Mary McBride is a force of nature. When she sings she has the rare ability to make it seem like her whole emotional being is bared for all to hear. Yet at the same time she projects a tough-as-nails vibrancy.
That's the easy part of the description. Defining her musically is a much tougher chore. She has the visceral energy of a rock and roller and the sensitivity of a folk singer. Part honky tonk angel, part salty temptress, part sheer songbird, McBride can belt or coo as the mood strikes her. Though she barely moves on stage, she manages to project a powerful persona, and every tiny gesture has the impact of a chorus line in full kick. It's an innate talent no doubt drawn from the double helix recesses of a Celtic heritage in which music is an instinctive part of self expression. The dark intensity of her eyes offers a passion play of dramatic gestures to accompany the aboriginal urgency of her voice.
With her roots in the Cajun country of Lafayette, Louisiana and her creative life based in her adopted home of Brooklyn, New York, McBride is an American original equally at home in the vast expanses of the heartland and the magically tragic mean streets of the city. Perhaps the key to her genius is the ability to focus an eye trained to see the numinous in nature's vast expanses on the gritty realities of New York streetlife and extract a sense of beauty invisible to a more cynical sensibility. "Black-Eyed Strays," one of the outstanding pieces of writing she delivers on "By Any Other Name," seems to embody this duality. Elsewhere she writes beautifully about love ("Falling"), lust ("Stop Don't Stop") and longing ("I Got Everything"), and her very being ("No Time" and the title track), but most tellingly, this accomplished playwright and actress has a jaw-dropping gift for character development and storytelling, as the remarkable songs "Toll Girl" and "Semi-Star" illustrate.
McBride also has a gift for collaboration and co-writes songs here with four different partners, including Steve Wynn and Dan Baird, who also account for the only two covers on the record, Wynn's "One Eyed Dog" and Baird's "Bottle & A Bible," both of which are fan favorites in live performance. The band, with Baird as the point man on guitar and Drew Glackin lighting things up on lap steel and mandolin throughout, provides the perfect settings for McBride's songwriting gems.
From her brilliant SXSW showcases at the Continental Club in Austin Texas to smoky late night jam sessions at Great Lakes bar in her Brooklyn neighborhood, McBride brings the party with her wherever she goes. "By Any Other Name" captures the energy of those live shows on record and suggests that McBride's fame as a songwriter is right around the corner. -- by John Swenson
