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Amy Rigby (born Amelia McMahon, January 27, 1959) is an American singer-songwriter. [1] After playing with several New York bands she began a solo career, recording several albums which had only modest sales despite enthusiastic reviews. She settled into a career of touring while raising a daughter, then formed a duo with Wreckless Eric whom she also married. As of November 2011 they continue to tour from a base in upstate New York. She is the author of a memoir, Girl to City. [2]
Rigby was born in the Pittsburgh suburbs and raised Catholic. She moved to New York City in 1976. She married dB's drummer Will Rigby in the 1980s, and during the late 1980s and early 1990s recorded with New York bands such as The Shams and Last Roundup. She had a daughter with Rigby. [3]
In 1999 Rigby moved to Nashville to pursue a publishing deal, and continued to record and tour.
Rigby met Eric Goulden, also known as Wreckless Eric, in Hull, England, where she was performing one of his songs, and they married. [3] She later relocated to Cleveland Ohio, and in late 2006 she and Goulden moved to France. In the fall of 2011 they moved back to the USA, settling in a town in upstate New York. Rigby and Goulden collaborated on albums. [3]
Rigby wrote a memoir of her journey from suburban Pittsburgh to New York City, and her journey to becoming a musician. Girl to City was published in July 2019. [3]
Rigby released her first full-length recording under her own name, Diary of a Mod Housewife, in 1996. Village Voice critic Robert Christgau praised the album, calling it "concept album of the year". [4] Spin voted Rigby "Songwriter of the Year" for 1996. Middlescence and The Sugar Tree (like Mod Housewife, recorded for Koch Records), also were well received by critics and listeners. Koch also released Rigby's compilation album, 18 Again.
After leaving Koch, she recorded for the Signature Sounds label, and also sold live CD and DVD material through her website. Til The Wheels Fall Off, with its opening track, "Why Do I," produced by Richard Barone, was released on Signature in 2003, and Little Fugitive in 2005. The weekly newspaper The Nashville Scene said that Little Fugitive "finds Rigby as sharp as ever, even as many of the songs evince the fuzz of dislocation...or the exasperation of a survivor who hasn't lost her sense of humor but knows that jokes have their limits."
She writes lyrics about the trials of a cash-strapped single mother in an uncaring world. "The Good Girls" is a song about consumerism and underemployment, for example. Asked by her manager if she would not be able to write the same kind of songs after starting a happy relationship, she responded "No problem. I'm still poor", before cranking out a lyric about her beau's ex-wife. Another trademark is outrageous sexual humor, as in the songs "I Hate Every Bone in Her Body" and "Are We Ever Going to Have Sex Again?"
Rigby uses basic chord structures derived from '60s rock and pop music. Her records are as notable for their musical sophistication as for their lyrical directness.
Her influences also include New York City punk rock, especially as played at the famous CBGB club, as well as the Beatles and other mid-1960s pop. One of her recent songs is entitled "Dancing With Joey Ramone."
Ronnie Spector, Sara Hickman, and Laura Cantrell have recorded compositions by Rigby. [5]
In 2008 Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby was released. The album is described as combining various influences. The pair are touring to support the album. [6]
Joan Chandos Baez is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing over 30 albums. Fluent in Spanish and English, she has also recorded songs in at least six other languages.
Stiff Records is a British independent record label formed in London, England, by Dave Robinson and Jake Riviera. Originally active from 1976 to 1986, the label was reactivated in 2007.
Janis Ian is an American singer-songwriter who was most commercially successful in the 1960s and 1970s. Her signature songs are the 1966/67 hit "Society's Child " and the 1975 Top Ten single "At Seventeen", from her LP Between the Lines, which in September 1975 reached no. 1 on the Billboard album chart.
Indigo Girls are an American folk rock music duo from Atlanta, Georgia, United States, consisting of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. The two met in elementary school and began performing together as high school students in Decatur, Georgia, part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. They started performing with the name Indigo Girls as students at Emory University, performing weekly at The Dugout, a bar in Emory Village.
Righteous Babe Records is an American independent record label that was created by folk singer Ani DiFranco in 1990 to release her own songs in lieu of being beholden to a mainstream record company.
Joan Jett is an American rock singer, songwriter, composer, musician, record producer, and actress. Jett is best known for her work as the frontwoman of her band Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, and for earlier founding and performing with the Runaways, which recorded and released the hit song "Cherry Bomb". With The Blackhearts, Jett is known for her rendition of the song "I Love Rock 'n Roll" which was number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks in 1982. Jett's other notable songs include "Bad Reputation", "Crimson and Clover", "Do You Wanna Touch Me ", "Light of Day", "I Hate Myself for Loving You" and "Dirty Deeds".
Amy Elizabeth Ray is an American alto singer-songwriter and member of the contemporary folk duo Indigo Girls. She also pursues a solo career and has released six albums under her own name, and founded a record company, Daemon Records.
Veronica Yvette Greenfield, known professionally by her former married name Ronnie Spector, was an American singer. Referred to as the original "bad girl of rock and roll", she was the lead singer of the girl group the Ronettes.
Eric Goulden, known as Wreckless Eric, is an English rock/new wave singer-songwriter, best known for his 1977 single "Whole Wide World" on Stiff Records. More than two decades after its release, the song was included in Mojo magazine's list of the best punk rock singles of all time. It was also acclaimed as one of the "top 40 singles of the alternative era 1975–2000".
Patricia Theresa Schemel is an American drummer and musician who rose to prominence as the drummer of alternative rock band Hole from 1992 until 1998. Born in Los Angeles, Schemel was raised in rural Marysville, Washington, where she developed an interest in punk rock music as a teenager. She began drumming at age eleven, and while in high school, formed several bands with her brother, Larry.
Amanda Lepore is a transgender American model, singer, and performance artist. A former Club Kid, she has appeared in advertising for numerous companies. Lepore is noted as a regular subject in photographer David LaChapelle's work, serving as his muse, as well as many other photographers, such as Terry Richardson and Ruben van Schalm. She participated in LaChapelle's Artists and Prostitutes 1985–2005 exhibit in New York City, where she "lived" in a voyeuristic life-sized set.
Ada Dwyer Russell (1863–1952) was an American actress who performed on stage in Broadway and London and became the muse to her poet lover Amy Lowell.
Devon Sproule is a folk and indie rock singer-songwriter and musician based in Charlottesville, Virginia. She shared the prestigious ASCAP Foundation Sammy Cahn Award for 2009 with Oren Lavie. She is married to fellow musician, and music producer, Paul Curreri.
"Whole Wide World" is a song written by English rock singer-songwriter Wreckless Eric, who wrote the song in May 1974, and recorded it in 1977, whilst an original member of the Stiff Records label. Additional musicians on the record were Nick Lowe on guitar and bass, and Steve Goulding on drums.
Deborah Ann Harry is an American singer, songwriter and actress, known as the lead vocalist of the band Blondie. Her recordings with the band reached No. 1 in the US and UK charts on many occasions from 1979 to 2017.
Duane Jarvis was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter who recorded songs with many rock and roll and country music performers, including Frank Black, Peter Case, Rosie Flores, John Prine, Amy Rigby, Lucinda Williams, Dwight Yoakam, Gene Clark & Carla Olson.
Daddy Rockin' Strong: A Tribute to Nolan Strong & the Diablos is a vinyl-only tribute album released by The Wind Records and distributed by Norton Records. On January 21, 2013, Burger Records re-issued the compilation on cassette tape.
Amy Allison is an American country music artist and the daughter of jazz-blues musician Mose Allison. She became interested in country music as a kid growing up on Long Island, and first began making music as the lead singer of Amy Allison and the Maudlins. She then joined Ryan Hedgecock to form the country duo Parlor James in 1994, before embarking on a solo career in 1996.
Don Heffington was an American drummer, percussionist, and songwriter. He was a founding member of the Los Angeles alternative country band Lone Justice, which he performed with from 1982 to 1985. Heffington was also a member of the bluegrass band Watkins Family Hour, recorded three solo albums, and was a session and touring musician for various artists, including Lowell George, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne, Victoria Williams, the Wallflowers, the Jayhawks, and Joanna Newsom.
Diary of a Mod Housewife is the debut album by the American musician Amy Rigby, released in 1996. It has been called a concept album about growing older in a music scene, marriage, motherhood, and romantic dissolution.
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