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MOLLIE O'BRIEN
Mollie O’Brien sings. Does she ever. Jazz, R&B, blues, gospel, southern mountain traditional—you name it. And she approaches each with an ease that makes you think she was steeped in the style since the first time a note left her throat.
Growing up in Wheeling, West Virginia as one of five children, Mollie was exposed to music of every stripe, from performances by the Wheeling Symphony to concerts by Count Basie, Ray Charles, and the Beatles. She listened to singers—Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Bonnie Raitt, Dinah Washington, Streisand, Sinatra, and Betty Carter—and took voice lessons. Later, she performed in church and at coffeehouses with her brother, Tim O'Brien. All the while she dreamed of heading to New York to sing and act on Broadway and make a big splash in show business. After her sophomore year of college, she set out for the Big Apple, but the auditions were discouraging and the gigs were few. She stuck it out for four years, long enough to discover the irresistible pull of swing music and the stylistic stretches required for jazz. Eventually she moved to Colorado, where her brother had already staked out territory in the booming music scene.
Mollie moved to Boulder in 1980, worked as a duo with Tim, and formed her own R&B band. Now she’s married with two teenaged daughters and has a firmly established singing career. She has been called one of roots music’s best interpreters and singers, and her voice has been described as smooth, smoky, powerful, and bright and bold as sheet lightning. Once you’ve heard it, you’re hooked.
Mollie’s recordings are a tribute to the variety of her tastes and the versatility of her performance. On her solo CDs—Every Night in the Week, I Never Move Too Soon, (on Resounding Records), Tell It True, Big Red Sun, and Things I Gave Away (on Sugar Hill) —she moves without hesitation from style to style, dipping into the songs of Lennon and McCartney, Percy Mayfield, Memphis Minnie, Chuck Berry, and the Subdudes.
Showcasing her old-time folk, blues, and gospel chops are three albums with Tim O’Brien (Take Me Back, Remember Me, and Away Out on the Mountain—all on the Sugar Hill label).
There have been any number of collaborations with a stellar bunch of bluegrass greats, most notably the Grammy-winning True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe (Sugar Hill). For the past few years, Mollie has worked with Garrison Keillor and Robin and Linda Williams as the Hopeful Gospel Quartet, with her own five-piece band, and as a duo with husband Rich Moore.
Mollie has earned rave notices at major festivals and venues throughout the U.S. and in the United Kingdom, Europe, and South America.