Reilly Downes + Molly Brandt
REILLY DOWNES IS THE SAD COWGIRL OF CHICAGO. AN AMERICANA ARTIST HAILING FROM THE TEXAS HILL COUNTRY, SHE CUT HER TEETH AS A SESSION MUSICIAN IN NASHVILLE, SINGING BEHIND SOME OF AMERICANA’S FAVORITE SINGER/SONGWRITERS.
REILLY’S MUSIC HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS “EASY ON THE EARS, BUT HARD ON THE HEART” BY MUSIC MECCA IN NASHVILLE. HER SONGS DIVERT FROM TYPICAL CONTEMPORARY COUNTRY AND DRAW ON HER TEXAS ROOTS WITH A SOUND THAT "CUTS ACROSS EACH TRACK LIKE A RATTLESNAKE, ADDING SOME EXTRA HONESTY AND GRIT.”
REILLY'S FIRST SOLO ALBUM, SPENT, EARNED HER THE SPOT OF #1 AMERICANA RELEASES FOR 2022 AS WELL AS FEATURES ON THE BOOT AMONG OTHER AMERICANA AND COUNTRY COVERING MEDIA. SINCE THEN, HER HAUNTING RENDITION OF “WICKED GAME” HAS LANDED HER RADIO PLAY, A FEATURE ON SPOTIFY’S “VIBES” PLAYLIST, AND MORE.
On a winter night in northern Minnesota, a young woman encounters an older woman at a lakeside dive bar. The stranger senses she’s struggling with something and sits her down to tell of her own hard-scrabble life. Shit’s not gonna get any easier, her story implies, but grit and perseverance can carry you through just about anything.
So goes Molly Brandt’s “Old Northern Woman,” an anthemic power ballad that starts with evocative storytelling and grows into a thrilling wall-of-sound crescendo that leaves you breathless.
Brandt gives you that same feeling live on stage and in her studio recordings. You’re pulling up a stool next to her and she’s got tales to tell you—her own, other real-life stories, and fictional fables that ring true no matter how much melodrama and poetic detail they contain. Like the storyteller himself, Tom T. Hall, Brandt knows just what to tell and what to hold back to fire up the listener’s imagination.
Brandt has also inherited Dolly Parton’s knack for painting unvarnished pictures of poverty and struggle but performing them with glitz, style, and attitude. She dazzles when she takes the stage, first with her presence and statement outfits—inspired by designer Nudie as well as divas Nikki Lane and Margo Price—then with her powerhouse vocals. Also like Dolly, the personality she reveals between songs is down-to-earth, funny, and a little goofy—until she steps into her next story.
Characters come vividly to life in Brandt’s lyrics and fiery delivery: the twisted, traumatized killer in the feminist murder ballad “Revenge”; the tired and jaded aging star in “Rhinestone Teardrops”; the runaway bride of “Surrender to the Night.” So do places, from bucolic backroads to quirky bars (as in her ode to a real-life Minneapolis honky-tonk “Eagles 34”).
Many of Brandt’s songs are often set in the Midwest, reflecting all its seasons, from the summery “Bluff Country Paradise” to the chill of “Old Northern Woman.” But her lyrics resonate broadly. They tell American stories—of blue-collar struggles, hard-won revels at dive bars, wide-open country and long car rides, and heartache, disillusionment, and revenge.
