Monday Night Special: Molly B Moon and Riely O’Connor light up the Wild Rose Moon Radio Hour

Starting out the show with an acapella reminiscence from her first performance at the age of six, “King David was a Shepherd Boy,” and following through to her story about her first traumatic coffee house appearance in Buchanan, Michigan, at the age of 17, Molly B Moon unveils her musical past, on the Wild Rose Moon Radio Hour Oct. 4th at 9 p.m. on 88.1 WVPE.   At her side is the remarkable Riely O’Connor, whose “fierce commitment” to songwriting is demonstrated throughout the program.  Picking up the guitar at the age of 40, learning the chords G-C-D and then forming a band of his own, “The Enlargements,” Riely caught Molly’s eye at an Open Mic at the Fiddler’s Hearth, an Irish Pub in South Bend, Indiana.  Together, Riely and Molly perform four songs for the radio program.  The first song, “A Man Like Him,” concerns a love gone wrong, That man still has my broken heart & I still wear his wedding ring, Molly sings, as she lays down a plaintive melody on her mandolin.  Next up, they both play a spirited original dance tune, “Devilish Charlie,” that rings out like it’s been part of the folk pantheon for the last 100 years.  The third song of the evening, “Don’t Feel Sorry for Your Lover,” was developed with Molly’s input, she says, “I made him speed up, it went from a broken-hearted lament to a cynical overview of somebody else’s bad behavior.”  They close out the program with a nuanced piece, “Black-Eyed Susan,” a song about trying to make peace with a family member.  Molly sings, Why don’t you come home . . . we could sit in the garden – we could weed it all out.  Also on the program, Wild Rose Moon regular, Matt Scutchfield, shares a Czech folk song medley on his banjo and the Shoot the Moon game show features two good sports, Judith Robert and Derek Jensen answering esoteric questions keyed to Molly and Riely’s biography.  It’s all done for fun on the Wild Rose Moon Radio Hour—a Home for Humans!