The Music Business is filled with the stories of artists who knocked around for years before finding the right sound, releasing the right album, giving the right performance that made their career. If you can believe their accounts, Bruce Springsteen was a total failure until the day he was a success. More recently, Nathaniel Rateliff was about to throw in the towel before recording his R&B record “S.O.B.”
Album Cover for Maggie Rose's "Have A Seat" to be released Aug. 20, 2021
Which brings me to Maggie Rose, a Nashville-based singer-songwriter who has been performing for more than a decade as a rising country artist and has appeared on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry more than 80 times. When you listen to her, you hear the voice of an experienced professional, someone who is at home on a stage and in front of a microphone, whose voice has great power. Rose shows great control and range in her voice, singing country, pop, power ballads, as well as soul and R&B songs. But despite two albums and many years of playing gigs all over the country, she had not yet carved out a space of her own.
That changes with the release later this summer of Maggie Rose’s third studio album, “Have A Seat.” Recorded pre-pandemic at the legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, it was produced by Ben Tanner of Alabama Shakes. Although “Have a Seat” won’t be officially released until August 20, 2021, several of the tracks have already appeared on Rose’s website or on YouTube.
It’s not just that the new music is more textured and complex, or that her vocals soar with greater authority, which they do, it is really about Maggie Rose having found her own lane, her own groove.
To describe her sound, I can make a ton of comparisons. I can say this is Maggie Rose’s “Dusty in Memphis” album. Or that her songs, like “What Are We Fighting For” and “The Best of Me” remind me of Sheryl Crow (with some Bonnie Raitt thrown in there); that “For Your Consideration” could easily be a Brittany Howard song; that “Saint” is a power ballad fit for the Grand Ole Opry; or that “Are We There” is a slow jam worthy of Corrine Bailey Ray or Sade; or that “What Makes you Tick” is a blue-eyed soul song that Joss Stone might want to cover. But the truth is that Maggie Rose’s new album is none of that, or rather all of that, mixed together in a sound that grabs you and won’t let you go.
“Have a Seat” and “What Are We Fighting For” carry a greater resonance after the last year and the struggles for greater inclusion, diversity, and the calls for all of us to proactively be anti-racists. The time has come for artists in general and women artists in particular to speak their truth. And that is exactly what Maggie Rose does on this album.
Here’s a quote from Rose from the album’s promotional materials about “Have A Seat”: These songs were written during a contentious time, and there are undertones to the lyrics that are influenced by the state of our world politics and the politics of the music industry. The title Have a Seat is responsorial, placing an emphasis on inclusivity—like, ‘Here, sit down. Let’s try talking to each other.’ One of the most loving things we can do is listen and make others feel heard—give people the space to speak their mind and be themselves. However, there’s also an intended meaning to the title that points to the power in occupying the seat that’s designated to you: I am claiming a seat I believe is rightfully mine, and I want others to do the same.”
Now I can’t tell you if this is the beginning of greatness to come for Maggie Rose – or a moment of cosmic harmonic coincidence. What I can say is that these songs deserve a listen, and that they are certainly worthy of lightning striking.
What came before for Maggie Rose may still get play, but what will matter is this album “Have a Seat” and what follows.
