New Haven Register

The New Haven Register

New Haven, Connecticut, January 8, 1999

What took her so long? Menta finally releases an 'Untried & True' effort

Sometimes, you just don't know what's going to drop into your mail bin, especially at this slowest time of the year. Let's just say I wasn't expecting a national-quality local recording at the beginning of January.

"Untried & True," the first album after all these years by Hamden's Anne Marie Menta, is only half truth in advertising. Most of the songs had been tried on audiences through the years. But the "true" half of the title couldn't be any truer, both in sound and content.

After years of playing in cover bands like The Wanderers, Rodeo Radio, Sugar Moon and The Sky Riders, and years as a solo act on the coffeehouse circuit, she decided it was time.

This would have been a hit album in the '70s, when country/folk-rock held its share of the airwaves -- and deserves a listen at least on a roots/Americana format in the late '90s.

The songs, recorded at Vic Steffens' Horizon Studio in West Haven, showcase a strong voice that rings brighter and sweeter and clearer than one would expect for all her years of playing (and she's not saying how old she is). And there are occasional curveballs -- like the Roger McGuinn-quality Rickenbacker chime that guitarist Armand Morgan laid down on "Lovin' After All," which deserves to be a hit somewhere.

And, above all, it's an honest album. Like many of her musical heroes -- Lucinda Williams, Rosanne Cash, Mary Chapin Carpenter, James Taylor -- Menta can't sing a song she doesn't believe in. She sings fondly of her late father, Pasquale "Pat" Menta, a steamfitter, in "Dixwell Avenue," bringing back a girlhood image of him marching in the Hamden Labor Day parade. She sings in even tones about loves lost ("Can't Call Your Name") and gained ("Lovin' After All"). The album is sweet and upbeat and sad and nostalgic without milking any of the above emotions the way Hollywood does.

"I do that a lot of times. I'm very unself-conscious about it," she said of her personal writing style. "I never thought, when I wrote them, that I shouldn't write them that way."

So what took her so long to get to here?

"Part of it was finances," she said Monday night. "I waited a long time to save the money.

"I just played for many years in cover bands and snuck in songs here and there, but they weren't my first priority. Just over the last three years, I said, 'This is it, I'm gonna play my music. If I can find an audience, great. If not, I'm gonna make a CD, anyway.' It's really a lifelong dream."

Menta comes from a musical family. One brother, Peter, is the longtime leader of local jug band Washboard Slim & the Blue Lights. Another brother, Ed, was a musician who now works in theater in Michigan.

But it's her brother John, who died in 1992 at 43, whose spirit permeates the album from the photo inside to the first song, "[That's] My Sister," where she imagines him watching her proudly; to the obvious "Things That Matter (John's Song)." She played with him in The Wanderers, an oldies cover band, and she used one of his guitars on the album.

"He was a great musician," she said. "He had a huge influence on me. I used to try to play (guitar) because he played. He taught me how to play. It was important to keep him in mind. He was a writer, too. I thought it would be nice to honor him."

Now that the album's out, she said, "The next step is to figure out what the heck to do with it." It wouldn't be a surprise if she played in a festival as big as Falcon Ridge or Clearwater on the strength of this disc.

But for now, her CD release show takes place at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Little Theater, 1 Lincoln St. (off Trumbull Street) New Haven. Tickets are $8; call (203) 230-0486.

-- Fran Fried, Notes on Notes

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