Amanda Cunningham: Run
Oklahoma native, Amanda Cunningham, attended Oklahoma State University on a vocal scholarship and even though she did, she wasn’t absolutely sure she should pursue a career in the music industry. She studied business marketing and at the time had never attempted to play guitar. It wasn’t until she developed an interest in another performer in town that she decided to teach herself how to play. She hoped that performing would increase her chances of getting him to spend time with her. Even though that strategy didn’t exactly pan out the way she planned, it did help her recognize that she wanted to pursue a career in music and performing live was something she really enjoyed.
Photo By Adam Ray
Early in her career she spent time in the Austin music scene honing her craft: playing live, creating albums and learning the ways of the industry. After some time, she returned home to Oklahoma where she says life continued to provide her experiences to ponder over, write about and ultimately put into song. Cunningham says, “I think a lot of people in the music circle in Oklahoma have heard of me. I’ve been doing this for a long time, but no one really knows me as a person or has heard much of my music.” She’d like to change that, and says her new album, Run, released earlier this year, is her means to do just that!
Run is chock-full of songs that tell her story and connect to emotions that are a part of them. The album’s title song, “Run,” brazenly walks us through a lifetime that has obviously been scarred by heartbreak and sorrow. Hell, even the guitar melody sounds as though its heart is broken. Cunningham grabs at the ache felt while nursing a broken heart and affects her vocals to embody how incredibly agonizing heartbreak can be. “Run” considers that escaping it all is the end result. With its unhurried cadence and well-matched acoustic guitar chords, “Run” satisfies itself as an achingly impeccable portrayal of despair.
Cunningham’s album opens to a pair of guitars whose strumming chords are resonant of a very Austin/South Texas sound; lyrics indicative of the tales at the heart of country music and its tumultuous relationships. Her striking vocals pair effortlessly next to a modern-day interpretation evocative of the jalisciense music from days gone. Albeit, the guitar melody should be the star of the show, its overtone mirrors the haunting loveliness established between the vocals and instrumentals. The uncomplicated lyrics of “Catch Me If You Can” create an entirely interpretive experience that leads listeners to their own understanding.
“Nobody’s Perfect,” the album’s next to last song, steals the show and within it, it’s easy to see why Cunningham was awarded Oklahoma City Gazette’s Woody Award for the Best Singer Songwriter and Red Dirt Female Vocalist of the Year. Singing again to life’s heartaches and battles, Amanda captures the longing and burden on our soul that comes from the sorrow and anguish of love lost. And again, it’s the heartbroken guitar riffs accompanied by Cunningham’s seamless elocution of her lyrics as they flow atop the sounds of a sobbing fiddle, compile themselves into a piece of art that I have to believe is the goal of most singer songwriters: to have the folks listening to the parts and pieces of their soul, feel the emotions as intensely as they do.
Amanda, having been familiar to the country music industry for a while, says that she knew she was ultimately at a time in her life that brought her to compiling Run. A late bloomer all her days, she says that she’s always possessed the physical voice to do what’s expected in the industry, but that she took longer to find her inner voice and the sound she wanted to accompany it. This album is the culmination. She’s “broken-up” with music on a couple of occasions, but can never seem to fully escape its grip. She says that after releasing her first album, Gypsy’s Daughter, right after graduating from college and releasing another in Austin not long after her move there, she knew it was time for Run. Amanda is hoping to strengthen the female presence in the industry with each album she releases. Cunningham says, for that matter, she looks forward to the day when musicians are considered just that, musicians; not recognized by gender, genre, age or competition. She told me music should be about the music, what draws its fans in, what keeps them there and being supportive to that process.
You can find Run on all steaming platforms and Amanda on Facebook at facebook.com/amandacunninghammusicgirl/
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