LA native Mara Connor recently released Decades, an EP that covers one song from each decade between 1950 and 2000. From Fats Domino’s ‘Ain’t That A Shame’ (released in 1955), through to Elliot Smith’s 1997 ‘Ballad of Big Nothing’, Mara Connor puts her own take on half a century worth of of great songs, drawing on folk and country traditions to achieve a sound that combines the spirits of Nashville, sunny southern California and New York City’s folk revival.
The record’s stand-out moment is Connor’s cover of Kath Bloom’s ‘Come Here.’ Retaining the delicacy and carefree naivete of the original, Connor’s sings sweet and confident over acoustic guitar and pedal steel and percussion from Sharon van Etten drummer Jorge Balbi.
It was the only song on the record to be recorded mid-pandemic, Connors working remotely from quarantine to co-produce with Sean O’Brien. As such, it feels a little more modest and unassuming than several of the other tracks, and all the more intimate and heartfelt for it, geographic isolation heightening the tension between hesitancy and whole-hearted sincerity.