Maria McKee - Acoustic Tour 2006 Album Review

Maria McKee
Acoustic Tour 2006
Album Review

Maria McKee's career has now spanned some 20 years, beginning huge with Lone Justice, where her 'rock diva with the voice from heaven' charisma played so well, to single success with Show Me Heaven from the Days of Thunder soundtrack, to a cult solo career where each successive album yielded less and less to write home about.

In truth, McKee's increasing wackiness contributed to increasingly wacky and less-straightforward singer-songwriter albums. This album, however, fronts the great songs from her whole career, and her still-amazing voice, with its ability to stop you breathing for minutes at a time.

Slightly too much between-song banter, but the closeness of the acoustic instrumentation (only ever a guitar or a piano, and a harmony vocal here and there, in what is obviously a tiny venue) puts her right in the room. And it is that proximity that makes this album - it sounds like a personal set from one of the best female singer/ songwriters of the past 20 years.

Rating 7/10

Mike Rea