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New Album: Pieces Of Me Release Date. Available Now Distributed By Proper Distribution American roots often take hold where you least expect them. "Mars", the opening cut off of Lori McKenna's new album, Pieces of Me (Acoustic Roots), finds her celebrating everything from the mundane (the hole wearing through the fabric of her couch) to the fantastic, as she ponders the reflection of Mars in her son's eyes and listens to him promise that "I'm gonna get there someday." It's the kind of moment captured that songwriters, filmmakers, and storytellers can only hope to stumble upon, but for McKenna, it's just one of the many striking images torn directly from the rich fabric of her daily life - images that mark the arrival of a powerful new American voice. McKenna, a thirty one year-old mother of four, isn't from South Carolina, Texas, Southern Mississippi, Nashville, or even Southern California. Lori was born and raised in Stoughton on the South Shore of Massachusetts, just a stone's throw from where she now lives, writes, and raises her kids; McKenna is an exceptional example of how some songwriters just naturally seem to find their way to the homespun sound of a strummed acoustic guitar, an honest voice and a touch of twang. While McKenna grew up listening to the radio music of her day - the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" remains one of her favorite songs to cover - the music she penned at her kitchen table, after the kids had been sent off to school, has drawn more immediate comparisons. Described as "a more buzz-worthy sister to Australian newcomer Kasey Chambers", Lori has also garnered comparisons to artists ranging from Natalie Maines (Dixie Chicks) and Patty Griffin, to Nanci Griffith, and Alanis Morissette. While she'll tell you that hers was a musical family, there was nothing in her upbringing to suggest the magic she unleashed on Paper Wings & Halo, the 1998 self-released CD that quickly placed her among the elite of New England's teeming singer-songwriter scene. On the strength of Paper Wings, Lori had local station WUMB FM name her New Artist of the Year and the Boston Globe place her record in their year end Top Ten picks; the stand-out among many more familiar names and seasoned stars. The following year, she won a Boston Music Award for Outstanding Contemporary Folk Act, appeared at the prestigious Newport Folk Festival, and was chosen to play on Lilith Fair. For many people, their introduction to McKenna may have been the song "Fireflies", which was featured on the much acclaimed Respond benefit CD (Signature Sounds), including Billboard's Album of the Year honors. Paper Wings and Halo also found McKenna many fans, selling over 9,000 copies off the stage, web, and at local record stores. This "gem-hard brassy voiced songstress" (Boston Herald) still managed to tout her guitar to over 90 shows a year and be invited for choice opening slots at theaters all over New England with Richard Thompson, Shawn Colvin, David Wilcox, John Mayer, Cheryl Wheeler, Stacey Earle and others. This past August Lori's love of music and performing had her taking the stage at a rock club six days before giving birth to her fourth child. Paper Wings, with all its hard-won beauty and simplicity, proved to be only a beginning. Pieces of Me, her second album is where this promise is realised. With the production help of Crit Harmon (Martin Sexton, Mary Guthier) and a seasoned group of players, including drummer Billy Beard (Patty Griffin, Kim Richey), bassist Mike Rivard (Morphine, Jonatha Brooke), guitarist David Goodrich (Rose Polenzani, Peter Mulvey), McKenna has fleshed out the arrangements and given her songs the back-bone and strength they have long called out for. Friends and guests that include Richard Shindell, Ellis Paul, Jennifer Kimball, Kris Delmhorst, and Meghan Toohey join with fiddle and mandolin to round out the upbeat mix, as on "God Will Thank You," an ode to faith with a few of McKenna's characteristic lyrical twists up its sleeve: "I heard about Adam and Eve, but I still believe she never got a fair trial." Pieces Of Me marks the gift of a "harrowingly intimate" songwriter with the eye for detail of a Lucinda Williams or Roseanne Cash, a searing voice with an urgency that hasn't the time to be pretty and gutsy songs that aren't afraid to draw deeply from the well of the everyday life. McKenna's songs are by turns wry and biting, tender and gentle, but always stirringly honest. In "Never Die Young", a song penned for her mother, who died when she was six years-old, McKenna writes: "I am the one who will never die young, I am a martyr and I cannot hide. But I'm not a winner, I'm just brilliantly bitter. I'm sealed by my skin, but broken inside."
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