Biography
A singer/songwriter whose material draws on emotionally layered and widely relatable reflections concerning love, relationships, parenthood, and the realities of a musician’s existence, Amy Rigby shapes a style that blends folk and country inflections with direct, melody-driven rock & roll. More than fifteen years of stage experience alongside outfits such as Last Roundup and the Shams preceded the arrival of her introspective and compelling first solo release, Diary of a Mod Housewife, whose 1996 appearance generated considerable attention within music journalism. Following that breakthrough, other artists including Ronnie Spector, They Might Be Giants, and Laura Cantrell began interpreting her compositions. Rigby’s own stage presence, which combined quiet resilience and wry humor with understated fragility, retained its impact on Little Fugitive in 2005, while her partnership with fellow songwriter Wreckless Eric yielded productive joint recordings such as the 2012 album A Working Museum. In support of her published memoirs during 2019 she put out A One Way Ticket to My Life, a set that brought forward privately taped cassette demos from her formative period, and in 2024 she delivered the forthright and perceptive Hang in There with Me.
Born Amelia McMahon on January 27, 1959, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Rigby absorbed an early soundtrack of British Invasion singles and classic AM pop, an era she later honored in the song “Dancing with Joey Ramone.” She arrived in New York City in 1976 to enroll at the Parsons School of Design; while staying in New York University dormitories, because Parsons lacked its own housing, she learned of the emerging music community then developing in the city. Before long she became a regular at CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, and by 1979 she had transitioned from audience member to participant, drumming in the no wave band Stare Kits alongside vocalist Angela Jaeger, previously associated with the British avant-funk group Pigbag. Rigby met and married Will Rigby, drummer for the North Carolina-to-New York pop band the dB’s, and he would oversee demo sessions for her group Last Roundup, a cowpunk ensemble that issued the 1987 Rounder Records album Twister. Following Last Roundup’s dissolution, Rigby teamed with Sue Garner and Amanda Uprichard to create the Shams, a refined folk-rock trio whose Matador Records album Quilt appeared in 1991 and whose EP Sedusia followed in 1993. Rigby has remarked that the Shams may have been the sole act to share bills with both Urge Overkill and the Indigo Girls throughout their career.
While touring with the Shams, Rigby offered cassettes of her solo work at merchandise stands, and after the band and her marriage both ended she began performing as a solo artist. Her debut, Diary of a Mod Housewife, produced in 1996 by Will Holder of the dB’s and Elliot Easton of the Cars and released on independent Koch Records, achieved widespread critical acclaim and finished eighth in the Village Voice’s yearly Pazz & Jop Poll for outstanding albums. The record cultivated a devoted audience for Rigby, and her next LP, Middlescence, likewise produced by Easton, appeared in 1998. In 1999 she moved to Nashville after securing a publishing agreement; her third solo album, The Sugar Tree, was tracked there under Brad Wood’s production. That release concluded her association with Koch, prompting a shift to the singer/songwriter-oriented Signature Sounds label for her fourth album, Til the Wheels Fall Off, issued in 2003 and recorded across Nashville, New York City, and East Kilbride, Scotland. While that project was underway, Koch assembled and issued the 2002 anthology 18 Again, which drew from her three prior label albums and added two previously unreleased tracks. She returned to New York City to make Little Fugitive in 2005, which featured “Dancing with Joey Ramone,” a track that became a frequent selection on Little Steven’s syndicated Underground Garage program.
Rigby had long admired Wreckless Eric’s song “The Whole Wide World” and regularly included it in her live sets. During a British tour stop at a Hull venue she found Eric Goulden, known as Wreckless Eric, performing a DJ set upstairs and asked him to accompany her on the number. He accepted, and the pair connected immediately. They began dating in 2006 and married in 2008. Relocating to France, they recorded the duo album Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby, issued in 2008 on the reactivated Stiff Records, the imprint that had released Goulden’s best-known 1970s material. The couple performed extensively together, and a second collaborative effort, the covers collection Two-Way Family Favourites, appeared in 2010 on Goulden’s Southern Domestic imprint. A set of original material, A Working Museum, followed in 2018. After several years occupied with touring and relocating from France to Hudson, New York, Rigby completed the solo album The Old Guys in 2018, produced and engineered by Goulden. The next year she released her autobiography Girl to City: A Memoir, and alongside the book she issued A One Way Ticket to My Life, compiling home-recorded demos made between 1987 and 1997. In 2024 the Goulden-produced Hang in There with Me emerged, a confident collection addressing aging, mortality, and the turbulent cultural climate of the preceding five years.
Born Amelia McMahon on January 27, 1959, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Rigby absorbed an early soundtrack of British Invasion singles and classic AM pop, an era she later honored in the song “Dancing with Joey Ramone.” She arrived in New York City in 1976 to enroll at the Parsons School of Design; while staying in New York University dormitories, because Parsons lacked its own housing, she learned of the emerging music community then developing in the city. Before long she became a regular at CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, and by 1979 she had transitioned from audience member to participant, drumming in the no wave band Stare Kits alongside vocalist Angela Jaeger, previously associated with the British avant-funk group Pigbag. Rigby met and married Will Rigby, drummer for the North Carolina-to-New York pop band the dB’s, and he would oversee demo sessions for her group Last Roundup, a cowpunk ensemble that issued the 1987 Rounder Records album Twister. Following Last Roundup’s dissolution, Rigby teamed with Sue Garner and Amanda Uprichard to create the Shams, a refined folk-rock trio whose Matador Records album Quilt appeared in 1991 and whose EP Sedusia followed in 1993. Rigby has remarked that the Shams may have been the sole act to share bills with both Urge Overkill and the Indigo Girls throughout their career.
While touring with the Shams, Rigby offered cassettes of her solo work at merchandise stands, and after the band and her marriage both ended she began performing as a solo artist. Her debut, Diary of a Mod Housewife, produced in 1996 by Will Holder of the dB’s and Elliot Easton of the Cars and released on independent Koch Records, achieved widespread critical acclaim and finished eighth in the Village Voice’s yearly Pazz & Jop Poll for outstanding albums. The record cultivated a devoted audience for Rigby, and her next LP, Middlescence, likewise produced by Easton, appeared in 1998. In 1999 she moved to Nashville after securing a publishing agreement; her third solo album, The Sugar Tree, was tracked there under Brad Wood’s production. That release concluded her association with Koch, prompting a shift to the singer/songwriter-oriented Signature Sounds label for her fourth album, Til the Wheels Fall Off, issued in 2003 and recorded across Nashville, New York City, and East Kilbride, Scotland. While that project was underway, Koch assembled and issued the 2002 anthology 18 Again, which drew from her three prior label albums and added two previously unreleased tracks. She returned to New York City to make Little Fugitive in 2005, which featured “Dancing with Joey Ramone,” a track that became a frequent selection on Little Steven’s syndicated Underground Garage program.
Rigby had long admired Wreckless Eric’s song “The Whole Wide World” and regularly included it in her live sets. During a British tour stop at a Hull venue she found Eric Goulden, known as Wreckless Eric, performing a DJ set upstairs and asked him to accompany her on the number. He accepted, and the pair connected immediately. They began dating in 2006 and married in 2008. Relocating to France, they recorded the duo album Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby, issued in 2008 on the reactivated Stiff Records, the imprint that had released Goulden’s best-known 1970s material. The couple performed extensively together, and a second collaborative effort, the covers collection Two-Way Family Favourites, appeared in 2010 on Goulden’s Southern Domestic imprint. A set of original material, A Working Museum, followed in 2018. After several years occupied with touring and relocating from France to Hudson, New York, Rigby completed the solo album The Old Guys in 2018, produced and engineered by Goulden. The next year she released her autobiography Girl to City: A Memoir, and alongside the book she issued A One Way Ticket to My Life, compiling home-recorded demos made between 1987 and 1997. In 2024 the Goulden-produced Hang in There with Me emerged, a confident collection addressing aging, mortality, and the turbulent cultural climate of the preceding five years.
Albums
Hang in There with Me
2024
Teflon Wok/Bobblehead Doll
2009
Wreckless Eric And Amy Rigby
2008
Little Fugitive
2005
Til The Wheels Fall Off
2003
18 Again - An Anthology
2002
Singles
