MBird is singer/songwriter Megan Birdsall, a gifted musician who was born in Motown, grew up in the home of jump jazz, and lives part time in Music City. Her haunting melodies and evocative lyrics rest on a bed of traditional country instruments playing anything but traditional country. Influenced by a diverse array of writers such as Neil Young, Johnny Cash, Will Oldham and Joni Mitchell, M Bird has fashioned a sound uniquely her own.
Megan learned guitar, piano and violin at a very young age, and went on to study as a vocalist at the Boston Conservatory of Music. While there, she was recruited by a Broadway production company, which took her to New York, as well as a major record label, which found her working in L.A. Megan then decided to focus on the sound of her home, Kansas City Jazz. In this venue, she took the jazz community by storm, receiving numerous accolades and having her second album, “Little Jazz Bird,” chart in the top ten on the CMJ charts. As a jazz singer, Megan has worked with such national luminaries as Mike Melvoin, Bobby Watson, Russ Long, Paul Smith, and Bob Bowman. Her sound has been called “warm chocolate with honey overtones” (KC Star) and she has been graciously compared to some of the great singers of the genre.
In 2008, Megan began recovery from a surgery to correct a rare degenerative jaw disorder that was fusing her jaw onto her skull and closing off her windpipe. Without the KC jazz community to help rally support and money for the surgery to replace her jaw bone and joints, she would have lost not only her voice, but her life.
While in recovery, Megan once again picked up a guitar and began writing. As a writer, and solo artist, MBird, along with co-producer Jack Sundrud (of Poco and Great Plains) began crafting “Over the Bones,” a simple, and risky, beautifully dark collection of songs that manages to uplift and challenge the listener. “Over the Bones” features some of M Bird’s favorite players, who have worked with such diverse musicians as Robert Plant, the Dixie Chicks, Vince Gill, Harry Connick Jr., ?uestlove, and Alison Krauss. The KC jump jazz rhythm section and the Nashville mandolin, fiddle and slide players truly make this record a bridge over the middle of our country, and a bridge “Over the Bones.”
