Lillie Mae is a Nashville-based singer, songwriter, and fiddle player. She received her first fiddle at the age of three, touring as a part of her family’s band until her parents’ divorce at age 11.  She continued working her sisters, forming the group Jypsi and signing to Arista records in 2007. After the group’s breakup, she began doing session work for Jack White’s Third Man records, including all three of White’s solo records and The Raconteurs' 2019 LP Help Us Stranger. Her solo full-length album Forever and Then Some was released on Third Man records in 2017, in this year she also performed alongside Jack White, Dominic Davis, and Fats Kaplin as the backing band for American Epic, a documentary that follows a recording engineer restoring (and utilizing) the long-lost first electrical sound recording system, originally built in 1925. Other Girls is produced by Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile, John Prine) and straddles the line between retro Americana and contemporary country music. The album is a melancholy listen overall, but not melodramatic - it’s emotional, but not overwrought. The album starts with “You’ve Got Other Girls For That”, honky-tonk twang and up-front, plainspoken lyrics in a whirlwind of furiously strummed strings. “Whole Blue Heart” is relatively straightforward bluegrass enlivened by Mae’s warm, tightly wound vocal. Album closer “Love Dilly Love” is a fierce song cycle that closes out the album with a kitchen sink of percussion that shifts to nearly psychedelic riffing before fading to nearly solo fiddle. This record is packaged in a 4/4 printed sleeve, and includes a 12x36 insert with lyrics and photos. 

• rainbow splatter vinyl pressing
• 4/4 printed sleeve with 6-panel insert
• limited edition of 1000 copies
• music label: Third Man Records 2019

reviewed by TALES FROM THE VAULT 09/2019