Mollie O'Brien interview

What were you doing in NY? What made you move there from West Virginia (see About Mollie)? Seems like that was quite a change for you.

I dropped out of college after my sophomore year. I had long held the idea that whenever I left Wheeling that I would just pack my bags and head to NYC to do acting and singing. Just like that. Well, of course, the world outside of Wheeling was big and bad and I didn't get very far with theater. I did keep on singing however. I sang with a few choral groups and then in '76 discovered swing music.

My brother, Tim was in a band in Colorado called the Ophelia Swing Band. Two members of the band came to NYC and ended up staying with me for a month. Dan Sadowsky and Chaz Leary played every day on the streets and that opened up a whole new world to me. I had been working in the garment industry - from office assistant to buyer to manufacturer's production - and realized that singing was what was missing from my life . Watching Dan and Chaz and soaking up all the tunes they knew I just thought, I can do this. So I left NYC, went back to West Virginia to live at home and save money for a year and then at last moved to Colorado where I knew enough people and there was a healthy welcoming music scene. New York City was a HUGE change for me from West Virginia. My hometown had a population of 35,000. It was 1972 and things were really beginning to change for women and I think if I had even gone there a few years earlier I never would have lasted but a few months. Luckily, I thrived and loved the whole big city thing and then realized I didn't have to try to be "famous" in NYC -- that it was possible to do things regionally and still be successful.

There are a lot of different elements in your work, such as bluegrass, R&B, jazz and folk. Which is the strongest influence in your style? Which you really look to above the others? Also, do you feel that these influences were came out of your moves from West Virginia to NYC, and then to Colorado? Or was it the other way around -- did your moves come out of shifting musical tastes?

I would say that R&B is probably the biggest influence on my singing. The Motown sound was the first thing I remember hearing that really grabbed me. It was all over the radio when I was growing up. Of course the Beatles were and still are a tremendous influence but even they admit they were influenced by soul and blues. I never sang a lick of bluegrass until I made the first Tim and Mollie record. I had to learn all those songs and more for that recording. I loved learning all about that style of singing and the harmonizing but I think the R&B thing still came out even when I was singing a Carter family song. I first heard jazz when I was a young teenager but never heard lots until I moved to NYC where there were scores of little jazz clubs with live music every night as well as a really good jazz radio station. I would like to think that some of listening to all of that rubbed off and is heard in my style.

I think my tastes are finally coming to an amalgam that I'm happy with now. I absolutely love singing a Gillian Welch tune but will definitely throw in a few blue notes to let everyone know I'm not a bluegrass or country singer. I love singing a gospel tune and alternately sing it straight and then as blues shouter. It's fun to let all the things in my head come out at different times thru different tunes.
I like to pride myself on never singing the same song the same way twice.

How has your family influenced your work?

My oldest brother, Trip, brought home a Ray Charles record from college. I flipped and haven't been the same since. My parents really believed in letting us hear all kinds of music. In those pre-FM radio days, I heard top 40 and then would let my mom and dad take me to the Wheeling Symphony, an occasional rock or jazz concert at one of the local colleges. They also drove me and my brother, Tim (before we were old enough to drive) to coffee houses where we sang Peter, Paul and Mary songs.

How do you fit touring and recording in with your life as a mother and wife?

After my second daughter was born (21 months after her sister) I found that I had really become productive. I really had to become a better time management expert.

And I did. Although I wasn't singing every weekend here at home nor was I touring much the first few years of their lives I still managed to keep my head above water so to speak and perform occasionally. As my girls got older, the need for two incomes per household became more apparent. The only thing I knew how to do was sing and so I delved back into it rather that get a part-time job somewhere and then sing at clubs on the weekends. Singing just seemed like the only thing to do. At that time, luckily, my partnership with Tim was sort of taking off and we found ourselves touring more and more. And, luckily enough again, my fabulous and vastly musically talented husband understood. He put his musical career on hold while I was traipsing off all over the world. Is hasn't been until just recently -- since our daughters have gotten older -- that he has been able to really start playing again.

I owe him everything.

One of your biggest strengths, in my opinion, is your ability to choose the perfect song to sing. Where do you find all this good material?

I listen, listen, listen to public radio and to any and all other stations except country. I ask anybody who's sung something I like that I've heard at a festival or a gig if I can have a copy of that same tune. Obviously, I'm not that prolific in releasing CDs. I guess I just take my time and try to separate the wheat from the chaff and concentrate on what seems right for me. I'll pick a tune usually for the sentiment expressed ("In My Girlish Days" or "If I Live"). But occasionally, the chord changes will be what grabs me and that'll be the reason I sing it ("Sign Your Name").

How do you like working with your brother, Tim?

I love working with Tim. Like any people who've worked together for a long time we can have our share of disagreements but being family helps us keep things from getting out of hand. I like singing with him just about more than singing with anybody else. And he is one of the funniest people I've ever known and maybe that, more than anything, is what I miss most about us not working together as much these days.

How do you like performing with the E-Tones?

I don't really work with them exclusively much now. They were the band on Big Red Sun and I hired them because they are the most perfect rhythm section around. Nick hasn't played with me for a year. His E Town schedule makes it nearly impossible for him to do more than a few gigs a year. I needed somebody I could count on giving me first right of refusal. Luckily, Nina Gerber has become that person. She is about the closest thing I have found to the epitome of perfection in an accompanist. She lives to accompany people and is happy not playing the part of the guitar "wanker". I am blessed that she likes working with me!

Is there any way to buy your older releases on Resounding Records or Propinquity?

The Resounding releases are out of print. I hope to maybe make a "best of" CD out of both CDs sometime in the next century. I don't believe the Propinquity stuff is available either -- I'm only on a few cuts of one of those, a live recording of the Mother Folkers.