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Friday, December 04, 2009 - 10:05 AM
 Marybeth’s songs combine the dark storytelling of folk, the melancholy feel of country and a melodic pop sensibility. Emotion-driven songs along the lines of Patty Griffin, Lucinda Williams or Lori McKenna. Marybeth D’Amico came to songwriting relatively late in life. But she makes up for it with the passion she puts into her Music. In 2002 the journalist had lost her full-time position as editor at an Amsterdam-based magazine. With some time on her hands, the wife and mother of two, who had recently taken up the guitar, began penning her first songs on the living room couch. The discovery of singer-songwriter Patty Griffin gave her songwriting a jolt. “What struck me was how emotionally riveting yet simplet to play her songs were”, says Marybeth. She began hungrily studying the songwriting craft not only of Griffin, but other singer-songwriters she admired, such as Lori McKenna, Kathleen Edwards, Antje Duvekot and Deb Talan.
In July 2008 Marybeth released her first full-length album, “Heaven, hell & Sin & Redemption” to critical praise in Europe. The album debutes at #10 in the August 2008 Euro Americana Charts and charted for two straight months; Holland’s Real Roots Cafe called it “a remarkable album”; Germany’s Frank Ipach, hooked-on-music, said it was a “first rate ten song debut”.
Produced by Buda, Texas based Bradley Kopp (Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Iain Matthews, Eliza Gilkyson) Marybeth is accompanied on guitar and vocals by top-notch musicians such as Lloyd Maines on pedal steel and dobro, Richard Bowden on violin, David Webb on keyboards, Paul Pearcy on drums and Bradley Kopp on bass, guitars and backing vocals.
The album’s dark title comes from the characters that inhabit the songs: from the single mom who can’t seem to settle i one place to the minister invloved in a sex-scandal; the young couple that decides to break away from a fundamentalist upbringing to the true-to-life story of a guy sitting on Death Row in Ohio. But no cause for depression here: most of the melodies are infectious and will have listeners humming along.
“A splendid record that can easily withstand comparisons with the latest CDs of Lucinda Williams or Kathleen Edwards”
Altcountry.nl
“Full of strong songs that are well arranged and produced and direclt delivered by Marybeth’s distinctive, slightly plaintive vocals…The balance of the album is pretty much perfect…” - Neil Pearson, Fish Records, UK
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