Every so often — but not too often, so that you stop noticing when it happens — someone comes along who makes music so easy and natural and affecting that, for a few blissful moments of escape, you stop thinking about music as a business where careers are bought and sold. There’s just that moment of recognition where artist and audience meet each other head on and the world feels perfect. Shannon McNally’s set a week ago Thursday at T.T. the Bear’s Place — where her lived-in, groove-laden songs bridged pop, country soul, and rootsy FM rock — had that effect on me.
Although at 27 she’s passed mall-pop pin-up age, doesn’t navel-gaze about dysfunctional childhood, and has no use for dance choreographers or smoke machines, McNally has just released her debut album, Jukebox Sparrows, on Capitol — which, to judge by the already fat press kit sent to reviewers, is giving her the kind of major-label push that hasn’t been in large supply recently for non-teen queens playing grown-up music. It won’t hurt her commercial chances that, like Sheryl Crow, she’s a knockout. But looks don’t write the songs, or sing them — and McNally does both exceptionally well.
When at one point she pledged, in a pliant voice that was all dusky earth tones and Rickie Lee Jones–drowsy, to "remain the painter of a love song from 1973," the lyric captured the historical time and SoCal country-rock spirit that weaves through much of the slick but seasoned Jukebox Sparrows. Leading a charmingly ragged three-piece band who were still getting their road legs at T.T.’s, McNally and her material took on a grittier vibe that suited both well. Switching off between acoustic and electric guitar, she made a few false starts, laughed about them, and seemed to choose every next number by committee. She appeared entirely sure of herself only when she wrapped herself deep inside another sultry melody — in other words, when it counted.
Much of the material was as fragrant and humid as a Southern summer, and McNally did her best to smudge the simple, clear imagery of her lyrics — pale moons, burning suns, gale winds — with the slurred, jazz-like phrasing of lingered-over vowels and dropped consonants. You’d never guess she’s from Long Island — unless, of course, you’d read that press kit. That’s okay. John Fogerty wasn’t born on the Bayou either.
