Growing up in rural Alabama, Amy began playing guitar, sounding out chords to the '70s and '80s rock and country her young parents kept on heavy rotation while absorbing the hymnals administered in weekly doses at Southern Baptist church service. In the 5th grade, she formed her first rock band with a couple of classmates and spent hours rehearsing in the attic of her grandparent’s barn. McCarley says “Music is just something that’s always been on my mind. Ever since I can remember I’ve admired the ability to conduct emotion; to convey meaning in that way.”

In her junior year at Rice University Amy answered an ad for “guitarist wanted” in the Houston Chronicle and played her first show weeks later at the Mausoleum, a wine bar in the trendy Montrose district. As she explains “I just fell in love with the excitement of it all; the feeling of connection.” While pursuing a BA in Economics, Amy also studied classical guitar and music theory at Rice’s prestigious Shepherd School of Music. During this time she continued to write lyrically, a compulsion that started in early childhood, and she bought a four track to begin recording her original tunes.

Degree and guitar in hand, Amy returned to Alabama for a full-time employment with a NASA contractor in Huntsville. It was then that she began to pursue music more seriously: writing emphatically, recording demos and playing shows with friends. After nearly a decade of performing locally with the occasional regional outburst, McCarley went on hiatus from Huntsville area stages to dedicate herself more fully to writing, recording, mixing and playing all the instruments on the tracks she put down in her home. The record of her work —a collection of gorgeous ballads interspersed with a smattering of up-tempo emotional rockers— has an intimate, lived-in quality that mastering engineer Jim DeMain was able to preserve while adding the finishing touches in his Nashville Yes Master studio.

Ventures into southern Alabama prior to Amy's self-titled debut release on March 25, 2011 demonstrated a wider appeal of the material as strangers converted to new fans. Then, gaining the interest of local media drawing nearer to the release party, Amy fielded multiple radio and press interviews and gave live in-studio performances before playing to a packed house at the eclectic Flying Monkey Arts Theater in Huntsville.

At the hand of agent Loudon Temple and his affiliates at Brookfield-Knights & Bloody Great PR, the record began to receive considerable attention in Europe following its release abroad in July 2011. With consistent Americana radio play and positive reviews from media indicating strong interest in this initial offering, Amy has plans to tour there in the Spring of 2012.

Within the past year Amy has played popular and influential spots across the Southeast including The Basement's New Faces Night, The Hard Rock Cafe's Familiar Faces series, and the BMI sponsored 8 Off 8th at Mercy Lounge in Nashville; Moonlight on the Mountain in Birmingham; and Eddie's Attic Songwriter's night in Decatur, Georgia. In addition to her plans to tour Europe in Spring 2012, East and West coast dates are also in the works.

Touring band members include legendary Huntsville talents drummer Michael Kilpatrick, upright bassist Eric Onimus and side man Bobby Blount on electric guitar & keyboards. Masters of the trade with years of experience performing jazz, country, gospel, soul and rock —fronting or backing active bands across the Southeast— the ensemble brings added dimensions of color and texture that accentuate elegant melodies and give punch to the country-infused rock tunes rounding out the set list. Together, they complement McCarley's under-stated guitar work and provocative vocal contributions.

Important influences for Amy include Lucinda Williams, Chrissie Hynde, Gillian Welch, Bob Dylan and Steve Forbert. But what echoes most prominently in her music is the distinctly southern inflected ache to communicate hard fought conclusions. As the vast majority of the material details spiritual or moral dilemmas, these inner landscapes —fleshed out with breathtaking clarity— celebrate the commonalities of the human condition through the sound of a woman evolving. In addition to her captivating voice, rich with character and presence, what sets the music of Amy McCarley apart is the strength of her writing and the depth of her passion.