Miércoles 5 Abr 2006, 21:51

Mary Lou Lord is an indie/folk rock musician and recording artist from Salem, Massachusetts, USA. She has also toured with Elliott Smith.

She announced in 2005 that she was suffered from a rare vocal chord affliction known as spasmodic dysphonia. She thereafter became more involved in A&R work and started a new management company with her husband Kevin Patey (Raging Teens).

Mary Lou is a treasure of the highest order, in the indie/folk universe. She has created a canon of simple yet highly personal deconstructions of "folk" songs - although terms like folk, indie, singer-songwriter are entirely inadequate - for her solo, quiet and intense little tributes to the genius of Elliott Smith, Nick Salomon (The Bevis Frond), Bruce Springsteen, Richard Thompson, Alex Chilton, Daniel Johnston, and other incredibly literary composers of recent years.

While she plays some esteemed stages Mary Lou seems to feel most at home busking on the streets, in Austin at the South By Southwest Festival - an annual pilgrimage for her since the first time she showed up with friend and collaborator Elliott Smith, only to be turned away from the main performance area - and outdoor gathering spots (and transit stations) of Boston and Cambridge.

A troubador in the classic sense, Mary Lou Lord collects and digests the greatness of artists including the aforementioned, both established and obscure. She takes evident care in maintaining their points of view but capably give their best work a new distinctive voice that is entirely her own. In performance, Mary Lou meshes those songs with her own too few compositions so that, together, they draw upon and document a postpunk emotional landscape of the early 21st century.

See Mary Lou if you can. If you're particularly lucky it may cost no more than a Boston subway token.