Artists:Amy Rigby

Renowned songwriter Amy Rigby’s emerged as a solo artist in 1996 with Diary Of A Mod Housewife, a critically acclaimed album that prompted Spin magazine to declare her "Songwriter of the Year". "It felt like home," she explains. "Going back to New York was like putting back together the pieces of my past and wondering, who am I going be for the rest of my life?"

Rigby grew up in Pittsburgh but ended up in New York soon enough, attending art school amidst the fertile downtown scene of the late 1970s. She describes herself as a "casual listener" before happening upon CBGB’s, the legendary punk rock club on the Bowery. "That was the turning point," she explains. "Suddenly, I was more actively involved with music. I was a part of a scene. And music became the motivating force in my life."

By the early 1980s, Rigby had taken up the guitar and was writing songs, playing and singing with her brother and some friends in Last Roundup, an urban country string band that recorded an album for Rounder Records, toured the U.S., and was a precursor of the Americana movement a decade later. She followed that with another group, the all female folk-pop trio The Shams, who released an album and EP on the trendsetting Matador label. And she married and had a child.

Rigby proved to be the ultimate rock girl-next-door; strong-willed, sharp-tongued and ready to wrestle you to the barroom floor. She reflects the wisdom of a grown woman who has made her mark as a consummate artist, penning songs with an emotional honesty and rare incisive humor. Rigby feels free to color in the songs with stylistic splashes from bright folk chords to stomping rock and '60s psychedelia.

She has since built a catalog of releases that are "all terrific," according to Robert Christgau, the "Dean of American Rock Critics." Along the way, Rigby moved to Nashville, had her songs have been covered by rock legend Ronnie Spector, They Might Be Giants/John Flansburgh, Laura Cantrell, Jonell Mosser and Maria Doyle Kennedy, and drew comparisons to exalted songwriters like Elvis Costello and Richard Thompson.

Hailed for her keen eye and sharp wit in tracing the vagaries and victories of modern romance, her newest release Little Fugitive finds Rigby promising "I Don't Want To Talk About Love No More." But, of course, she does - getting to the heart of the matter and the heart of the punch line in due course. Its title comes from the groundbreaking 1953 independent film by Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin, and reflects her view of herself, at age 46, as a traveling troubadour performing across North America and Europe. It also finds Rigby at a fulcrum in her personal and artistic development, considering both where she has been and where she is now headed. ..