Ten albums in and Maia Sharp delivers another intensely self-reflective album of the highest quality.
In a world of superb female singer-songwriters, a name that gets overlooked is Maia Sharp, one of the best, most melodic, most honest songwriters around. She has just released her 10th solo album, a journey that started in 1997, and which has elicited high praise from music critics ever since; it’s difficult to see why she operated below the radar; early on she had a quite high profile musical and songwriting association with Art Garfunkel and Bobby Mondlock on the exquisite pop album “Everything Waits To Be Noticed”, but generally her name and albums have been low-key, despite unceasing critical acclaim.
Sharp is the daughter of multi-Grammy-winning country artist Randy Sharp (“my mentor” and occasional contributor to songs on her albums). Her musical background led her to become proficient on the guitar, keyboards, piano, sax and oboe, as well as develop songwriting skills from a very early age. As those skills evolved, she wrote songs that were recorded by a variety of major country artists, perhaps most notably the title track to The Chicks’ album “A Home”, but including artists such as Bonnie Raitt (a “major influence”) and Trisha Yearwood. Her debut album “Hardly Glamour” came out in 1997, a couple of years after she came out as lesbian, an experience she was fortunate enough not to find too difficult due to a very supportive group of family and friends. And although her songs are not normally written from an LGBQT perspective, she regards her song ‘Wandering Heart’ from her debut album as a love song for the community.
A move from LA to Nashville in 2019 followed the breakdown of a 21-year marriage and resulted in 2021 (after a six-year hiatus due to relocation problems such as a tornado sweeping through her neighbourhood, and an attack of pneumonia and COVID) in the release of “Mercy Rising“, a highly personal and intensely honest dissection of the breakdown, followed in 2023 by “Reckless Thoughts”, which focused on the more positive aspects of her move and the calmness after the emotional storm. Both albums received high praise from critics.
And now, Sharp releases “Tomboy” and she continues to be on a particularly impressive roll, with a less introspective feel to the album, on which percussion ‘instruments’ and her new found experimentation with synths and diverse keyboards dominate the production, giving the album, with all its folk-americana sensitivities, a more varied quality, with some jazzy moments (Sharp introduces her saxophone playing to great effect on, for example the tender ballad ‘Is That What Love Does‘) and some country stylings (when Sharp Sr delivers some 12 string or steel guitar accompaniment). The percussion is largely in the hands of percussion maestro Eric Darken and he joins with the wonderful bass lines of Will Honaker to make a great rhythm section. With special guests throughout you have the makings of a subtly beautiful record. And lyrically Sharp treads an interesting, still highly personal, path between themes of growing up (the title track), thankfulness (‘Only Lucky’) yearning (‘A Fool in Love Again‘) and so on. And to cap it all is her wonderful voice, a warm, expressive thing of beauty. with a slightly husky undertone. that never dominates proceedings, leaving the lyrics and instrumentation to share centre stage.
Sharp has never been afraid to write with other people and her albums are littered with co-writing credits of some major songwriters (her back catalogue includes a whole album of co-writes with Anna Schulze under the moniker Roscoe and Etta). This album is no different and kicks off with the title track (written with Emily Kopp after they traded experiences of growing up) “I’m the only girl here not wearing a dress / They’re all Audrey and Grace, I’m doing my best / People I know, they glide through the party / People I don’t, they’re staring at me / Whispers carry / they’re trying to guess” You get the first taste on this track of the synth sounds that permeate the album. ‘Counterintuition‘ has a lovely melody, enhanced even by the trumpet and fluegelhorn of Rod McGaha, as she weaves in and out of life’s confusions: “I want to fill up with emptiness / Feel warmer undressed”. The afore-mentioned ‘Is That What Love Does’ benefits from the lyrical contribution of Emily West to a wistful exploration of the thrill of a new relationship, with Sarah Holbrook’s haunting violin adding to the mood – “Painting and peeling every shade of blue / When all it really needed was a coat of you / Is that what love does?”
Sharp works with an organisation called Songwriting with Soldiers, a passionate commitment that “opened my eyes , heart and mind to a whole other world of meaning” and which helped her formulate the track ‘Only Lucky’, a bouncy country rock song that uses the metaphor of being in a traffic jam that turns out to be a fatal accident that she avoided, to explain the gratitude for her luck. ‘Edge of the Weatherline‘ is a highlight –a warm lilting vibe that you just don’t want to end, especially the sax and the fluegelhorn that sign off the track. The engaging ‘Asking For a Friend’ is a classy country song with great vocals from Sharp and co-writer Terri Clark, on a song about difficult relationship questions on the pretext that they are for a friend. Randy Sharp’s guitars shine on this track. Matthew Perryman Jones sings harmony on his co-write ‘Better Story‘, about the need to get her writing out there, without waiting for it to be absolutely right – “I push the pen across the page until the truth comes out / It’s a certain kind of faith when I don’t know what it’s about / But I keep pushing anyway and if I find something to say / That’s worth a damn / I get a little closer to who I am”.
‘A Fool in Love Again‘ has a chorus with a lovely 70s show-tune feel; the lyrics are about being newly single and yearning for love again. Sharp’s piano is to the fore on this slow dreamy ballad. ‘Any Other Way‘ is another glorious tune reminiscing on old times and how time has passed. And to end, there is a riveting acoustic version of U2’s ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for‘, with just Garrison Starr on backing vocals and Vanessa Freeborn-Smith on cello. It’s been covered a dozen or more times but this version is as good as it gets.
The production (by Sharp alone) is magnificent, her new-found love of synths is captivating and the album is a lyrical and melodic joy from start to end. Highly sophisticated americana, “Tomboy” is another triumphant chapter in the Maia Sharp body of work. If her name is new to you, and you like this, you should check out her back catalogue, too.
