biography
The lead singer, songwriter and sole charter member of the New York-based combo known as Mary Lee's Corvette, Kortes has built a reputation for combining sublimely melodic songcraft with personally charged, emotionally nuanced lyrics. Her prior releases have already won reams of critical acclaim and a devoted international fan base, and Love, Loss and Lunacy seems likely to expand her audience further. The new album features twelve new Kortes compositions that maintain the classic pop sensibility and resonant lyrical insight of her prior work, while introducing a raw electric edge that lends added urgency to her compelling vocal performances. The artist's new songs vividly portray love in its infancy ("Falling Again"), love deepened over time ("Thunderstruck"), love gone cold ("Nothing Left To Say") and love thwarted by self-sabotage ("All That Glitters"). Love, Loss and Lunacy is particularly impressive in light of its unconventional birth cycle. Where prior Mary Lee's Corvette releases were written and recorded on the singer/songwriter's New York home turf, this one came into being after an informal out-of-town demo session with veteran musician and songwriter Steven Butler—an occasional Kortes collaborator and sometime MLC member. Ten of the album's twelve songs were recorded in Butler's Philadelphia home studio. Two more were cut in New York with various members of Kortes' live band, including such longtime cohorts as Keith Christopher (Yayhoos), Konrad Meissner (Silos), Brad Albetta (Martha Wainwright) and Kortes' longstanding musical and marital collaborator Eric Ambel (Bottle Rockets, Blue Mountain, Nils Lofgren, Yayhoos, Steve Earle and the Dukes). Kortes has continued to build a loyal audience, initially as a beloved fixture on New York's downtown club scene and subsequently throughout a touring base that's grown to encompass the U.K. and Europe. Along the way, she's won the admiration of numerous press admirers, including Billboard's late editor in chief Timothy White, who devoted an entire column to singing her praises, and Rolling Stone's David Fricke, who wrote that "The bright bite in Mary Lee Kortes' voice (has) the high-mountain sunshine of Dolly Parton, with a sweet-iron undercoat of Chrissie Hynde."
