Mary Lou Lord

All Music Guide:

Playing her way from the subways and streets of London and Boston, guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Mary Lou Lord broke into the indie rock scene in 1994 on the Kill Rock Stars label. After appearing on a KRS compilation, Lord released a self-titled EP in 1995 and a second EP, Martian Saints, in early 1997. Got No Shadow, her major-label debut with Sony Music's WORK Group, was released in 1998.

Lord's interest in music started when she worked as a DJ for a college radio station in the Boston area as a teenager. When the station changed format, she decided to concentrate on making her own music. After a stint at Boston's Berklee School of Music, she moved to London and learned the art of busking in the subway. She moved back to Boston and continued to play mostly acoustic covers on city sidewalks and in subways. In eight years of busking, she refined her talent and determined what music she liked to play. A KRS executive heard her and eventually signed her to the label.

While most of Lord's live shows have been just her and her acoustic Martin guitar (even those beyond the subway), with the recording of Got No Shadow, she moved in the direction of electric pop/rock. She has recorded songs for two tribute albums -- "Power to the People" for Working Class Hero, a John Lennon tribute, and "Jump" for Everybody Wants Some, a Van Halen tribute released in fall of 1997.

Lord made the leap to the majors in 1997, signing with the Sony subsidiary Work. Her major-label debut and first full-length album, Got No Shadow, was released in January 1998. On it she performed songs by Nick Saloman of Bevis Frond and Freedy Johnston, as well as some of her own. The album, her first full-length release, was produced by Tom Rothrock and Rod Schnapf, co-founders of the WORK Group. Saloman also produced Lord's long-awaited sophomore album, Baby Blue. The album appeared on Rubric in March 2004.

Wikipedia:

Mary Lou Lord (born March 1, 1965) is an indie folk musician, busker and recording artist.

Biography

Mary Lou Lord first gained notice playing acoustic guitar and singing in and around Boston's subway stations (particularly on the Red Line, as noted by the name she chose for her music and lyric publishing company, On the Red Line Music, administered by BMI.)

Lord became friends with Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain in the fall of 1991, before the group's rise to mainstream fame. The nature of Lord and Cobain's relationship was later rumored to be of a romantic nature. After reading her entry on Wikipedia in 2010, Lord adamantly denied any romantic relationship with Cobain The claim had been previously denied by Cobain, and later both perpetuated and denied by Courtney Love.

Lord toured three separate times with Elliott Smith during the 1990s. Smith also wrote and helped Lord record a song called "I Figured You Out" in 1997.

Her recordings have been a mixture of covers (including songs by Elliott Smith and Richard Thompson) and original material, with a number of songs written by, or in collaboration with, Nick Saloman of the British band The Bevis Frond.

Her recording of Daniel Johnston's "Speeding Motorcycle" (which originally featured on her self-titled 8-song Kill Rock Stars release) was featured in commercials for Target stores, after which her label reissued the song as the lead-off track of a CD single which also included two demo recordings from the sessions for Got No Shadow.

In 2001, Lord released Live City Sounds. This was a self-released disc of Mary Lou playing live in the Boston subway. The disc was later re-released after Mary Lou signed to Rubric Records.

She announced in 2005 that she suffered from a rare vocal cord affliction known as spasmodic dysphonia. She thereafter became more involved in A&R work and started a new management company with Kevin Patey, Jittery Jack Management.

In 2011, Lord used kickstarter.com to launch a project to record a new album, and in 2012 has begun performing regularly once again.