Brains, Beauty, Talent…and Driven to Make Music. 
It's… Red Molly 
by Richard Cuccaro



Picture this: the Dixie Chicks decide to ditch the southern accents and the
slick commercial country and devote themselves to classic folk and country/
western plus some tasty originals. The killer vocals are still there and so is
all that multi-instrumental talent. Oh, and by the way, they're still gorgeous.
Pipe dream? Sorta. You don't need to pinch yourself because the dream has
manifested itself in the form of three women of the Northern clime, Laurie
MacAllister, Carolann Solebello and Abbie Gardner, who come bearing
prodigious chops. They call themselves Red Molly. All three share a consuming
drive to make music the cornerstone of their lives. In addition to being
extremely bright and hard-working, all three have overcome obstacles and
detours on the way to the place they occupy today.

Carolann Solebello: The Closet Singer Emerges


Carolann Solebello plays bass, mandolin and guitar and brings to the group
a voice that is strong and expressive. Musical theater has given her the ability
to define the emotional underpinning in any song.

She grew up in Staten Island and has lived in every borough except
Manhattan. Never the extrovert, as a child she always sang for herself, but
never let anyone know that she had that ability. She recalled, "I was a 'closet
singer." At times, early in high school, she'd arrive home, when no one else
was around. Closing all the window s, she'd put on her favorite records and
sing along with them. She says, "I'd sing really loud and then afterward shut
everything off before anyone got home." When she was sixteen, she started
getting involved with the drama club in school. Although she was horribly
nervous for auditions, she got parts in musicals.

Carolann attended Fordham University as an English major. She was still getting
parts in musicals. Here, her musical interest expanded to include folk.
"On the Fordham campus, WFUV bled into every other radio station you
ever tried to listen to," she says. "They were huge for me, in terms of getting
me interested in folk music." Shawn Colvin, Suzanne Vega and others were
making their mark in the folk scene and on Carolann as well.
Carolann had played the guitar a bit when she was young, but gave it up.
Practicing was too hard. She began playing again in college. [Does this sound
familiar? It does to me.] She hung around with musicians --guitar players--
and wanted to be a part of that scene and those people.

When Carolann left college with her degree in English, she spent three years
as a copywriter for a publisher in Manhattan. She left that to pursue a career
in musical theater and was able to make a living from that for six years, doing
dinner theater, outdoor drama, and small regional theaters around the country.
At the very end of her musical theater experience she got cast in a show
in Wichita, Kansas called "Smoke on the Mountain" which played in New
York for a while. The pretext of the show was that of a 1930's traveling gospel
family that gets stuck somewhere in the mountains of North Carolina. The
whole performance is a concert that they give in a church. She got cast in the
show because she could play the guitar. She said she could play the bass and
mandolin as well, but actually learned when she got there [I believe that's
called chutzpah]. "The score was gospel, bluegrassy kind of stuff, easy," she
says, "in keys of G and C." Her strong fingers enabled her to pick up the double bass. 
This opened up a whole new thing for her. She hung out at Bluegrass jams. 
It turns out that Wichita has a thriving bluegrass scene. "I learned a lot from
those people," she told me.

In 1997, she returned to New York and started hanging out with a cast member from 
Smoke on the Mountain named Hope Nunnery who lived in Manhattan. 
They played out together under the name Blind Diva. Carolann recalls: "A bit older
than me, she used to wear these half glasses. She was a genuine southern lady. Looking 
over her half glasses she'd say, 'Baby girl, I'm blind…tell me what key that's in?' 
We'd play basically what I'm playing with Red Molly now. Covers of Johnny
Cash, bluegrass and southern gospel stuff and throwing in a couple of originals here 
and there. Played at places like Kenny's Castaways, Dark Star,
late 97, early 98 -- six months, maybe a little more)." Hope was an actor, and decided 
that performing music wasn't for her. Carolann, deciding that this was her new life, 
performed alone for a while. She got a couple of acting jobs but stayed more
involved in the music scene than acting. She says, "It felt much more self-determined. 
In the theater you wait around for a producer to call. In the music scene, you can call 
a club and say, 'Why don't you book me?' You can't call a producer andsay, "Why don't 
you hire me?'"

Carolann came home from an acting job away from home in February of 1999. 
In July of that year she found out about Sun Music Company and showed up one 
Tuesday night at an open mic. There she met musicians Cheryl Prashker, Rich
Boniface and Mark Berube. Cheryl and Rich joined with her to form part of CC Railroad.
Mark, a brilliant songwriter and satirist [and our September feature], is now her husband.
She worked for a few months on her first solo record, Just Across the Water which came 
out in February of 2000. After working with exclusively with CC Railroad for the last 
few years she is now giving Red Molly the bulk of her time.

I asked Carolann how she views the dynamic of the group as opposed to CC Railroad. 
She answered, "In CC Railroad we go at it with all guns blazing. Big sound. We each 
get to do our own songs with the backup of the entire band. In Red Molly there is 
a simplicity in the arrangements, a stripped-down sound, making every note count. 
We pick songs we already love, throw themin the pot and see what the two other 
musicians do. Make them really work in a simple way."
They choose songs together. They each have their own little way of doing it. 
Carolann will burn CDs of songs she likes, famous songwriters or performers
she knows and bring it to the group. Then they'll break it down. Sometimes things 
just naturally click and happen really fast. They experiment.

She has known Abbie and Laurie for many years and admires what each has done on 
her own. The idea of working with them is very attractive. They decided that they 
would have a more unified sound if they had one primary lead singer.
Although Laurie remains the lead singer, it's all pretty collaborative. Carolann feels: 
"We did the right thing at the right time. Things are falling into place very well for us. 
It feels like the universe wants us to be doing this."

Website: www.elizabethrecords.com/website/cas_bio.shtml

Abbie Gardner:
The Jazzman's Daughter


Abbie Gardner plays guitar and dobro and sings.She's something of a surprise 
for this author. I thought I'd seen her before, but I had no idea she could play 
slide so fluidly and would blend so well in three-part harmony. Her voice has 
an engaging sweetness and is full of compact power. She can use it efficiently over
a wide range in folk, country, bluegrass or jazz. She recorded a CD last year, of 
old standards called My Craziest Dream with her father, Herb Gardner, a jazz 
pianist. The result is a stylistic triumph, mature renderings of classic torch songs.
She was born and raised in Rockland County, NY (Hudson Valley). I asked her 
if she sang with her father as a child, but she said, "No, that didn't happen
until much later. He didn't play at home. He had a steady gig at Nathan's in Coney 
Island for a while. Mom would take me out there to see him.

I used to see him with The Nighthawks. [Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks are 
still performing]. I grew up knowing them. I can't remember not knowing them." 
Her mother took her to seeoutdoor concerts with The Nighthawks in addition
to the Coney Island jaunts. The nightclub/bar gigs were off limits for the younger 
Abbie. Her roots music education was not neglected, however,since her mother 
also took her to bluegrass festivals starting when she was three. She recalls, "I
used to dance and sing along to Tim O'Brien. You really learn the 1-4-5 listening 
to bluegrass."

When she was young she would sing along with records of Bonnie Raitt, 
Billie Holiday and Ray Charles. The first tape she owned was the California Raisins. 
Played it to death. It was a lot of R&B kind of stuff. Her "official" musical
education began in 4th grade where she studied classical flute. She continued 
playing the flute all the way through college. She auditioned for music schools 
as a flutist but was not accepted, so she majored in occupational therapy. She has 
a degree in Occupational Therapy from Boston University.

Abbie got to sing a lot when she was there in a gospel choir and in acappela groups. 
She was musical director of the Boston University"Treblemakers" in her senior 
year and did their vocal arrangements. They released an a cappella CD in 1997 
called Treble in The Waters.

In 1998, Abbie began playing guitar. Not one for letting grass grow under her feet, 
she began writing a week after she started playing. "It was kind of an explosion,"
she says. "I hadn't written anything before that. It was very exciting,being 
able to get the music part behind it. I wrote little 'exaggerated' autobiographical
songs." Recording followed soon after. She made tapes of her own compositions, 
Tea and a Cookie and Southern Rain. They were recorded with a Sony Walkman 
in a stairwell three to six months after beginning guitar. She did her own graphic 
inserts for the liner package. Her first CD, Abbie Gardner, was a 3-song demo.
Expanding her repertoire, she took slide lessons (bottleneck style) from renown 
Austin (Texas) guitarist and author David Hamburger when he was
still living in Brooklyn.

In 2001, she developed tendonitis in her wrist from playing guitar. While the 
bottleneck slide was less taxing, it eventually gave her problems too. That's when 
she started singing jazz with her dad. She has sung with The Galvanized Jazz Band,
Stan Rubin's Tigertown Five, The Stan Rubin Orchestra, Vince Giordano's Nighthawks, 
The New Deal Orchestra and Herb Gardner's Groundhog Band.
After a couple of years she returned to playing folk gigs, eventually adding lap-style 
slide about a year ago. Her Dobro has been a key ingredient in Red Molly's sound. 
Performing in coffee shops across the country led Abbie to develop the "Open Mic 
Directory," a portion of her website that has been an invaluable resource to 
independent musicians nationwide since 1999.

Abbie was named as a finalist in the 2003 Hank Williams Songwriting Competition for 
"The Game of War," and runner-up in the folk category of the 2003 John Lennon 
Songwriting Contest for, "One Love."

Website: www.abbiegardner.com

Laurie MacAllister: Fear Vanquished

Laurie's voice is like a wire of silk and steel. A combination of power and fragility, 
sometimes, given a song's interpretation, it seems ready to break. Its strength 
allows her to go as far as she wants, without breaking. The title of her recent solo 
CD, The Things I Choose to Do is particularly apt. Not only does it describe 
her choice of an album of covers, it describes a sometimes arduous climb to
her role as a performer and the sacrifices she's made for her craft.

Laurie was born in Massachusetts, then spent her childhood in New Hampshire, 
until she left for college at age 17. Early on, she loved Peter, Paul and Mary and 
Simon and Garfunkel. Later on, she listened to top 40 radio, specifically Kasey
Kasem's countdown every weekend. However, even within that genre, she felt an 
affinity with songs that had a folky flavor, such as Billy Joel's "Allentown" and 
songs from Elton John's Tumbleweed Junction period.

She loved music as a kid. "It was the shining light in my life. I knew that I had a 
talent for singing at an early age." She could sing like Sheena Easton or
Olivia Newton John if she felt like it. Friends would point out to her how good 
she sang and she felt very comfortable singing during her early years. Then, as 
she started singing in chorus, a self-consciousness began to develop. Beginning in
fourth grade, a concertmaster selected students by walking around the room and 
putting her ear next to their mouths as they were singing. She'd tap a student on 
the head if they were chosen. Laurie was chosen as one of three out of a class of 
thirty students. She was in chorus for 4th, 5th and 6th grades. She was also selected 
as one of ten out of the 50-member chorus to be in "Select" Chorus. It was when 
she reached adolescence that stage fright became a problem. A powerfully negative 
experience occurred in the 9th grade when she tried out for the talent show. She 
wanted to sing "Over the Rainbow" and practiced it. She sang it perfectly
while alone, but when audition time came, she was petrified and could not even 
open her mouth.

This began a period from the age of 13 to around age 20 that she did not sing. 
She also had problems speaking in front of groups in class. Her desperate desire to 
be a singer finally overpowered her fears. In her last year of college she auditioned 
for chorus and got in.

In 1992, she graduated from Tufts with a B.A. in Psychology and came to New York
City to attend NYU for a Ph.D. in Industrial Psychology. At the same time she learned
guitar, and with 4 or 5 chords, playing covers, she started going to open mics and listening
to live music. She played in the subway for practice, just to get out in front of
people. Initially, not understanding the idea behind busking, when people tried to give
her money, she would not accept it. During this period, while she took graduate studies
in psychology, she also took classes in performance art. It became clear by her second 
year that she wasn't cut out for a career in industry. She left the program at NYU 
with a masters degree in 1997.

That summer, she went to a show where the performer, singer/songwriter Eric Hansen, 
asked her to get up and sing a song. Although terrified, she sang and played a Sinead 
O'Connor cover. She did so well that the audience roared and the owners of the club 
offered her a steady Monday night gig. She went home and learned about 15 new cover
songs and was back the next week as a performer. This essential pat on the back came 
at an important time. A switch had been turned on inside of her. Thus, after almost 
4 years at a management consulting firm, she left a position which would've
paid in six figures, to pursue music, her heart's desire.

She later performed, among other venues, at CB's Gallery, Sun Mountain 
(now the Baggot Inn) and The Fast Folk Café. She was doing her own compositions
by now. However, in 2000, she went to Kerrville and realized her own songs weren't 
fulfilling her musical needs. She met Cliff Eberhardt at this point and she responded to 
the emotionality, cleverness, and melodic sense of his songs and began learning his 
repertoire and singing back-up for him. Cliff also opened up her appreciation for
a great body of work that's out there and they also performed covers of songs like 
"Wayfaring Stranger," and "Love Hurts." She's done around 80 shows with Cliff 
and is very honored to have performed with him. She feels that her back-up
work with Cliff constitutes the first time where she felt like a real musician.
2004 was a special year. Cliff produced her album,The Things I Choose to Do. 
Then, one night, during the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, at their campsite, after 
everyone else had gone to bed, Laurie, Abbie and Carolann sang together.
Something clicked. Laurie asked Abbie and Carolann to sing with her the following 
day, at her showcase performance at the Acoustic Live booth.
It went so well and felt so good that she asked them to consider getting together 
more and "see what happens."

What has happened has left a lot more people feeling good. They searched around for a 
name for the group. One day Abbie saw a cute little girl on a train whose name 
happened to be Molly. The word "red" got attached somehow because it's
feminine and a lot stronger than pink. So in this mundane fashion the group's name 
was born.



In a not-so-mundane fashion Red Molly is knocking peoples' socks off. And they
keep getting better. Acoustic Live feels that they'll be around for a long, long time.

Websites: www.lauriemacallister.com
               www.redmolly.com

Upcoming performances include:
July 1   8pm Southpaw 125 5th Avenue
            Brooklyn, NY 718.230.0236 $10
7          7pm Poughkeepsie LIVE (TV show) Time
            Warner Cable (Cable 23)
8          9pm Poughkeepsie LIVE (TV show) Time
            Warner Cable (Cable 6). Rebroadcast.
9          10am WFDU fm Teaneck, NJ
            www.wfdu.fm Jerry Treacy will interview
            Red Molly LIVE, on his show "Crash On The
             Levee". Listen online, OR on the radio on
            WFDU 89.1 fm.
12         9pm Poughkeepsie LIVE (TV show) Time
            Warner Cable (Cable 6) rebroadcast.
15         9pm The Towne Crier 130 Route 22
            Pawling, NY 845.855.1300 $15 Red
            Molly opens for Hope Machine
30        3:30 Hamilton Music Mix Village Green
           Hamilton, NY www.partnersatwork.org
           315.825.3537 Free all-day festival, with
           four bands, including Red Molly. Festival
           starts at 9:30 am, music starts at 11:30am.
Aug 6  4pm Musikfest 2005 Liederplatz Stage
           Bethlehem, PA www.musikfest.org
            610.332.1300 Red Molly plays a 60-minute set.
7          12pm Musikfest 2005 Main Street Stage
            Bethlehem, PA 18015 www.musikfest.org
            610.332.1300 Red Molly plays a 90-minute set.
Sep 10  6pm Tribes Hill Music Festival
            Hammond House 111 Grasslands
            Road Valhalla, NY 914.347.8209
            www.tribeshill.com $10