One of the things I hope to be doing a lot of over the next year is opening for bigger acts. Opening is such a great way to get your music out to music lovers. I’ve seen how true that is over the past few weeks.

I really had only been the featured act until I got to open for Texas singer/songwriter Joe Ely and his band at the Narrows Center for the Performing Arts in Fall River, Massachusetts. What a great experience. The crowd was incredibly open to new music and so encouraging. It was just me and a great guitar player, Bob Enick, that I’m doing duo gigs with. He brought his Gretch guitar and played beautifully. This was a dramatic change for me without the full band, but it sounded great.

I also had the chance to meet Joe and his band before he went on. I asked them what it was like living the life of a touring musician. The answer was that it takes it toll on relationships back home and being crammed in a bus days at a time is not ideal, but when you get up on stage, it’s all worth it.

Joe told me a story about a time he picked Muddy Waters up from the airport. Joe was a younger man then just getting started in his career. He asked Muddy the same question I asked Joe and Muddy answered something along these lines, “Everyday, it’s 22 hours of hell and two hours of complete ecstasy.” The bottom line was, despite the challenges, guys like Muddy and Joe wouldn’t have it any other way. And it’s obvious when they’re up on stage. Joe and and his band brought the house down that night. They were so good, it hurt.

Last night, I opened for Chris Isaak at the Lowell Summer Music Series (which happens to be a few blocks from where I live). I was hanging back stage with the guys in my band and Chris walked by on his way to the tour bus. I introduced myself and he stopped to chat for a while. He is a storyteller! He had a lot of good ones to share.

One that I really enjoyed was when he recounted a show he did with Johny Cash years ago. He had a old photo of Johnny when he was in his early 20s and gave it to him asking for a signature. Chris was hoping he didn’t offend Johnny by have a photo from his younger days instead a more recent one. Johnny stared at the photo for what felt like an eternity to Chris, who was sweating it out. Finally, Johnny opened his mouth to speak and said, “I was a handsome young man!” Yes, he was.

Chris is not only a storyteller on and off stage, he is true showman. His act is complete with costumes and choreography. The audience LOVES it. I got to talk to Chris briefly after the show and I told him that that he was my hero. I too believe in putting on a show. His music is excellent and his voice is amazing, but it’s his showmanship that takes an evening with him over the top!

In a few weeks I will open for Suzy Bogguss at Tupelo Music Hall in New Hampshire. On July 15, I’m back at the Lowell Summer Music Series opening for the Court Yard Hounds (the Dixie Chick sisters) and then on September 16, I’ll be in Western Mass at the Iron Horse opening for Ellis Paul. I look forward to each of these shows — the chance to share my music with new audiences and to learn valuable lessons from these performs, all excellent musicians and veterans of the stage!

The new CD has been getting some great reviews. I’ve rounded them up – you can read them here!

The Boston Herald

This Northeastern grad and Lowell resident had established a career in marketing when she decided it was “now or never” for her music. After last year’s debut album of mostly covers under the name Amy Black and Red Clay Rascals, the singer/songwriter explodes with this compelling album. Produced by Lorne Entress (Lori McKenna, Catie Curtis and Olabelle), the nine originals and three covers draw upon Black’s Alabama roots with a mixture of bluegrass, country, gospel, blues and rock. Her splendid voice and writing are complemented with traditional American roots instruments, highlighted by Nashville aces Stuart Duncan (fiddle) and Roger Williams (dobro) with local support from Tim Gearan, Lyle Brewer and Mark Erelli. Black shows country cred on Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” but it is the beautifully imagined sound and soul of her originals that make her a newcomer of note. – Nate Dow, Boston Herald

http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/music/reviews/view.bg?articleid=1327591&srvc=rss

Boston Globe

Editor’s Pick – “Whiskey and wine/that’s you and me, baby,” Black sings rather sweetly on the third track from her spirited new album. “One Time” toggles between barn-burning country [including a cover of Loretta Lynn's "You Ain't Woman Enough (to Take My Man)"] and rootsy folk. The local singer-songwriter will celebrate the album with an afternoon CD release party. – James Reed, Boston Globe

Hyperbolium

For a New Englander, Amy Black sounds quite down home. Her Southern roots (she was reared in Missouri and Alabama until the age of sixteen) clearly packed their bags and traveled along in the relocation North and East, and have been renewed through visits to her family’s home town. Black sings in a folk-styled country voice that suggests bits of Patty Loveless, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Judy Collins, edged by the blues of Bonnie Raitt and a hint of Jennifer Nettle’s sass. It’s a voice that sat largely idle during a ten-year career outside the music industry, and one that wasn’t stirred back into action until a few years ago. Her 2009 debut with the Red Clay Rascals was stocked with covers, but on this sophomore outing she expands her artistic reach with nine originals that mix electric and acoustic, including guitar, fiddle (courtesy of Stuart Duncan), dobro, mandolin, dulcimer, bass (electric and upright), and drums. Though the album opens with a compelling tale of an imagined killer fleeing the law, the bulk of Black’s songs are about the lives of women. There’s straight-talking relationship advice in “One Time,” the lonely machinations of one who’s been left in “You Lied,” and tough realizations in “Whiskey and Wine” and “I Can’t Play This Game.” Black offers romantic optimism too, as she flirts with loving arms that remain just out of reach, potential yet to be realized. Among the three covers, Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough (to Take My Man),” despite a nice dobro solo, sounds least comfortable among Black’s originals, but Claude Ely’s gospel “Ain’t No Grave (Gonna Hold My Body Down),” provides blue notes for Black and Duncan to really dig into. This is a nice step forward for a singer-songwriter with an ingratiating voice and a pen that’s just warming up.

http://www.hyperbolium.com/2011/03/29/amy-black-one-time

RoughStock

It takes guts, especially as a female artist, to release an album that opens with a murder ballad and closes with the title track from Johnny Cash’s last album. Amy Black’s One Time is an album full of such gutsy decisions. Black fuses old and new country with bluegrass and pop setting to create an album reminiscent of country women from the 1990′s. She blends the writing chops of Matraca Berg with a singing voice that falls somewhere between Suzy Bogguss and folk singer Susan Werner. Amy Black is something uncommon in the contemporary era. She combines strong, female centered songs with a solid sense of contemporary country that never gives way to pop sensibilities. One Time is an album for all of those who have been missing simple, newfangled mainstream country of the kind that hasn’t been played for a decade…

…The 1990s were an easy time to be female, in society and in country music. Now days, it has gotten harder and nowhere is this more noticeable than in country music. The majority of the few female artists who get airplay are thinly disguised pop, and the one truly country female, Miranda Lambert, made it to the top by killing nearly every man she came across. What is missing is the half of the adult narrative that used to make up country music. For every “You Still Move Me” there was a “This is the Way We Make a Broken Heart” and a “Cry My Self To Sleep.” There was a completeness to the stories being told that is lacking in this day and age. One Time harkens back to that era in country music, and is a nearly perfect album for anyone who is missing that half of the story.

http://www.roughstock.com/reviews/amy-black-one-time

- Stormy Lewis