Anne Marie Menta comes from a family of three brothers in Hamden, CT where playing and listening to music was their great passion.  Her musical credits include fronting various rock & roll, folk, and country bands as a singer/guitarist, including The Wanderers, Sugar Moon, Sky Riders and Rodeo Radio.  Since the 1999 release of her debut CD, Untried & True, Anne Marie Menta has made Connecticut original-music fans take notice.  The 12-song collection is performed as an acoustic trio with some tracks featuring a full band.  Released to enthusiastic reviews, the record gained radio air play throughout Connecticut on acoustic music programs.

Fran Fried of the New Haven Register called Untried & True "sweet and upbeat and sad and nostalgic without milking any of the above emotions the way Hollywood does."  The New Haven Advocate wrote: "Anne Marie Menta's exquisite new CD has a lot of critics gushing, and she's just as good live."

She placed as a finalist in the Singer/Songwriter category for the 1997,1999 and 2000 New Haven Advocate Readers Poll.  In September of '99, she was a featured performer at the newly revived Eli Whitney Folk Festival in New Haven, Connecticut.  In 2001, Menta was a Showcase artist at NERFA (Northeast Regional Folk Alliance) and a featured performer at the Zoofolk Summer Concert Series in Bridgeport, CT.

Menta's second CD, When the Love Ran Deep, was recorded and produced by Vic Steffens at Horizon Music Group in West Haven , CT.  Released in 2004, the new CD has a more expansive and diverse feel than her intimate debut CD, with touches of fiddle, piano, mandolin, and 12 string Rickenbacker Byrds-like guitar.   For fans of heartbreak songs, there are Karla Bonoff -like confessional ballads such as "Open Door," or wistful reminiscences such as "Lilac and Dogwood."  There is also a Cajun flavored up-tempo tune called "World I Live In" and a jangly folk- rock anthem called "Nothing Remains the Same."

The personnel on the CD reads like a "who's who" of Connecticut area musicians, including Armand Morgan, Steve Combs, John Redgate, Vic Steffens, Ken Rieske, Dick Neal, Jon Rodgers, Shellye Valauskas, Kriss Santala, Paul Neri, Jon Peckman, Brooks Barnett, Kate O'Brien, Tom Hagymasi and Tom Hudson.  The long list of musician credits does not detract from the ensemble mission projected by these players in the service of what is really a songwriter's record.

The listener is taken on a musical journey that swings from young love and optimism to the lonely acceptance of the closing track, "Lights Out."  In between are vignettes of heartbreak and happiness, observation and reflection set in haunting melodies and catchy choruses.  The haunting ballad, "Lilac and Dogwood" from When the Love Ran Deep and "That's My Sister" from Untried & True landed Menta a spot as a finalist in the 2004 South Florida Folk Festival Singer Songwriter competition.

Check out the CDs