Singer-songwriter Marylyn Coffey lives in Huntsville, Alabama, and released her debut album Can't Feel a Thing in 2022. Marylyn’s original songs deal with complex and sometimes weighty lyrical themes delivered with a light folk-pop musical touch. She compares herself to Carol Burnett, in that they both sing songs about a variety of topics. As far as we know, Marylyn does not immitate Tarzan on stage.

We asked Marylyn about her thoughts on songwriting and performing. Here's what she had to say--

The first song I wrote was a simple ditty called “I Wanna Look at You,” designed to be played for a certain guy my age (20 years old) in order to capture his attention. The second song I wrote was about our breakup two years later. But that was decades ago. I made up a song at a party once. I also wrote a song about Huntsville when I first moved here in 1981. It had a line about “riding around in a pickup truck all night.” I was trying to get the feel of the place (having moved here from Massachusetts).

When I sang with The Lonesome Lovers (a local eclectic-acoustic cover group with fiddle, upright bass, banjo, one energetic guitarist/singer named Huey Given driving the beat, and me on percussion, harmonica and vocals and sometimes simple electric guitar solos) through the 1990s, I wrote one song that we did: “Can’t Get High in a High-Tech Town.” It was a fictional version of certain things in my own life. I also wrote a few songs that we didn’t do; they sit in a pile of music stuff waiting to be improved and revived. I’ve always been a poet and a writer; and I’ve always played music in one form or another. I just never really put those things together consistently until, well, COVID.

I had JUST started going to open mics at Mad Malts and other places, toting my father-in-law’s old ukulele (a baritone uke is just an easier guitar) when suddenly, everyone was told to stay home! I started attending open mics via Zoom, learning a song or two from the 20s and 30s every week or so until I realized a guy on one of the open mics was writing his own stuff! Well, if he could do it, I could do it. So I started doing it. For me it takes maybe a couple of weeks to make a song, and it was like putting together a puzzle. I loved the process. For the first time in my life, I coaxed and paid proper attention to my own creativity. When someone suggested I make some recordings, I thought, OK, let’s see what happens. What happened was pretty good!

Once long ago, I took some voice lessons. The instructor made notes about my range and my technique (such as it was). Under “QUALITY” she wrote “pleasant.” That’s about what I can say about my singing, only I throw a little acting in with it, so it sounds like I know what I’m singing about. Getting older lowers a singer’s range, so I’m dealing with that, but I’m also getting more flexible. My songs are kinda wordy and tend to be from viewpoints other than my own, but that seems important to me. I can also get tangled up in what seem to me “interesting” chord progressions, and have written songs that are hard for me to play. But that makes me a slightly better player (I hope), which is good. Translating all that into live solo performing has been difficult, but I’m working on it. Hey, anyone want to start a band?

The album release party was at Bedlam West in Huntsville, Alabama, in June of 2022.

• Photography by José Betancourt
• Cover art by Marylyn Coffey

Album Personnel:

• Marylyn Coffey - vocals, ukulele, tenor guitar, harmonica, melodica, drum machine
• Shawn Webster - drums, percussion
• Jim Cavender - upright bass, keyboards
• Newt Johnson - accordion
• Emily Bodnar - theremin