"Before I started playing out, I just spent a lot of time writing songs," she says. "That's what I love doing more than anything else. More than performing; definitely more than recording. As a woman who writes music, you do have to sort of find a way through that glass ceiling, because there aren't that many role models, at least proportionally to male musicians. People might be surprised when you come up with something that is actually good."
Those people should prepare themselves in advance for Mary Beth's CD-release party, during which she's promised to raffle off a date with John, among other things. The lineup for the show is a fine cross-strata sample of local sounds. Singer/slinger, Americana enthusiast and stageside comedienne Victoria Woodworth opens the evening with an acoustic set that's likely to include rustically inspired originals as well as covers you're not likely to hear outside of a Nashville revival. An eminently likable performer with a down-to-earth stage persona and wiseacre streak, Woodworth's got the kind of voice you want to write movies for -- and she comes highly recommended. And performing after Mary Beth -- probably around the time she'll sidle up to the bar for a well-deserved cocktail -- is Tinker's Punishment, the Denver four-piece that celebrates the release of its own debut, Zero Summer, on Friday, November 8, at the Gothic Theatre (see page 95 for a review).
Scott D. Smith
Don't call her a folkie: Mary Beth Abella.
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Whatever has happened to the girls, we like it.
Backwash was saddened to learn of the passing of Tom Honer, a longtime local-music supporter and songwriter who died of a heart attack on October 18. Last week Honer, who was fifty, was memorialized in two consecutive open-mike nights at Dub's Pub and the Paradox, two South Broadway bars where he'd performed in the past. Most recently, he appeared as one half of Burnside and Honer with friend Bill Burnside.
"I think Tom would have liked the gatherings, but they weren't exactly what you would call festive," says Burnside. "There are a lot of people who were just really shocked by what happened."
Burnside says that Honer, who had been confined to a wheelchair for nearly 25 years after being shot when he was nineteen, knew more songs than anyone he'd ever met.
"Tom could play anything. It was crazy. And he also had a real talent for arrangement and composition," Burnside adds. "Tom was a very unique personality. There was a little bit of ego but a lot of heart and goodness. It was kind of like you either loved him or hated him. All his life, he'd pretty much outlived the odds. Most people who went through what he did didn't make it. Maybe that made him stronger and made him who he was."
