Amy Dalley

Start your search in a nondescript building that houses one of Nashville's many publishing firms. Pass the receptionist and the coffee machine, and head upstairs to the second floor. There you'll find an office where all-day songwriting sessions take place maybe three times a week. Look inside: That blonde with the gleaming smile? The one with the laugh that bubbles every minute or two and the voice that could draw birds down from the trees and A&R cynics back from the bar?
That's her. That's Amy Dalley.

Maybe you've already seen her before, a few miles away from Music Row and a few years ago, working as a waitress at the Wildhorse Saloon, or coming back to headline at that same venue a while after that. You might have caught her and her band at Toolie's Country in Phoenix, the Hired Hand in Fort Myers, the Cadillac Ranch in Chicago, or other places that hadn't quite heard anything like her before.

If you haven't encountered Amy Dalley yet, though, don't worry. You will, very soon.

And once you hear her slice-of-wry songs, with their sweet, barbed promises to "shut up" so a brainless boyfriend can talk, or their speculations that a friend's new beau may be a "good-lookin' serial killer," you'll never forget them -- or her.

On Amy Dalley that well becomes a fountain of music, overflowing with country-fresh performances served straight up. There's cautionary humor sprinkled through the crackling beat of "Romeo," the wisdom of heartache woven into "Let's Say Goodbye," and an ironic meditation on life's high and low points on "It Is What It Is," as Amy muses that her latest object of interest, a hunk spied in the aisles of Kroger's, is "so GQ he must be gay."

These songs speak in everyday language about concerns we all share, but with a musical touch that's deft, teasing, and wise, all at the same time. Professional songwriter, playful entertainer, gifted vocalist, and down-to-earth observer of worldly foibles: There's something for each of us, whether guy or gal, in Amy Dalley.