Bringing her musings on family, love, and everyday living, Upstate New York singer-songwriter Maggie Doherty has released her debut EP, Night Words. After years of performing in the cover circuit throughout New York, Night Words serves as her inaugural release of original music.
The EP opens with the lead single and title track, “Night Words.” This song, about meaningless romantic words that will “be different in the morning,” is a beautifully performed piece of Americana music. Especially impressive is Doherty’s vocal performance.
Doherty displays a vocal range allowing her to fit rich vocal melodies within more straightforward backing instrumentation. The song’s title actually has a double meaning, being about the song’s origin and subject at the same time. The track was written at night in her journal, yet it also refers to the meaningless words in false romance.
The EP’s next track, “Push & Pull,” is a meditation on the — you guessed it — push and pull in long-term relationships, in which people evolve over time.
“You get into your patterns… people change and people grow… it’s a dance,” Doherty states in her interview with WEXT back in October. The song’s passionate vocal performance draws out the tension and pressure that long-term relationships must endure. “Please continue to choose me / Even though you might lose me,” she pleads, with the listener getting a sense of both the hardship and hope that comes with choosing to keep loving someone.
Another track of note, “Heal,” takes the listener on a journey from romantic tragedy to hope. Through some quaint hits of electric and acoustic guitar, Doherty tells the story of a woman whose life goes awry through an immature choice for a romantic partner. The song reaches some gently beautiful heights, especially when she digs into her lower register in tandem with some carefully constructed backing guitar harmonies.
The EP’s closer is “Winnie Girl”: a country ballad in tribute to Doherty’s daughter.
This song is packed full of love, bursting at the seams with it when the fiddle melodies and drums join Doherty’s earnest and affectionate lyricism. Doherty paints parenthood quite vividly, singing, “My job is to make sure that you will know / How precious that you are to everyone you know.” The song fully renders Doherty’s affection and care as a proud mother, making for a light and warm closer for the EP.
Growing up in Saratoga Springs, New York, Doherty has been a musical jack of all trades, performing in the genres of rock, R&B, soul, and (most of all) country in a wide variety of acts. She considers playing with her uncle Rick Bolton and his band Big Medicine as a particular highlight. Along the way, she has gathered some impressive accolades, opening for popular bands such as Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Twenty One Pilots, and Third Eye Blind.
