Album Notes

Melissa Carper and Jan Bell A.K.A. THE MAYBELLES met at the Ozark Folk Festival in 1998.
Exquisite harmony vocals alongside upright bass, guitar and banjo create an old time mountain sound from both sides of the Atlantic.
Most folks describe their sound simply as 'Gorgeous'.
Songs for my Baby is a collection of original and traditional songs.
"Country Blues to knock your socks off" Fayetteville Free Weekly, Arkansas.

Jan hails from a coal-mining village in northern England, and Melissa's main home has been a solar cabin in the Ozarks, where they were snowed in enough one winter to hone down some new old tunes. In 2002 Mike West (Squirrel/Binky Records) heard them at Winfield Festival, Kansas and invited them down to his New Orleans Studio to make an album. 'Songs for my Baby' was made at The Ninth Ward Pickin' Parlor, under his industrious and loving eye. Mike accompanies on mandolin and slide guitar, alongside Katie Euliss on piano.
www.truckstophoneymoon.com

Melissa was featured on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion Radio Show - with Gina Gallina as the Camptown Ladies - finalists in the Towns under 2000 Contest. The Tulsa World remarked on the beauty of her voice at the Woody Guthrie Festival, making the oft-made comparison to Gillian Welch.
Jan also took part in an event organized by the Woody Guthrie Archives, NYC, who said "Thankyou for your wonderful musical artistry" when she was asked to put found lyrics to her own original melodies.

"Dark, old-timey spareness, like a Renaissance faire in the Mississippi delta" Village Voice, nyc.

Jan and Melissa are also big fans of Hazel Dickens, Memphis Minnie and The Delmore Brothers. Its been said if Jimmie Rodgers and Leadbelly could've had an upright bass playing daughter - that would be Melissa.
Based in New Orleans, at the time of the making of this album, you could catch them singing by the river, or down in the French Quarter on a sunny street corner. In their daily set list, you heard an appreciation for working and traveling peoples' - songs from a time that is passing out of living memory. And all of this informs 'Songs for my Baby'.
www.themaybellesmusic.com
www.janbellmusic.com