News Articles about Mary's Music
Singer-songwriter
thrives on tunes that touch people
By Andy Smith, Journal-Bulletin Pop Music Writer
Music with a
police beat
By Jonathan Saltzman, Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer
Best
Local - Straight from the heart
By Bob Gulla, The Providence Phoenix
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Singer-songwriter thrives on tunes that touch people
by Andy Smith, Journal-Bulletin Pop Music Writer
Performer: Mary Day.
What she plays: Day calls it "acoustic pop," with elements of country, blues and folk. Her influences include Karen Carpenter and, particularly, Mary Chapin Carpenter.
"I write my best songs when I'm most depressed," Day said. "It's hard to write a happy song ... but when you're depressed, they come right out."
That doesn't mean that all Day's songs are sad. Her new CD includes love songs such as Open Fields and a bit of humor called I'm Losing Weight (You're Packing It On). But there are also a tune about domestic abuse (Silent Cry) and two moving songs about her mother, Tell You Something and You Cut, I Bleed.
"I like writing songs that can touch people, that reach in and catch them," Day said. Never Meant to Be was written for her sister, who had just broken up with a boyfriend. "I meant to cheer her up, but she ended up crying her eyes out."
Day job: Day is a detective sergeant with the Providence police, working in the Youth Service Bureau. She wrote a song called St. Michael By Your Side in memory of Sgt. Steven Shaw, who was killed in the line of duty in 1994. "I love to play my music, and I love being a police officer," Day said, "so I have the best of both worlds."
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Music with a police beat
by Jonathan Saltzman, Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE - As a patrol sergeant in the city's North End, Mary Day learned plenty about what happens when love goes bad.
Virtually every night during her three years there, she says, she or one of her subordinates would investigate a complaint of domestic assault. Often, they would find a woman who had endured repeated threats and beatings because she felt fearful, worthless or trapped.
Some officers respond to such incidents by developing a hard shell; Day molded her experience into art.
A singer-songwriter in the tradition of Mary Chapin-Carpenter, she addresses domestic violence in "Silent Cry," one of a dozen songs on an album she recently wrote and recorded for $5,000 from her own pocket.
She sings:
Now she's got bruises on her body
She's got abuse on her mind
She's weakened by the strength of a man
Time after Time
Never knowing who she is
She'll walk with her head down in silence
She's just another victim of
Domestic violence
"You like to look at relationships as a love thing, not a hate thing," Day explained in a recent interview at police headquarters in La Salle Square. "But a lot of those things turn to hate."
As far back as she can recall, Day, 36, has loved to sing. She wrote and sang a tune, "Graduation Day," at her commencement from Cranston East High School in 1978. It got a standing ovation.
Since she joined the Police Department almost 12 years ago, Day has continued to write and sing. Almost every weekend, she totes her six-string guitar to a club or coffee house in Rhode Island, Massachusetts or Connecticut to perform.
Day speaks with a deep rasp, but her singing voice is smooth and honey-rich, and invites comparisons to those of Anne Murray or Karen Carpenter. She performs a genre she calls "acoustic pop" and usually plays with a percussionist, Bobby "Bongo Bob" Robillard, a Coventry social worker.
Their repertoire includes songs by artists such as Alanis Morrissette and James Taylor as well as selections from Day's own body of work
"At some clubs, you'll see everybody singing one of my songs," she says. "That's the best feeling in the world."
Audiences are often surprised to learn that Day is a policewoman, she says. When they do, they sometimes approach her between songs to ask advice, such as how they should handle a dispute with a neighbor,
Day, who has worked in the Patrol Bureau, Community Policing Unit and for the last four months as a detective sergeant in the Youth Services Bureau, says her job has provided her with a rich vein of songwriting material.
In "Childhood Memories," for example, she writes about a man who swore he'd never become an alcoholic like his father, but ends up guzzling beer all day long, destroying a relationship.
The inspiration for the song came in part from cases of alcohol related violence she has investigated. Day says that children who witness the violence sometimes tell her that they don't want to become like their parents.
Unfortunately, she says, "Years down the road, you'll grab them in a drunk situation."
One of the most moving songs she ever wrote was inspired by the slaying of Sgt. Steven Shaw, who was shot while searching for a robbery suspect in a house in 1994. He was the first city police officer killed in the line of duty in more than 65 years.
Day, who had known Shaw for years because his father was her softball coach when she was a teenager, said she was devastated. But as with other events in her life, personal and professional, she transformed it into music. It took her only 10 minutes to write the song "St. Michael (By Your Side)" the day after the shooting, she says. The song refers to the patron saint for police officers, an image of which Day wears on a necklace.
"Writing it was a release for me," says Day, who elicited tears from many hard-bitten police officers when she sang the song at Shaw's funeral.
Day has sung at happier police functions, including several graduations of the city Police Academy and the annual five kilometer road race held in Shaw's memory.
"She's got a tremendous voice," says Capt. John Ryan, a police spokesman, who added that the song she sang at Shaw's funeral "tore at the heartstrings of the Police Department."
Ryan says Day's sensitivity is equally apparent in her work as a detective, where she displays a mixture of aggressiveness and compassion. She works days and nights and investigates crimes involving people 17 years old and younger.
A couple of months ago, Day went to a Providence studio with several musician friends and produced Open Fields, an album of original music. She has been selling the compact disc for $15 and the cassette for $10 around police headquarters and at her performances.
Day, who is single, admits to occasionally fantasizing that her talent will propel her to fame. "There's always that little hope that somebody will hear (the music) and really like it and push me to the limits," she says. But, she says, she loves police work and would be content if music remains mostly a hobby.
"I'm very happy with my life right now. I've got the best of both worlds. I look forward to going to work, and I can play on the side at my convenience. I just love to do it. It's in my heart."
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Best Local - Straight from the heart
by Bob Gulla, The Providence Phoenix
It's not that Mary Day wanted to capitalize on adversity. It's just that she wrote a good song. The Providence police officer sang a brand new song at the funeral of her close friend Sergeant Steve Shaw a short time ago, a song that she wrote expressly for that occasion, and all of a sudden things started happening.
"Inside I had to get something out, " says Day, also a sergeant. "Television broadcast the funeral, people saw it and a lot of them wanted the tape. It's a good fund-raising thing."
Mary, Fred (Miller, bass) and Terry (Wood, keyboards) started as a five-piece band nine years ago doing covers of Heart and Bon Jovi.
"Fred, Terry and I have been together since our days in the police academy," explains Day in a throaty voice. "As a rock band there were just too many guitar players and I was losing my voice doing all these songs that were out of my range."
The trio decided to pare down five years ago to concentrate on acoustic covers - Harry Chapin, Carole King - before they started throwing some of their own material into the set. Day's song, "Second Wind," a pretty acoustic number with fine vocal harmony, also won Best Local Song.
"I was watching two friends of mine who spent a lot of time together slowly drifting away from each other. I could see it, but I couldn't do anything about it. So I wrote the song."
With Miller and Day full-time police officers, there's not much time for publicity. That's one reason why you haven't heard much about them, until now.
"We did the 'Second Wind' tape last summer and released it without much fanfare. Because we're so busy, we don't get to promote our shows.
"When the Steve Shaw song came out my name got around. I'm just sorry it had to happen that way."
- Bob Gulla
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