Molly Thomas
Shoot the Sky
© 2005 Molly Thomas (827912011883)
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In a recent London Times article about the surplus of non-country music talent in Nashville, the author recalled visiting a Music City rock club and happening upon a young female violinist backing up an unknown singer-songwriter on a weekday night. The violinist's compelling voice and stage presence, even in a side musician's role, proved to the author that Nashville was simply overflowing with artists on the verge.
That violinist, Mississippi-native Molly Thomas, has since moved to center stage, having now released a gripping full-length solo LP, Shoot The Sky. The album, mostly recorded in Thomas' Nashville home, features twelve tracks and Thomas herself on vocals, violin, guitar, cello, bass, piano, moog, Hammond organ, mandolin, assorted percussion and, on the oddly buoyant "Crack Cocaine," some wonderfully trashy drumming.
The album's title is a nod to an unnamed lover whose self-destructive nature also destroys those who love him - even those who wish they did not. "Another wasted dream, another wasted man, another wasted day with you," Thomas sings, resignedly, on "Blueprint," the album's haunting, reverb-laden opener. Thus the stage is set for this emotional, at times bitter, but ultimately triumphant album.
Thomas, who continues to be an in-demand live and session player, most recently for the likes of Todd Snider, Will Kimbrough, Matthew Ryan and Mindy Smith, gets some assistance from some of her peers on Shoot The Sky. Ryan, with whom Thomas has toured extensively, appears here as guitarist on the pleading title track and backing vocalist on the piano ballad "Sleep," while his "I Hear A Symphony" provides the record's lone cover. Houston-based artist Mando Saenz adds his voice to the album's slow-burn ballad of star-crossed love, "Bad Timing," which Seanz also co-wrote with Thomas.
Other collaborators include Rowland Stebbins, whose weathered backing vocals add a peculiar warmth to the lilting, late-night-flavored waltz, "My Side," and Brian Harrison, whose musicianship, co-writing and co-production on three tracks adds counterpoint and polish to Thomas' already strong vision. Harrison's credits include Lucinda Williams, and the closing track, "I'll Be Fine," highlights some of Thomas' favorable comparisons to that legendary artist. Another Harrison-assisted track, the blistering, radio-friendly "Wide of The Mark," allows Thomas to expose the so-called "plush life" and "gilded cage" of her self-destructive foil and to declare that, finally, she's having none of it.
To have self-produced the lion's share of Shoot The Sky demonstrates the confidence Thomas has built over her career, from her earlier days in the Mobile, AL-based college band Slow Moses, to her solo performances on the Nashville club circuit, to touring the U.S. behind top-shelf singer-songwriters. "I'm more comfortable with who I am now as an artist," she says.
reviews
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Great Folk Artist!
author: GretchenWow! I was blown away by this CD. It is some of the best music I have heard by a new artist in a long time! Hopefully there will be more forthcoming soon!
This is a awesome CD
author: Stephen WelchI just loved Molly's CDs Shoot the Sky. Each song was sounded like it was sung strait from the hear and was a perfect for her voice(some artist sing what they like not always whats best for the vocal talents). I couldn't help but hear a sound that was a blend of Patti Griffin, Lucinda Williams and others. But at the same time she made it her own.
I hear a sort of Lucinda Williams/Velvet Underground fusion. Or Nico and Lucinda
author: Will Kimbrough - americana music awards instrumentalist of the y“Molly Thomas has made a great Sunday morning record, coming across soulful, world weary and sincere all at the same time. I hear a sort of Lucinda Williams/Velvet Underground fusion. Or Nico and Lucinda in a slow quiet catfight. Like blues meets New York jaded resignation, yet it is still soulful. I like the record. It moves me.”
The album has a slightly gauzy sound, but it's not the production haze often use
author: Lawrence F. Specker of the Mobile Registerhttp://www.al.com/entertainment/mobileregister/lspecker.ssf?/base/entertainment/110509300465620.xml New CD is antidote to Ashlee Simpson Friday, January 07, 2005I catch the very end of Ashlee Simpson's appearance at the Orange Bowl halftime show and wake up the next day wondering: Was the whole thing as bad as that snippet seemed to me? Has it really come to this? An ultra-micro-managed property putting on the facsimile of a punk show, right down to the classic "A" for anarchy on the drum kit, in this utterly corporate production? And she's not singing so much as hollering? And hollering badly? It had to be real. The audience in the stadium didn't even boo when it was over. It just sort of groaned. And I think: This is not a very promising start to The Year in Entertainment, 2005. Maybe the lip-synching wasn't such a bad thing, compared to the alternative. So I sit at my desk and I take the wrapper off "Shoot the Sky," Molly Thomas' new CD, and within a few minutes, everything is magically getting better. Because without knowing what I needed, I've found it: A work of wonderful artistic honesty. If you don't remember Molly, you should. A Mississippi native, she spent some memorable years in Mobile, starting in the mid-'90s as a member of Cold Water Flat, later Slow Moses. Afterward she continued to perform blues, rock and folk under her own name, solo and as a bandleader. Aside from songwriting and singing, she's known for her skill with the violin, guitar and piano. She moved to Nashville in 2001, and later released an EP that showed her moving in a soulful direction somewhat comparable to Shelby Lynne; and early in 2004 she backed Matthew Ryan on tour. Now she gives us "Shoot the Sky." I'll describe the style as straightforward contemporary singer-songwriter, as if that actually is a style. Thomas mixes in alt-country and blue-eyed soul cues, with occasional forays into rock and a good measure of her violin playing. The album has a slightly gauzy sound, but it's not the production haze often used to cover up the limitations of weak vocalists. It's more the throwback resonance of projects like last year's Jack White-Loretta Lynn album. There's a lot of pop out there that puts on a pretense of being upbeat but turns out to be self-pitying when you scrutinize it. (Note to self: "Quit scrutinizing pop" might be a really beneficial new year's resolution.) What Thomas is doing here is exactly the opposite. The music is deep, gentle, flowing, often on the brink of melancholy -- but the sentiment, both in the lyrics and in their delivery, is life-affirming. As in "The Easy Side:" "get back to the easy side/i wanna be where i don't have to hide/i wanna be where I ain't got no pride/on the easy side -- billy graham on the microphone/tellin' stories that you're not alone/to hungry people/wantin' more and more/sunday news/to get to heaven's door -- the easy side" Thomas tells me that she plans a local CD release party in February or March; details to come. In the meantime "Shoot the Sky" is available through www.mollythomas.com for $12 plus shipping. It probably will be available soon at Satori and Bay Sound, Thomas says, though it isn't there yet. It's an album that reflects the challenges of life, and the decision most of us continually make, to keep getting up and meeting them. And that, folks, is the perfect cure for the blues you get when you start to think that maybe skillfully produced frauds are the best we can expect. Lawrence F. Specker is the Mobile Register's entertainment reporter. He can be reached by phone at (251) 219-5606; by e-mail as lspecker@mobileregister.com; by fax at (251) 219-5799. Mail notices of upcoming events to him at the Register, P.O. Box 2488, Mobile, AL 36652.
Thomas' album sounds like nothing else going on in town. It's distinctly Souther
author: Peter Cooper of The TennesseanShe's got the props, the chops As so often happens with good musicians in Music City, violinist Molly Thomas is transitioning from accompanist to a center stage. Thomas and her violin have been heard onstage or in the studio with Mindy Smith, Matthew Ryan, Will Kimbrough and other heavyweights, and her new Shoot the Sky album is drawing not-faint-at-all praise from some of those collaborators. Ryan calls her "untouched and singular in her expression," while Kimbrough likens Shoot the Sky to something "like Nico and Lucinda in a slow, quiet catfight" or "like blues meets New York jaded resignation, yet still soulful. I like this record. It moves me." As usual, those guys are on the mark. Thomas' album sounds like nothing else going on in town. It's distinctly Southern yet not at all "country," and she uses the blues as an intimation and a feeling, not as a pattern of well-worn chords.
“Molly Thomas is no little lady, bemoaning her trials and tribulations at the ha
author: Michael MeeI have absolutely no idea who the subject of the withering opening track Blueprint is, only that it's obviously someone who she knows well and I'm just glad it's not me. Her voice rises out of the rubble of a devastated relationship to condemn unequivocally and without mercy. At times it's almost impossible to hear anything other than Thomas' voice. It's not that she's louder than anything else but the heartache poured into songs like Bad Timing is deafening. They are so intense that listening to them produces the same feelings of guilt as slowing down to rubberneck an accident. The accident analogy doesn't end there because there's a great deal of emotional wreckage attached to the album. It's bittersweet, heavy on the bitter, easy on the sweet. But Molly Thomas is no little lady, bemoaning her trials and tribulations at the hands of the wrong kind of man. There's a streak of defiance a mile wide in her voice and, as a writer, she kicks where it hurts and with unerring accuracy.....read more
“Molly Thomas is unfiltered ‘south.’ She is the feel and the sound of the southe
author: Matthew Ryan“Molly Thomas is unfiltered ‘south.’ She is the feel and the sound of the southern United States. In an America where food chains, homogenized broadcasting and department stores oppress the uniqueness of any time and place, Molly manages to sound untouched and singular in her expression. She's vulnerable and stubborn while she honors the themes of loneliness, literature and that ethereal humidity that comes with the southern perspective.”