Mollie O’Brien
Mollie O'Brien (born October 25, 1952) is a singer from Wheeling, West Virginia, who performs folk, bluegrass, blues, and R&B. She was the second youngest of five children, and in high school she sang Peter, Paul, and Mary songs at folk coffeehouses with her brother Tim O'Brien. She left college after her sophomore year and spent four years in New York trying to break into Broadway. After two years back in Wheeling, she moved to Colorado in 1980. In 1981 she met guitarist Rich Moore at the Denver Folklore Center. They married in 1983 and formed the R&B band the Late Show, and they had two daughters. She released her debut solo album, I Never Move Too Soon, in 1987. With her brother Tim she recorded Take Me Back (1988), Remember Me (1992), and Away Out on the Mountain (1994) before the siblings went their separate ways in 1996. She sang with the Mother Folkers on their 1989 live album, and in 1990 and 1991 Denver's Westword named her band Mollie O'Brien and the Blue Tips the city's best blues band. She sang on True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe (1996), which won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. She was a regular guest on A Prairie Home Companion, where she sang with the Hopeful Gospel Quartet, and she has appeared twelve times on Mountain Stage. She and Moore began performing as a duo in 2006, after their daughters finished high school. They recorded Daughters (2015) with their daughters, and Reincarnation: The Songs of Roger Miller (2012) with Tim O'Brien's family as O'Brien Party of 7. She was inducted into the Wheeling Hall of Fame in 2017.