Lillie Mae’s storybook background sounds so perfectly folksy that you’d be totally within your rights to think that ‘Forever And Then Some’ producer Jack White came up with it one afternoon, sat in ye olde magic music workshoppe. Not so. Thankfully Mae’s rootsy journey is totally real; she was raised on the road as part of a travelling family band and has been playing violin since she was a kid, setting up shop in honky-tonks and trailer parks alike with her siblings, bashing out traditional Americana and gospel as if they were extras in O Brother, Where Art Thou?.n
With a lilting, mountain- spring-clear vocal, Lillie effortlessly brings to mind Dolly Parton, whose sass and strength she channels throughout her solo debut’s 11 tracks. This is old-school country music that digs deep into the past. It’s Lillie’s sorrowful fiddle that drives these tracks, sounding not entirely unlike the wail of the recently dumped – but, y’know, nice. It’s not all heartache though; you’ll need to dust off your cowboy boots for the hoedown-worthy ‘These Daze’ while the big-sky blues of ‘Wash Me Clean’ will have you jumping boxcars all the way from Middlesbrough to Memphis. An old-fashioned delight.
