Amazon.com Maura O'Connell does not want to be called a singer-songwriter--just a singer, thank you. The Irish redhead even once ordered some T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan, "I Just Sing." Few people of any description can sing as well as O'Connell, whose sumptuous mezzo-soprano realizes a fullness of tone in its quiet moments that other singers can only match by wailing. Moreover, O'Connell inhabits each song so thoroughly that she creates the illusion she is singing pages torn from her own diary. Because she's such a special singer and because she poses no competitive threat as a tunesmith herself, O'Connell gets first dibs on new songs by some of the best songwriters in Ireland and North America. Thus she assembles a dozen terrific songs for her 1995 album, Stories, that few songwriters could match by themselves. Writers as diverse as Pennsylvania folkie John Gorka, Texas country artist Hal Ketchum, and Irish folk-rocker Paul Brady have given O'Connell first crack at wonderful songs that have never been recorded before. Stories was produced by Nashville Dobro whiz Jerry Douglas, who uses such pals as Stuart Duncan, Tim O'Brien, Edgar Meyer, and Zane Baxter to provide chamber-like string-band arrangements that are perfect for O'Connell's balladry. One of the few previously recorded numbers on the album is the Beatles' "If I Fell," but the reluctance in O'Connell's vocal captures the fear in John Lennon's lyric as no other version has. --Geoffrey Himes