Don't Give Up (feat. Frank Mastro)

Maura McKinney Mastro shows that the heart is where hope lives and opens the floodgate in her latest CD release, “ Shamrocks to Stripes.” A catchy collection of her own compositions plus old standards – “Danny Boy” and “Star Spangled Banner” – with captivating vocal accent on familiar lyrics not heard until now.
They are songs of faith and family, patriotism and passion.
This fourth CD release by Clady Records {produced by Doug Deforest} since the phenomenal debut of “Irish Roots” in 2000, is a montage of music that plays to the strength and charm of Maura’s lilting and far-ranging vocal talent and her intimate knowledge of what makes a heart tick.
There is a country flavor in “Everything Changed,” “My Letters Home,” “Nashville,” and “Flowers On Your Grave,” but it is a “country” probe into the melancholy depths of sadness that doesn’t leave you laying there in a pool of self-pity. Maura brings you out on the bright other side.
Before recording this collection, many of these songs were debuted before audiences in Nashville and Europe. After one of her performances, a man from the audience approached her and said, “Maura, you sing with a beautiful courage of the medium…you aren’t afraid to go anywhere vocally.”
Songs from her last CD, “So Good,” played high on the European charts and earned her two Radio Mike Awards as well as a plaque for an Indie music nomination in Nashville. That CD prompted Paul Davis of Country Music Round Up magazine to write in the magazine’s European edition; “This innovation is for me; catchy tracks that feature a quality self-penned repertoire from the art of a rising star. Not dutifully produced, and in most cases not telling some sort of cheating, heart-tugging ‘love-lost’ tale but positive uplifting lyrics with a bounce-and-beat or a pleasing crooning sentimentality. As a subspecies, this album is relatively atypical and therefore should be sought out by the country devotee.”
Maura says her songs in this CD are “dedicated to the lover, dreamer,
prayer bearer and hero in each one of us.” Her’s is a voice that exudes the kind of energy and optimism that makes the listener feel that dedication in a personal way.
In “Still Gonna Get There,” Maura sings the line, “I’ve been there too.”
With these songs you will be there too.

Jim Nicholson, former Columnist, Philadelphia Daily News;
Retired Reserve Lieutenant Colonel, Army Intelligence &
Federal counter terrorism task Force Analyst.

NOTE:
In 2007 , Maura was listed at #9 as a Country Comer in the Music City Entertainer for reaction to her song, "Draw A Line In The Sand" (from her "So Good" CD). This past summer she performed her song, "Look For The Angels" (also from "So Good") and "The Star Spangled Banner" (from "Shamrocks To Stripes") on local Nashville television.