Local Gal’ Takes Center Stage

By C.C.L. Roderick
(published summer 1999)

Mary Sue Twohy — who performs at the 1999 Takoma Park Folk Festival at 11am at the Grove Stage — says that Takoma Park has given her the kind of support a struggling musician dreams about.

Every day, singer-songwriter Mary Sue Twohy works on her music career. She may make a phone call, send out press materials, take a guitar lesson with guitarist Al Petteway, or shop at Takoma Underground and Glad Rags for a vintage dress, an important part of her stage persona—perhaps something black and lacey from the ‘50s or something sleek and red from the ‘40s. After all, quality stage clothes can be as important as quality music.

Twohy’s high standards and hard work pay off in many ways. She is widely regarded as one of the most promising young performers in the area.

In reviewing her recent CD, "Training Butterflies"—produced by Pete Kennedy and released last year—the Washington Post said, "Twohy’s singing isn’t just inherently good, it’s unquestionably good—a sound for sore ears."

This year for the first time Twohy will grace the stage at the Takoma Park Folk Festival, an event she has worked to help make a success for several years, as both a stage manager and as a member of the Program Committee. She also managed production of the festival’s first CD in 1997, entitled, "20 Years Strong!"

Twohy says that building a career takes raw will power. "I just make a commitment to it. Each day I do one small thing to make it happen," she says.

At the same time she is quick to note that no performer builds a career alone. Indeed, the very friends who goaded her to get off the couch and onto the stage some ten years ago were in the audience in May when she performed for the first time at the Kennedy Center’s Millenium Stage, with Franklin Taggart playing lead guitar.

There are also the friends who help lug her gear to gigs at small coffeehouses like the 333 Coffeehouse in Annapolis, Adrian’s Bookstore Café in Baltimore, or IOTA in Arlington. Other friends and fellow musicians are helping her build connections in other cities. And not least of all, there are the storeowners and neighbors in Takoma Park who eagerly bought her CD.

Takoma Park’s musical professionals have also extended encouragement and wisdom in addition to solid, practical help. For example, David Eisner, owner of the House of Musical Traditions, has booked her to play at the Takoma Park Street Festival and elsewhere and sells her CD. Husband-and-wife musicians Al Petteway, her guitar teacher, and Amy White, are friends and mentors in the wild, challenging world of life as a performing artist. They say she is a valued friend.

"Mary Sue is absolutely one of the sweetest, kindest persons," White and Petteway say. "Those qualities come across in her music, in the songs, the melodies, the chord structures. That’s so much who she is.…There’s a Peter Pan quality to her."

Twohy says that living in Takoma Park has been important to her career. "This town has totally supported me, that’s something I really didn’t expect at all. It makes a big difference, it makes me want to stay here," she says.

Twohy has been singing all her life. She sang in all the school choirs, played tenor sax in grammar school and high school bands, and picked up a guitar in college and "played awful guitar" for many years. "I wasn’t serious about it, I had no idea this was coming," she says with a laugh. Then she heard a song that moved her deeply, "Autumn Night," written by Mark Giessler, and she realized that music helps people reach a special place within themselves. "I thought, ‘if there is a way I can do this…’," she says. The song changed her life.

"I see music as doing a good thing. Some people are moved by it, touched by it. I’m more aware that we’re all artists in our own ways. Something like a good song that can contribute to that quality in others is important. These are the things in life that matter."

When Twohy turned 30, "for me a big deal," she asked herself what would she want to look back on when she was much older and say she had done. Two things came to mind: the first was to make a CD and the second was to have a wolf hound ranch. "I need to be around animals," she explains. The ranch is still in the planning stages. Meanwhile, making the CD pushed her career ahead significantly.

"Training Butterflies" has been getting radio play in the District of Columbia and six states: California, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Utah. The CD is available on the Internet at folkweb.com and amazon.com, where it climbed from 30,000 to 17,000 in frequency of sales. Borders, HMT, Olsson’s Books and Records, and a number of other stores also sell it. And the exposure has led to increased gigs in the Washington metropolitan area, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

Twohy has begun writing songs for her next CD. She says that good songwriting, beyond having good lyrics, has to contain some kind of a jewel so people can keep coming back to it and find the treasure. "Nancy Griffith is a jeweled writer. I can bring something different away from listening to her every time," she says.

Still, Twohy is very much in the beginning stage and is doing a lot of looking, watching, and listening. Once or twice a week she goes with friends to hear other performers, to see what they say between songs, how they deliver their lyrics, what kind of music they play. "I want my next album to be tight. I want these next songs to be excellent. My big thing is quality," she says, then laughing adds, "No pressure."