Amy Correia, July 2006

Amy Correia will be opening for Richard Thompson in some of his fall shows. I first saw her when she was touring with RT, and it's led to some lovely musical experiences.

I reviewed one of her shows earlier this week.

Amy Correia's Unique Voice At the Iota

The Washington Post, Thursday, July 20, 2006; Page C02

"Are you all all right?" Amy Correia asked a small group of fans seated in chairs at the foot of the Iota stage. "I'm worried about you."

They were quiet -- as were their fellows in the rest of the club -- and Correia, under the warmth of lights on an already hot Monday night, fretted that they might be falling asleep.

She needn't have worried. The mesmerizing young singer/songwriter, who plays guitar and baritone ukulele, is gifted with a unique voice, her soprano tinged with a quivering danger.

Her songs, built on her sturdy, deft string playing, melded play and peril. In "The Bike," perhaps her best-known song, she rides off on her inheritance from a relative who drank himself to death. But there was no turgid musing in her reverie, just a bouncy singalong chorus -- the audience sang along -- with just a hint of melancholy.

Correia offered a few songs based in California, including "Hold On," cast in the third person but implicitly in the first: "Mama was weak and mama used / But she loves you . . . In the state of California / Six months and she's out on parole." But many evoked New York, including "Coney Island, USA," a song of hope, despair and carnival imagery that suited her peculiarly beautiful muse.

-- Pamela Murray Winters