Outstand CD. Great mixing. Musicains Haskell and DeLucia are in a league by themselves. Had always thought of Liz primarily as a performer, and a very good one, but having a chance to sit down alone with her voice, not distracted by the gestures of performance, was an even more rewarding experience. Heard qualities I'd never heard before. My favorites? Not even a contest. Home is Where the Heart is, Caledonia, Columbus, and Crazy. Crazy because I loved the simplicity of the arrangement, its perfect tempo, the backup bass work, and because I love the tune. The other three I don't remember hearing before. I was knocked out. A special quality, something I don't have a name for--comfort, maybe, at-homeness--came through here. I felt that same emotion I sometimes feel when listening to a Judy Garland tune and all the pieces suddenly come together. The pieces come together in these songs. Great first CD. A true gift.

Liz McMahon has lived on the Tucson stage as Patsy Cline and as Sophie Tucker - but not at the same time. Performing more frequently the past few years as both singer and actor, this personable entertainer, while pretending to be someone else, has made many friends in the Baked Apple. On this album McMahon is all-Liz-all-the-time. She gets to sing a collection of her own favorite songs and do them her way. Singing with small ensembles providing elegantly understated accompaniment, she fills each piece with emotions that come straight from her own memories and talent. The song list ranges from the haunting, bittersweet chords of Home Is Where the Heart Is, sung with Lisa Otey, to such classic songbook selections as I Didn't Know What Time It Was and Here's That Rainy Day. Remembering her nights as Patsy Cline, there is also a country-tinged Crazy. Fans of the Desert Divas, that fun-loving all-star quartet of high-strung singers, get to hear the Divas belt out You Keep Me Hangin' On with McMahon singing lead. While McMahon's talent has many faces, depending on the temper and tone of each song, all those faces can be glimpsed in this anthology. If you've only seen one or two of those faces, here's a chance to see the rest.

Liz McMahon is best known as somebody else--the title characters in the Invisible Theatre's productions of SOPHIE TUCKER: AN AMERICAN LEGEND and ALWAYS, PATSY CLINE. Her new privately issued CD will introduce you to something closer to the real Liz McMahon, and you'll be pleased to make her acquaintance. Actually, the disc Right As Rain won't be news to anybody who has caught McMahon at one of IT's cabaret shows over the past five summers. Here, as in those shows, McMahon smiles and aches her way through more than a dozen standards and recent songs. The stylistic variety is fairly wide, but it's basically the sort of material you'd hear from Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and, to an extent, Patsy Cline if they were alive today. McMahon eschews both scat and scatology, so you'll hear neither hard-core jazz singing nor rap on this CD. It's middle-of-the-road music, beautifully performed. In her high notes, McMahon can sound no more than 21 years old. In the lower range, where she settles most of the time, she sounds not older so much as experienced and a little world-weary, for there's at least a little heartbreak and yearning in most of these songs, including Kurt Weill's MY SHIP, Noel Brazil's COLUMBUS, Willie Nelson's CRAZY, Jimmy Van Heusen's HERE'S THAT RAINY DAY and Jimmy Webb's DIDN'T WE. McMahon not only makes lovely, musical sounds, but she acts every song--not to an extreme, but there's always emotion and thought behind the notes. The difference her stage experience makes is most evident in HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS, a duet with Lisa Otey. Otey is a fine, emotive singer herself, but McMahon delivers her lines with extremely subtle catches and colorings you don't always hear from concert-oriented performers. Don't get the idea that this album is a downer; there's a lot of swing and smile in GIVE ME THE SIMPLE LIFE and HE AIN'T MR. RIGHT, for example. McMahon shows good taste in musical partners, among whom are Otey, pianist Jeff Haskell, guitarist-arranger Ed DeLucia, drummers Fred Hayes and Jon Westfall, and especially bassist Ed Friedland and trombonist Rob Boone.

As refreshing as an Arizona rainfall! In other words, Right As Rain! Have played it over and over since I received it. Beautifully done and great song selection....thanks!