Mae Robertson

Although Mae Robertson's voice is not everything on Meet the Sun Halfway, it is the main thing, and the strange thing is that it is not what she does with it but what she does not which sets her apart. She does not, for instance, step beyond her comfort zone nor does she participate in vocal octave Olympics. She bypasses the trills and vibratos and tricks of the vocal trade for the honest and true, the voice as pure instrument, and the end result is, to be honest, brilliant. In letting her voice speak for her, she allows the music to take center stage and without the ego and the drama prevalent in so many singers of today, she carries you away without a struggle.
 
I saved this part for last because, as hard as I try, I cannot seem to separate Mae Robertson from Karen Carpenter, for though their voices and spirits are far enough apart to avoid comparisons, they are also far enough together. Sometimes when I hear Robertson's phrasing, at times so delicate it is transparent, I hear Karen Carpenter—not the voice, but the way she could take a song ... and while being true to the original, turn it into a Carpenters song. Mae Robertson does that, perhaps because her interpretation of her music shares with Karen's a certain purity of spirit all too rare in today's digitized and compartmentalized Internet-driven world.

In the end, it comes down to this. When Mae Robertson sings, it is meditation for the soul. Her voice almost breathes you to a different world in which beauty and light and good make everything right. I think we could all use a little more of that and Meet the Sun Halfway delivers. And then some.

A review written for the Folk and Acoustic Music Exchange
by Frank Gutch Jr.