Abbie Gardner

Abbie Gardner has a strong guitar technique, solid songwriting, and a slightly nasal but lilting voice that can wring the best out of her lyrics. Her songwriting and style seems to me a kind of a cross between early Ani Difranco and early Michelle Shocked. This 3-song demo does demonstrate the range of Abbie Gardner's talent--she can be touching, wrenching, haunting, or bluesy, or all three at different moments in one song. Highly recommended for folkrock fans - www.ectoguide.org

Abbie’s 3-song ep thunks to life like a 3-wheeled train dead in the middle of Kansas. Attituded folk or acoustic rock, the rhythm clap that Abbie wanks out of ‘Violet’ is a pleasantly confident approach toward attention grabbing. Singing of the violet sky, one can’t help but hear a girlie-woman that knows herself yet searches for the meaning in others. The sad solo of ‘Rosie Knows Something’ pulls as the heart’s strings as well as the slight skip among the guitar chords. It’s a beautiful voice. She’ll hold a note until it changes color, usually from blue to orange or the other way around. A little Janis, a little Alanis, a whole lot of soul that feels too much but wouldn’t have it any other way.

The delayed funk of end song ‘Temptation’ struts on like a leathered school girl who knows all brown eyes are glued to her back pockets. The slap of the bass swivels the hips, while Abbie’s story poses the old question, should I or shouldn’t I? Uh oh, she can’t say no. ‘And the stranger sitting next to me / lookin’ so much closer and sweeter than memory.’

However old Abbie may be, she’s got enough of a voice now to wow an audience of 100k if she had a Spice Girls producer behind her. What you’ll hear in her svelte-voiced, highly characterized grooves is great love for The Song, and an uncanny ability to get it hot and fried and on your plate with one adept flip. - www.musesmuse.com

Seldom do photogenic musicians live up to their splashy album covers as well as Abbie Gardner does. This New York professional (and former high school band conductor) has a knack for creating four-minute snapshots of human interaction. Her rollicking, club-folk guitar riffs capture perfectly the tiny thrills--the lulls and the cadences--of everyday conversation. The lyrics aren't exactly high literature, but they keep the mood light in songs like "Violet" and "Temptation." Ever wonder what Paula Cole would sound like if she played guitar? I have no doubt that she would sound like Abbie Gardner on the album's last track, "Temptation." Bassist Greg Smith deserves a nod for bringing funk to folk on this slow-paced, deliciously dirty number.
- www.gogirlsmusic.com

This is an excerpt of a review of Colin Brooks’ album “Chippin' Away at the Promised Land” that Abbie sang backup on.

"One of the simply most staggeringly purely beautiful songs on the record is ‘Cool Water,’ which features the killer line ‘You're like cool water for my thirsty soul.’ This song features Grammy-worthy, gorgeous harmony singing by Abbie Gardner. Just when this song's sweet chords lull you, along comes another goosebump-inducing soar. Again this song isn't even like a song almost. It's more like a caring but gruff embrace reaching out to you from your speakers." - review by P. Kellach Waddle

P. Kellach Waddle is a contributing editor at FolkWax. Based in Austin, he is also an award-winning composer and performer. - www.folkwax.com