Amy McCarley

“Listening to alt-country singer Amy McCarley's snapshot-like sophomore album Jet Engines, you feel like you're in the room as the music is being recorded.” - Huntsville Times

“Amy McCarley has released an excellent sophomore album. It will hopefully receive some deserved airplay and give her some exposure. Jet Engines is worth the price of admission.” - Cashbox Music Reviews

“Jet Engines is an enjoyable listen throughout - plenty of roots, rockabilly, and country as well as McCarley's very distinctive voice.” - MyJoog.com

The guy who showed up to tow Amy McCarley's SUV after it broke down at 2:30 a.m. in Horse Cave, Ky. during her recent six-week solo tour ended up being the 1,000th person to "like" McCarley's musician Facebook page.

"A nice man named James showed up to my rescue," says McCarley, an Americana singer/songwriter based in Huntsville. "So yeah there was a moment there where I'm there by myself at 2:30 in the morning, I've got all this gear in my car. As a woman out on the road at that hour with such expensive equipment, I always feel like I'm running moonshine. I don't really want people to know. 'Nothing to see here.' I was really happy to see James. It would up being the alternator."

Of course, McCarley's tour has also included some more pleasant adventures. Playing The Bitter End in Manhattan. She befriended Norah Jones' guitar player, Jim Campilongo, at a show at the Brooklyn honky-tonk Skinny Dennis. The music video for McCarley's melancholic ballad "Smart Man," from her strong and soulful 2014 album "Jet Engines," premiered via online publication Glide Magazine.

And she met her absolute musical hero, alt-country cool-chick Lucinda Williams, in Nashville.

"I think it's maybe in the 3,000 mile range," McCarley says of her recent trek. "All the way up to Burlington is a pretty good stretch and then coming back down to Austin (Texas) and over to Atlanta and doubling back to Huntsville up to Nashville, down to Tampa."

On Oct. 21, McCarley backed by bassist Matt Ross will play a show at Tangled String Studio, located at Lowe Mill, address 2211 Seminole Drive. Daphne Lee Martin and Hannah Fair will open the 7:30 p.m. bill. Tickets are $15 and available online via PayPal. "I'm excited to play Tangled String," McCarley says. "(Local luthier and Tangled String owner) Danny Davis has been a friend of mine for a long time and I really admire his work with guitars. It's a really cool space and inviting."

McCarley was driving to a Nashville meeting when called for this phone interview.

Amy, has doing all this touring impacted you as performer, the songs you play or how you do them?

Well you know, every room is different. While I may have an idea what to expect by checking it out online and the reputation of the venue, the crowds vary from night to night.

I think it's shaped more the setlist than anything else. And maybe my delivery. I'm always feeding off the energy of the audience and that informs my performance. A certain room might want more upbeat honky-tonk kind of stuff; another room might prefer quieter more intimate ballads. That type of thing.

So I'm guessing meeting Lucinda Williams during the Americana Music Association festival in Nashville was probably the number one highlight from this tour?

Yeah, definitely. That was a really surreal moment. Anyway I walked out to get my car and there's Lucinda standing there talking to a couple of people. So immediately I just kind of had a Beatlemania moment and was thinking, "What am I going to do?"

I walked over to her and thanked her for her music and told her I was a big fan and wished her well on the new record and asked how she was enjoying her time in Nashville and just struck up a conversation. The guy who was standing there ended up being her husband who is also her manager. After a while he went to go get something for her, and she and I were on the street talking for 20 minutes or so. They were about to get a cab and I said, 'Well my car is right here if you need a ride.' So then I'm driving through Nashville with Lucinda and her husband in my car. It was really bizarre. And awesome.

Our conversation, mainly it centered on her new record coming out and how much she was impressed and mortified by my decision to tour solo as a female on the road, for as long as I'd been so far.

Touring by yourself, do you take along a gun or mace or anything like that?

I have several measures of protection.

Has there been a city you've played on this tour you felt particularly in-tune with, to the point where you're thinking, "You know, I could live here"?

I've really enjoyed everywhere I've been. I can't say there's been a place I needed to evacuate and couldn't wait to leave. I've really had a great time touring, meeting new people and checking out new towns.

The one I got to spend the most time is and has such a place in my heart is Austin, Texas. In my college days at Rice we would go over to Austin and hang out. The vibe of the town ... Everybody's laid back and intelligent and there's a lot of good music there.

You've been putting a lot of elbow grease into promoting and working the "Jet Engines" album, and things seem to be progressing onward and upward.

Well it's been a challenge and a joy to work "Jet Engines" with the team that I have. The people I've surrounded myself are great and they're helping me grow my audience and build my brand for lack of a better work, I guess.

It's a lot to manage. And I thought when I was working full-time as a NASA contractor and doing music nights and weekends, that was really hard and I thought taking on music full-time there would be a little more time for goofing off. [Laughs.] That hasn't been the case. Even at Rice playing basketball, Division I athletics and Rice academia, that wasn't even as hard as what I'm doing. It's all consuming and you never know if you're doing enough. There are lots of different approaches to developing a fan base and growing as an artist, and to balance that is not something anyone has pulled me aside and told me how to do it. So far I've just been feeling my way around.

With all the touring I was guessing you had moved full-time into music.

Yeah. For the past year, since last October, I've been pursing music full-time. I don't think that I wanted to talk about that, I'm fine to say it now. It's so tenuous and difficult. Anyone out there reading this who's a musician understands the challenge of full-time music work. - al.com & The Huntsville Times

“The new release continues solidifying Amy’s talents as one of the undiscovered gems of country music.” - JP's Music Blog

“McCarley's sound is all her own, and her latest album Jet Engines showcases an artist firmly grounded in Americana, yet well-poised to make an individual statement.” - No Depression

[Amy] has a voice … which is engagingly natural and organic as she brings life-worn cares and emotions to her songs… [She also] totally owns a cover of [Gillian] Welch’s Look At Miss Ohio.” - Mike Davies, NetRhythms.co.uk London

"The combination of her killing voice and of this very unique sound makes this CD a real musical gem...I particularly love the song Long Way Home...and beyond that, all her music sounds true." - Mike Penard, American Roots Music Show, ISA Radio, France

"It's one thing to sound great on your record. It's another thing to pull it off live. Amy and her band do both. They are genuine and have soul ... important intangibles few can claim. Live or alone in the studio, Amy delivers good music." - Brett Tannehill, Program Director WLRH Huntsville AL

"Amy McCarley is unmistakably genuine. Her energy on stage matches her ability to portray real life emotions in her songs. She is a Huntsville treasure." - Evan Billiter, Lowe Mill Arts & Entertainment Events Coordinator Huntsville, AL

"Amy does a great job with her music. It speaks from the heart with an earthy realness that today's mass produced media lacks." - Nate Emery, WTAK 106.1/Clear Channel/Huntsville's Home Brew

"This is a warm, organic, natural, fully realized and very well put together sounding record that sounds like Amy Mccarley: her voice, her spirit, her direction. When she sings in that low deep dark honey register, that's good stuff right there. Her voice sounds traveled, elastic, and evokes a lot of different emotions. Very impressed with her album. I love it." - Brad Posey, The Invisible City WLRH 89.3

"The whole package: a real live southern songwriter with a unique sound and gorgeous voice in every sense of the word, Amy McCarley is perhaps the best new female Americana artist you've never heard. Raw; transcendent. Not to be missed." - Mark Mason, Director of Writer Publisher Relations BMI Nashville