Listening to Now: Amy Speace - "Weight of the World"

By Richard K. Barry

A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times ran a story with the provocative headline "If You Like Judy Collins, Try Amy Speace." The writer, Val Haller, notes that Judy Collins has signed Ms. Speace to her own Wildflower music label.

Ms. Speace has released four albums, starting in 2002 with "Fable," then "Songs for Bright Street," "The Killer in Me" and "Land Like a Bird." All were well reviewed. An NPR critic commented, "Her velvety achey voice recalls an early Lucinda Williams." Judy Collins describes the song "Weight of the World" as "one of the best political folk songs I've ever heard." And in The Tennessean, Peter Cooper writes, "What Speace says — what she sings — she tries to say with a confluence of poetry and honesty, of emotional specificity."

I don't know about the comparison to Collins, but it is powerful music.