Marty O'Reilly

americana · folk · blues

Marty O'Reilly is an American singer, guitarist and songwriter who leads Marty O'Reilly & the Old Soul Orchestra, an acoustic folk and blues group based in Santa Cruz, California. He performs both solo and with the full band, drawing on Americana, blues and gospel traditions and naming Woody Guthrie, Howlin' Wolf, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Tom Waits among his reference points; his singing is rough-edged and his guitar playing sits close to country blues. The recorded catalogue begins with a self-titled album in 2013, followed by Pray for Rain in 2014, the EP Preach 'em Now! in 2015, Stereoscope in 2018 and Signal Fires in 2021, with the more recent The Rhinefarm issued on vinyl through his own store. He has stayed independent throughout, self-funding records and working through sustained touring rather than label support. O'Reilly has played SXSW, BottleRock and the High Sierra Music Festival, and has shared stages with Shakey Graves, St. Paul & The Broken Bones and Sarah Jarosz. His songs deal with isolation, attachment and grief, and live sets shift between quiet solo passages and louder full-band stretches.

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