Helen Cavallo
The first time Madison Malone performed at Baraboo’s Al. Ringling Theatre, the Portage native was in fourth grade, dressed in a sequined cheerleader’s outfit and dancing to Toni Basil’s song “Mickey.” Both the performer and the venue have come a long way since then.
The theater, built in 1915, has been beautifully restored, reopening in 2016. Malone, now 26, became a fixture in Madison’s music scene before moving to Los Angeles in 2016 and launching what many aspiring performers consider an already enviable career.
Malone once again takes the Ringling stage on Feb. 29 for the Midwestern release
performance of her new EP, I&II. She will have support from openers Shawndell Marks and Teddy Davenport. The recording, with two different versions each of five new songs, has already been released in Los Angeles, and the Baraboo date will be followed by similar performances in Nashville and New York City.
Malone was born in Madison but raised in Portage, and began her music career singing in the Blarney Stone, her uncle Kevin Malone’s Portage bar, for $50 a night, plus tips and free pizza. After high school, she enrolled at UW-Madison to pursue a double major in Spanish and social work. Before long she was gigging four to six nights a week. By senior year, her parents suggested she postpone her education to pursue her dream, and Malone has been writing and performing music ever since.
The move to Los Angeles was eye-opening in many respects, says Malone. “In Madison, I found creative people after looking a bit, but in L.A. they are everywhere. I have to be on my game that much more because you never know who you’ll run into,” says Malone. “It’s a place where everyone is unapologetically themselves, and I learn something new every day just by showing up.”
Her new EP is introspective and revealing, the product of six months spent alone in a ski cabin of a producer-friend outside of Montreal. The five cuts on “I” are stripped-down bare-bones autobiographical contemplations on love and life, while the cuts on “II” are the same songs rearranged and fully produced for Malone’s band.
“When I sing songs like ‘Fragile Heart,’ ‘Treehouse’ and ‘Simple Love,’ I try to tell the human story in ways specific to me,” Malone says. “The music stays in the pop-alternative vibe and paints a lyrical pictures to which I hope everyone can relate.”