Biography
-
Years Active
2004 – present (20 years)
-
Members
- Abbie Gardner
- Carolann Solebello (2004 – 2010)
- Laurie MacAllister (2004 – present)
- Molly Venter (2010 – present)
Red Molly is a folk trio consisting of Laurie MacAllister (vocals, guitar, banjo), Abbie Gardner (vocals, guitar, Dobro, lap steel guitar), and Carolann Solebello (vocals, guitar, precision acoustic bass, mandolin). They perform original works composed by each of the group members, as well as covers of other songwriters including Hank Williams, Gillian Welch and Ryan Adams. Their fans are known as Redheads.
Red Molly was formed late one night at the 2004 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. Abbie, Carolann, and Laurie, solo singer/songwriters, were the last ones left at a song circle. They liked the way they sounded together and decided to form a band. The name Red Molly is taken from a character in the Richard Thompson song "1952 Vincent Black Lightning."
On June 15, 2010 Red Molly announced that Carolann Solebello would be leaving the group and replaced by Molly Venter. On July 24 Solebello announced to the crowd at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival it was her last show with the band and concluded: "I know about 75% of you by face, and I wanted my last show to be with my friends here at Falcon Ridge, not at some small club in some country I didn't know anybody." Solebello continues to perform as a solo artist and released her third solo album "Threshold", in June 2011.
Molly Venter's debut with the trio was on August 6, 2010 at the Lunenburg Folk Festival.
Their career started to take off in 2006. They were the top vote getters in the 2006 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Emerging Artist Showcase. WUMB in Boston named them Top New Artist of the Year and picked their Album Never Been to Vegas one of their Top 10 Albums of 2006. They appeared in John Platt's Under the Radar series in New York a showcase for up and coming musicians.
In 2007 they toured with Pat Wictor and Ellis, the other winners of the Falcon Ridge Emerging Artist showcase, on the Falcon Ridge Preview tour and performed with them in the Most Wanted Song Swap at the Festival itself.
In 2010 they have played Merlefest and have been invited back to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival as a headliner.
Their album "Love and Other Tragedies" reached number 15 on the Americana Charts on June 30, 2008.
Their next album "James" reached #4 on the Americana charts in May of 2010 and # 1 on the Folk DJ chart.
The recording, "The Red Album", the group's second since the departure of founding member Carolann Solebello, is their freshest and edgiest to date. After immersing themselves in songwriting, the Mollies made a conscious decision to record more original songs than on any previous album, making their choice of specific covers all the more significant. With their arsenal of new songs and select favorites at hand (including a very long-awaited cover of the song that is their namesake) "1952 Vincent Black Lightning", the band traveled to Nashville to work with producer Ken Coomer (drummer for Uncle Tupelo and Wilco), and the result is a darkly percussive, wildly cool, and powerfully different collection of songs than you'd expect from a ladylike folk trio.
"The Red Album", realized on May 27, 2014, was featured in USA Today and CMT Edge. It spent 16 weeks on the Americana Radio Top 40 chart, reaching #10, and it was #1 on the Folk DJ Radio Chart for all of 2014.
A 6-song EP, "One for All & All for One," was released in 2018.
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
