Mary Karlzen Back to Shine On
I’ve been a fan of and writing about Mary Karlzen since 1992. As one of the breakout female singer songwriters from South Florida, Karlzen broke through at a time when radio and Tv were ripe for new and fresh crossover music. Her unique vocals and jangly blend of country pop struck a real chord.
The Chicago native released her first album, Hide, in 1992. After several songs ended up on VH1, Karlzen became the network’s most-played independent artist of all time. She collaborated with Jackson Browne, The Mavericks, toured and put out several more albums.
Back in 1994 I wrote in the Sun-Sentinel: Davie singer and songwriter Mary Karlzen’s major-label debut couldn’t have come at a better time. The music industry recently has embraced a slew of quirky women singers — Sheryl Crow, Lisa Loeb, Sam Phillips — who might not have gotten their due a few years ago. While Karlzen’s previous independent-label releases leaned more toward country music, her choices here lean more toward a strong-willed pop sound. But country has been good to her, though, as she already has had her videos played on TNN and CMT and managed to appear on several country talk shows. But Karlzen is no Faith Hill country Barbie doll, as she has written every track on this release and resisted efforts to change her image. The cover photo of Karlzen in overalls and boyish smirk spells it all out. Her sometimes self-effacing manner is evident on Stronger — “And I always thought I would be/A stronger girl than the one that lives in me.” But the song is ultimately a declaration of self-worth against other peoples’ standards.
She also has a strong nostalgia for times that may not have been as good as she thought, as she sings in the album’s first single I’d Be Lyin’. “There are times I wish that I could forget and not remember/Do you ever think that we could get it back the same?/If I said I didn’t miss you I’d be lyin.”
I also touted Mary in Billboard in The Continental Drift column in 1994:
Karlzen toured the US and Canada for over a year, opening shows for Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, Lucinda Williams, Nanci Griffith, John Hiatt, Hootie & the Blowfish, among many others.
Life rolls on and Karlzen got married and had kids. She was in Nashville recording when she got a call from her babysitter that her kid had fallen and been injured.
“That’s when I took a break, I felt like the worst mother in the world after a few injuries that I wasn’t there for,” she says by phone from Milwaukee. “I couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t do music and be the artist I wanted to be, the way I had in the past. But now 15 years later the kids are grown. I started looking at old songs, and some new ones I had written. I sent them to producer Jansen Press in Paris who went back into old songs and with all the new studio technology he made the changes I wanted and they came out exactly how I had been hearing them in my head years ago I when I first wrote them. I was really happy and encouraged. He gave me the full sound I wanted without having to rerecord them all. The new songs have a longing, I’m trying to figure out life and relationships as I get older, some are about my kids, but it’s a more mature sound maybe, looser, spread across decades with the songs. The whole batch sounds different than my early material, you mature, your focus shifts, and the ways to think about things.”
In Karlzens new songs I hear a looser sound, a melancholy, wistfulness in the music.
“I’m looking for different answers now and hopefully there are people looking for those same answers,” she says. “This album feels like a promise that has been there a long time.”
“The musicians recorded in studios all over the country and Jansen put it together in the studio. Amazing what they can do now, tracks were sent to me in Milwaukee with bass, drums, vocals. In Atlanta the drummer did his parts, the band was never all in the studio together. You would never know it was done that way, but these are real professionals who are used to doing this now. This is more affordable — no travel, hotels, meals. Maybe something is lost but the result to me is the same. “
Asked about how he put the album together across the pond Jansen Press says “Yeah, Mary’s latest record really came together in a real organic and a bit of an emotional way. But I guess, it’s all my fault. I was dealing with the fallout of the demise of my band in France, Carousel Vertigo, and I was really lost and dealing with a fair amount of real PTSD from it all — I was going through my hard drives and I remembered that Mary had recorded a song a long time ago at Criteria Studios, called “Shine” with the lyrics as I remembered of the song as being very pertinent to how I was feeling that particular day. I rediscovered the multi-track session. The song originally had drums — but the song was obviously in a demo state, yet the structure & sentiment of the song was very solid, but was undefined overall.”
“The instrumentation and production approach was all wrong, yet the lyrics and top line melody were amazing. At some point years ago, I had asked my friend, pianist John Deaderick (Dixie Chicks, Patti Griffin) to lay down a Piano part and put together a string arrangement only to Mary’s acoustic guitar and vocal. Then, I guess life happened, Mary was raising her family, got into releasing children’s music, doing comedy improv, etc… and I was working for Gibson in France… I remembered that I worked-up a demo mix with just John’s Keys and String arrangement years ago, and that was the file that I found.”
“When I reconnected with the tracks on a legacy drive… it crushed me emotionally. Three hours later I had come up with what is basically what you hear on the new album. I was bawling. I lost my mind mixing it. I was longing… The lyrics just slayed me but also liberated me as it defined my feelings at the time perfectly. I waited about a day to get my shit together, before I sent Mary the .mp3 of what I thought the song was intended to be… She circled back to me also saying she too was “Bawling” and that it was “Perfect”. So we kind of hit a visceral emotional moment together at the same time, and decided that we should really do an album… call it, “Shine”.”
“So, technology today is amazing when it comes to recording. After we went through her new demos, she recorded the basic tracks in a studio in Milwaukee and then eMailed me the files to me at my studio just outside of Paris to work on. We invited Ben Peeler (who’s back with The Wallflowers) in on the sessions he has a studio at his house in Los Angeles. I’ve already worked with Ben on some of Jolynn Daniel’s earlier records, and really enjoyed collaborating with him back in the day. He’s such an amazing and gifted player. Then we got our Nashville crew together — Radney Foster, Michael Webb (Poco, Chris Stapleton), Lisset Diaz (Sweet Lizzy Project) to also track and send me their collaborations. Radney has been a longtime fan of Mary’s since her SXSW show in 1994 opening for The Mavericks. Kind of a funny story - I was on stage with Mary that night, as Radney was on the dancefloor that night really cutting’ up a rug — It was sublime as we had seen his videos on CMT the night before and there he was, freaking out… Mary even said from the mic that evening in her Mary way with a giggle, “Oh…, Hey, Radney…!” It was a great moment that night. So when I asked Radney if he would be interested in singing on a Mary Karlzen track, there was no hesitation — his voice is awesome…!”
“After all the tracking was done, I added some guitars, had Jolynn sing some back-up vocals, then mixed it all together here at my studio. It’s in my opinion, Mary’s most pure and authentic album of her career, and it’s apparent through her performances on this set. No record label pressures, no outside pressures at all… Just pure Mary…,” Jansen concludes.
“The album was supposed to come out when Covid hit after the Miami release house party in March 2020 attended by the old school Miami crowd, but we needed to hold off on this, timing was not right at all,” Mary says. “The first time I went into a store with a mask was shocking, now it seems so long ago.”
This exclusive release is limited to 500 copies, and includes a signed and numbered art print by Mary. Standouts are the graceful acceptance of “Slowly Disappear,” the assertive stance of “Say You’ll Never Go Away Again,” and quiet contemplative ballads “One Step Away From Home,” “You Still Belong to Me” and “I’ll Be There,” The closer “Shine” is a fitting look back and resigned look ahead.
As for promotions there is a new video out, another one or two coming, she’s doing radio interviews and on indie stations, and a segment on NPR. She is demoing a covers album next with some of her favorites.
“Some are songs that no one else would do except me, standards, old country songs, with a different spin on it. A lot of great old songs are stuck with bad production, out of tune, they actually cut tape with razor blades and cobbled together! We’ll see… but I’m working on it already.”
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