Artist: Lisa O'Kane
Album: It Don't Hurt
Year: 2007
Label: New Light Entertainment
Order-#: NLE 910052

© August 2007 / Bruno Michel

Six years ago, Lisa O'Kane presented her first album, Am I Too Blue - and thrilled the critics. After her sophomore production (Piece Of Mind) in 2004, she now presents It Don't Hurt. Lisa is none of those fancy, marketing brushed-up, overnight-success artists, but rather a down-to-earth diverse singer/songwriter. Unfortunately, this time she wrote or co-wrote only three of the eleven songs on the album.

Grown up in the one-horse town of Fish Camp, CA (population then 36), near the South Entrance station of Yosemite National Park, she moved away from home early to attend High School. And she soon got herself into a choir, touring even abroad at her young age. Nowadays, with many gigs across the US and Europe, she still returns to her hometown every year to relax and recharge her batteries. Her entire new album - own songs or not - tells the stories of her many experiences in life.

Beside most songs being recited softly such as It Don't Hurt or I Got The Car Running, Lisa also has a power inside her that sometimes needs a valve. The result can be heard for example in her own songs like Ain't Done Nothin' or Pay For My Sins. What further impressed me is her version of the John Prine classic Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness, which is at the least comparable to those from Nanci Griffith or Kasey Chambers.

On this CD, you can feel and hear the development that Lisa has gone through since her last album and the only thing to wish for - sorry for you other songwriters out there - is some more of her own material again on the next production. www.lisaokane.com