Credit singer/songwriter Valerie Smith with this most ambitious offering — Maggie’s Journal, a two CD set made up of songs that chronicle the early life of Margaret Attebury Brooks-McCamis, Smith’s great-grandmother.
A copy of her journal was given Smith by some relatives. They found a tablet with “Car Load Tablet” written on the front cover in an old trunk that had been left in her attic years after she died. ”Her story was surprising for many reasons,” Smith says. “She had told no one of her younger years. We found out that she had been married at a very early age to a violent man, and we also learned that under her hardened exterior was a beautiful, kind, and gentle soul. She has a story to tell and her words are very personal, emotional, and raw.”
Told from the first person perspective of Maggie herself, as detailed in her journal, it reveals what life was like on a Missouri farm after the Civil War. Smith says it took her 12 years to record the album, because she felt that she was actually writing music alongside her great-grandmother, even though they had never met. In the process, she discovered rare insights into authentic American history, society, women’s and children’s rights, and the importance of education in ways she never knew before.
Shared through both songs and spoken word, these stories are sad, sobering, and emotionally infused, especially when it came to sharing the hardships Maggie had to endure due to her seemingly unsympathetic and uncaring father, her abusive husband that she was forced to marry all-too young in life, and the continuing physical challenges and constant hurt and humiliation that haunted her throughout much of her life..
At the same time, the soft, delicate instrumental arrangements add a soothing element to the proceedings, even in such woeful narratives as That Was A Long Time Ago, I Never Learned To Love Him, and the tellingly-titled pair, Started Wrong In Life and My Life Of Strife.
Cody Kilby is on mandolin and guitar, Scott Vestal on banjo, Stephen Burwell on violin, Evan Winsor on upright bass. Harmony vocals come from Donna Ulisse and Mike Rogers, and, of course, Smith herself on lead vocals and spoken word.
Suffice it to say, this is a most meaningful and emotionally impactful set of songs, one that spares no detail when relating Maggie’s most difficult and challenging life story. Warm My Feet and Dry, What A Shame For A Girl Like Me, and When You Ain’t Got Nothin’ may seem like unlikely titles for songs intended for a wider audience, but they provide added impact.
“No love nor rest, this farmer’s child,” Smith sings at one point. “When does this life become a rose… There must be more for me than this strife. Or is this my place in life.”
Those somber sentiments pervade the album overall, but given the tender trappings provided by those involved, the result is a moving and meaningful collection that can’t help but sympathize with the harsh existence Smith’s grandmother was forced to endure. When Maggie herself asks at one point, “Where were you, God, the day that I was born? You left me here alone in this place I call home,” the emotion is all but overwhelming.
