Maria releases the record her fans have longed for since 1993’s You Gotta Sin to Get Saved. This 2005 recording is a return to form for the charismatic former frontwoman of Lone Justice. Over the years, McKee has been feted as the queen of alt-country and her dynamic style and ability to seamlessly switch from plaintive, personal ballads to searing, soulful torch pleas has drawn comparisons to luminaries like Emmylou Harris and Janis Joplin. Direct, intimate and vulnerable, Peddlin’ Dreams is an exploration of the artist's affinity for American music, drawing from influences such as Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Tom Waits and Bob Dylan. McKee has taken the long way home in a rich career marked by many gutsy detours – from neo-punk to Broadway diva, art-rocker to poet. Peddlin’ Dreams reunites McKee with American roots music and is destined to reunite fans with an artist they love.

Peddlin' Dreams is the sixth album by American singer/songwriter Maria McKee, released in 2005 (see 2005 in music).

Personnel

*Maria McKee - guitar, vocals

Category:Maria McKee albums

Category:2005 albums

This text has been derived from Peddlin' Dreams on Wikipedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0

Artist/Band Information

Maria Luisa McKee (born August 17, 1964, Los Angeles, California) is an American singer and songwriter. She is best known for her work with Lone Justice and her 1990 UK solo chart-topping hit, "Show Me Heaven".

Music

McKee was a founding member of the cowpunk/country rock band, Lone Justice, in 1982, with whom she released two albums. Several compilations of both previously released and unreleased material and a BBC Live In Concert album have been released since their demise. Her band opened for such acts as U2.

When she was 19,As stated by Maria before playing the song on Live - Acoustic Tour 2006 she wrote Feargal Sharkey's 1985 UK number one hit "A Good Heart", a song she has since recorded herself and released on her album Late December. The song was originally written about her failed relationship with musician Benmont Tench. Sharkey would later go on to also cover "To Miss Someone" from her self-titled solo debut, on his third solo album "Songs From The Mardi Gras".

In 1987 she was featured in the Robbie Robertson video "Somewhere Down the Crazy River", and contributed back-up vocals to his debut solo album, which included the song. She released her first solo, self-titled album in 1989. Her song "Show Me Heaven", which appeared on the soundtrack to the film Days of Thunder, was a number one single in the United Kingdom for four weeks in 1990. She refused to perform this song in public up until recently, when she sang it for the first time in eighteen years, at Dublin Gay Pride.

Following her debut, McKee has released five studio (and two live) albums. The later three, High Dive, Peddlin' Dreams and Late December, were released independently via her own Viewfinder Records label (distributed in the UK via Cooking Vinyl).

In 1998, The Dixie Chicks recorded McKee's track "Am I the Only One (Who's Ever Felt This Way?)" and included it on their Grammy nominated album Wide Open Spaces.

Personal

McKee is the half-sister of Love guitarist Bryan MacLean, with whom she played in a duo as a teenager. She attended University High School in West Los Angeles, California, and is married to her bass player Jim Akin, who co-writes and co-produces her solo albums since High Dive in 2003. In the 1990s, she spent time living in Dublin and the East Village, before settling in her native Los Angeles.

Session and guest work

In addition to writing Sharkey's hit "A Good Heart", McKee has also contributed to the Victoria Williams' tribute album Sweet Relief, on the song "Opelousas (Sweet Relief)". She has also provided backing vocals to U2's cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" (B-side of 1992 "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" single from their Achtung Baby album), as well as to the Counting Crows' 1993 debut August and Everything After on "Sullivan Street" and "Mr. Jones". On Robin Zander's 1993 solo album she sang backing vocals for the track "Reactionary Girl." She also sang backing vocals on Robbie Robertson's debut and self-titled solo album, on the track "American Roulette". Much lesser known is her contribution of lead and co-lead vocals on two tracks on a contemporary Christian praise and worship album called "Come As You Are", which she apparently did as a favour to a friend who was responsible for the album.http The album is long out of print but available on itunes.http -praise/id257919601

She contributed "If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me in Rags)" to the Pulp Fiction soundtrack in 1994. McKee also contributed a song "Never Be You" for the soundtrack to the Walter Hill movie Streets of Fire.

Ricky Ross, of Scottish band Deacon Blue, wrote "Real Gone Kid" about her; the song became one of the band's biggest UK Top Ten hits.

She recorded a duet, "Friends In Time," with The Golden Horde on their eponymously titled album in 1991. She also recorded a duet, "This Road is Long," with Stuart A. Staples on his 2006 album, Leaving Songs. In addition she co-wrote the duet, titled "Promise You Anything," with Steve Earle which appeared on his 1990 album, The Hard Way.

She teamed with Dwight Yoakam for a duet on "Bury Me," from his 1986 debut, Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.

Discography

References

This text has been derived from Maria McKee on Wikipedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0