This celebration features Amy Rigby's GIRL TO COUNTRY Book Launch. Rigby will read from her new book, perform her music and answer questions

Amy Rigby Girl to Country

Broken-down vehicles. Premenopausal libido. A punk-rock-loving teen to share the culture shock with. I don't think Hank done it this way.

Amy Rigby's second memoir Girl to Country picks up a few years after her 1996 breakthrough album Diary of a Mod Housewife. Closing in on forty, newly divorced, and juggling temp jobs, touring, and a barely-running car, she's still figuring out who she is. Rigby trades her beloved New York for Nashville, navigating music, men, and motherhood to learn that outside validation is no substitute for self-belief.

Following her acclaimed debut Girl to City — Amy fumbling her way to becoming an artist in late-twentieth-century NYC — Girl to Country is the trickier second act: how you keep doing the work you love into your forties and beyond, in a game everyone said was only for the young. What's the price of juggling parenthood with your own ambitions? Does love knock you off balance, or keep you going? From one of America's enduring underground artists, it's a touching, clear-eyed journey full of unexpected detours.

For this performance at the American Library in Norwich, Rigby brings the book to life with readings woven with songs from across her catalogue — the story and the soundtrack, told together.

Amy Rigby Artist Bio

Amy Rigby tackles themes often associated with country and folk music — getting by; getting older — from an ardent rock music fan's perspective. Raised in Pittsburgh, schooled in late-'70s lower Manhattan, she formed pre-Americana country band Last Roundup and Richard Hell's favorite girl group the Shams in NYC's East Village before launching a solo career with 90s classic album Diary of a Mod Housewife. Her honest, kinetic songwriting has earned her praise from critics ("pithy wisdom, acerbic pen and sterling American guitar classicism" — MOJO) and fellow artists: "Think Randy Newman and Loudon Wainwright, at their best," says Steve Earle. She tours regularly in the US, UK, and Europe.

Reviews for Girl to Country

"Amy Rigby's unfiltered self-portrait is a testament to friendship, the power of songs, the corrosive effects of bad boyfriends and the possibility of finding true love in middle age... a book about the sacrifices that come with chasing your dreams." — Jim Wirth, MOJO

"A rocking, rolling journey from new-wave New York, through Nashville, on to England... moving and very funny." — Nick Dalton, Record Collector

"Closer to Viv Albertine's Clothes, Music, Boys in its portrayal of the quotidian business of being a working musician and a mother in middle age... Happily, Rigby keeps on choogling." — Alastair McKay, UNCUT

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