BJ O’Malley: My life is a country song

Nashville is the next stop for the singer-songwriter.

By GUY D’ASTOLFO

VINDICATOR ENTERTAINMENT WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — As a country music artist, BJ O’Malley is a natural. That much is obvious the first time you hear her.

She can belt out a heartache-and-whiskey weeper with the old-school twang and tribulation of Tammy Wynette, then smoothly shift into alt-country cool, a la Neko Case.

The Youngstown singer-songwriter followed her heart into the business at the relatively late age of 30 (she learned how to play guitar at 29) and has embraced it without reservation.

She’s prolific, too. O’Malley has released seven albums since she launched her career at an open-mic night at the Royal Oaks bar in 2000, and is currently working on No. 8.

Uncompromising, adventurous, maybe a little tortured and undoubtedly very talented, O’Malley plans to see just how far her music can take her.

“I was walking my dog and thinking, ‘What are you gonna do with your life?’ I’m not going to get to the next step in Youngstown,” she told The Vindicator in an interview. “Then it hit me — go to Nashville.” It was a revelatory moment that elicited tears of joy for O’Malley.

In February or March, she will pack up her guitar, her dog, a boxful of her new CD “Sweet Baby Freaker” and whatever else she can fit in her car, and head to Music City.

She’ll play any gig she can line up, and also hopes to market herself as a songwriter. For a day job, O’Malley will fall back on her skills as a hairdresser.

An old soul who has led what she calls a tumultuous life, O’Malley harbors an inner wellspring of musical inspiration — which explains her skill and productivity as a composer. “My life is a country song,” she writes in the liner notes of her new album.

“Songwriting is like therapy to me,” she explained. “I get it all out. I can’t talk about my problems but I can hide behind them [through my music].”

O’Malley doesn’t care much for the pre-fab stars dominating the current country scene; they’re just not gritty and real enough for her. “Carrie Underwood isn’t the future,” she said. “Really, I don’t like anything that’s come out since 1974.”

As a child, O’Malley sang in the choir while at school, and to her records in her room at night. “I wanted to be Loretta Lynn or Stevie Nicks,” she said.

Her voice matured — she thinks whiskey and cigarettes might have had something to do with it — and her delivery came to convey the traumas of life: edgy, and pregnant with emotion. A sad-but-knowing undercurrent, born of experience, imbues each word.

O’Malley’s son, Gideon, graduated from high school in May, leaving her free to pour everything into her music career. Hence, the Nashville chapter, which O’Malley views as an adventure worthy of a “freaker.”

The word, which she coined and used in the title of her new album, refers to an artistic type who lives for her craft, even if it means being a little off-center in other aspects of life.

“I don’t want a regular life,” said O’Malley. “I always have to be immersed in something. I couldn’t imagine getting up each day and just being a housewife.”

X To buy “Sweet Baby Freaker,” go to myspace.com/thebjomalleyband.