I have always loved my client Amanda McBroom's music. I think after learning of her through "The Rose," the next song that really floored me was "Putting Things Away." After seeing her perform "It's Still Spring" at Feinstein's/54 Below a couple of years back as an opening number, and making it (effortlessly) funny, I fell in love with that, too. Amanda's new CD, voices, was somewhat inspired by Marie Kondo's zeitgeist-powered book, "The Life- Changing Magic of Tidying Up." "I was tidying up my studio, and there were all these songs, on paper, on cassettes and 8-tracks," (Amanda jokes, I think...), "and I realized there were some good ones I'd forgotten about. I decided to record some of those." Lucky for us! She put 10 originals and 3 covers together (from Julie Gold, Tom Paxton and Livingston/Webster), got together with producer Fred Mollin and a bunch of fantastic musicians in Nashville and named the CD voices. She took the abbreviated title from one of her songs, "Voices That Come Through The Wall," written with Rand Bishop and the late Gordon Hunt (also co-writer of her song, "Errol Flynn," listed by Ann Powers as one of the NPR "Songs We Love" in 2015) . Cherry on the cake? Amanda included "The Rose," revisited as a duet with Vince Gill. Treat yourself to that one, or "Hope Floats," with music by glorious Michele Brourman, or "Feet of Clay" or the whole disc. You won't be sorry. Amanda will appear on NPR's Weekend Edition with Scott Simon on July 1st.
Here are some reviews from Amanda's CD celebration at Broadway at Birdland: