays impeccably. By the end O’Hara is screaming, taking us to a place of primal rarely seen since the loose structure and passion of Tim Buckley, Laura Nyro, even the avant-garde of Meredith Monk. The song rearranges the atoms of our minds, it creates a sort of trip to another universe all by observing a band in complete control, and a vocalist that looses her sense of being. One of the great songs in music history.

Next of course is the rebound, there are the trial and tribulations of the country music stylings, “Body In Trouble” and “When You Know Why Your Happy“ showing a sense of randomness and disorder, while “Dear Darling” and “A New Day” are perfect examples of Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn glamour, respectively. Continuing the great interplay between vocals and bass players, one listen to “My Friends Got” will redefine what bass playing means. “Help Me Lift You Up” and “You will be Loved Again” are her version of the world of standards of country balladry and “Keeping you In Mind” is even lounge jazz, but again the arrangements are right on the money and her vocal flights keep taking us to unknown places. Finally, “Not Be Alright” is pure Captain Beefheart or Tom Waits bizarre syncopation, vocals that goes into another universe, pure disorientation for 5 minutes. O’Hara somehow balances experimental rock with the most traditional music that would make her a pop music star. Self-sabotage, for art’s sake.

The album was recorded multiple times between 1984 and 1988, going through multiple producers trying to find the right sound. Whatever they did, you can read the backstory somewhere else, the album came out perfect. PERFECT. Not a word I use lightly, the flow of the songs is a perfect order, it sooths and scars you with each track. Her rock songs are not defined in tradition like the folk ones, and nothing is an accident. O’Hara has these ‘improvisations’ and vocal acrobatics perfectly planned out. I’m sure nothing sung by her would be the sung the same way twice but that’s the beauty of her one and only perfect album, it opens up new avenues in your mind each time you listen to it.

Best Songs: ummm….all of them…..but Year in Song, My Friends Have, Body Is In Trouble, Help Me Lift You Up, Not Just Be- all bring out those emotions in me.