Miss Mary - Hey Blue !

  by John Clarkson

published: 17 / 12 / 2001

Label: Stereorrific
Format: CD

intro

Miss Mary is best known for her work with the sixties-influenced boy-girl Boston-based garage rock group The Oscillators with whom she has recorded two albums 'Let's Rock Instead', which came out in 1

Miss Mary is best known for her work with the sixties-influenced boy-girl Boston-based garage rock group The Oscillators with whom she has recorded two albums 'Let's Rock Instead', which came out in 1998, and 'Incog-Neat-O',which (also reviewed in this edition) was released earlier this year. 'Hey Blue', her third album and first solo offering, which is just out, also looks back to more innocent times,and with light touches of humour reworks and recollects the late fifties bubblegum kitsch and nostalgia of high school proms, Sandra Dee films and summers at the beach and pool. The production on 'Hey Blue' by Joel Mellin, who with his brother Jeff co-owns Stereorrific Recordings , upon which all Miss Mary's albums including this one appear, is crisp and immaculate. It is such that it allows each of the instruments on the record-horns, organs, a blues harp and strings as well as the standard guitars and drums-to stand out on their own. Miss Mary's voice meanwhile is honeydewed, sweet, and versatile, while the songs, like their fifties counterparts, rarely run beyond two or two and a half minutes, and with titles such as 'The Date', 'Summer Days' and 'Secret Boy', are uncomplicated, and have simple priorities and concerns. Despite her seeming naivity , part of the undoubted charm of 'Hey Blue', however, is that Miss Mary, like the latter day Jonathan Richman, is a lot more knowing and tough than first impressions might imply. 'The Date' finds the naughty girl picking up her "date" at one in the morning and then not finishing with him until four. On 'Gimme, Gimme', when her boyfriend plays around with someone else, she sounds ready to scratch the other girl's eyes out. 'My Baby Cried All Night Long', the only cover song on the album and an old Nancy Sinatra number, however, in contrast has her making her "baby" cry when, with matter-of-fact brusqueness,she has a fling with someone else, and then the next night feeling sorry for herself and remorseful when he pulls the same trick on her. Part lo-fi and part twee pop, 'Hey Blue' is a record that is both fun and warmly humoured. Miss Mary shows herself on it to have a wide vocal range and a quirky, offbeat style. Despite it having nine tracks, the only complaint that can be held against it is that at just under nineteen minutes in length it is a little too short. More though most definitely please !

Track Listing:-