The world is full of singer-songwriters who do great work and often do not get the kind of popular visibility afforded the limited number of superstars, in the increasingly hierarchical commercial music world, where there are the stars who achieve their fame not necessarily through talent but through a nexus of media attention.

This week we have one of those artists who made something of a name for herself, though perhaps is chiefly known among other performers. It’s Maia Sharp, whose new tenth album is called Tomboy.

Maia Sharp grew up in a musical family. Her father is Randy Sharp, a Grammy-winning songwriter, whose compositions have been recorded by Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and others. Maia Sharp grew up in the Los Angeles area, but lately has been based in Nashville. In addition to being a performing-songwriter, she has followed in her father’s footsteps, and has written songs for the likes of Trisha Yearwood, Bonnie Raitt, with whom she has toured, Taj Mahal, Cher and Art Garfunkel, while releasing a series of solo albums. She is also involved with a project called Songwriting with Solders, who pair experienced songwriters with soldiers to put their experiences and feelings into songs.

On Tomboy, recorded mainly in her own home studio, Ms Sharp says that she altered her way of working. Previously, she liked to gather all the musicians in the studio and work out and rehearse the songs. On the new album, she decided to work by herself, playing many of the instruments, and then bring in the others. She says that she found herself writing tunes based on rhythmic lines and grooves. Then for many of the tunes, she brought in percussionist Eric Darden and encouraged him to avoid a standard drum set sound, so he creates some interesting percussive colors. The album also features a number of guest vocalists, some of whom were co-writers with Ms Sharp.

A couple of albums back, in 2021 on Mercy Rising Ms. Sharp says she was getting over the breakup of her marriage. The new album, she says, comes from a period of “unexpected contentment” appreciating her friendships in Nashville, and being single again.

Opening the album is one of those tracks with the distinctive percussion approach, the title track Tomboy, co-written with Emily Kopp, which whom she shared a background as a tomboy growing up, and have now come to a place where that can be celebrated. It’s quite appealing and typically astute. <<>>

Introspection is a theme of the lyrics of the several songs. Counterintuition takes the concept into an interesting, and yet appealing song with featuring some of Eric Darken’s distinctive percussion. <<>>

For me one of the highlights of the album is a track called Only Lucky, which is lyrically reminiscent of Joni Mitchell’s Hejiira album in its confessional tone, with a more upbeat setting. <<>>

Another appealing track is Edge of the Weatherline which can conjure Bonnie Raitt in her more contemplative mode, which I suppose is not surprising, being that Maia Sharp has written songs that Ms. Raitt has recorded. <<>>

Ms. Sharp collaborates with a half dozen others on the album who share songwriting credits, and who also appear mostly doing background vocals. Country artist Terri Clark co-wrote and appears on a song called Asking for a Friend. The track shows a little contemporary country influence, with Ms. Sharp’s father Randy Sharp on the steel guitar.. <<>>

Another collaboration comes on the track Better Story co-written and featuring singer-songwriter Matthew Perryman Jones. It continues the lyrical theme of introspection. It’s a nice collaboration. <<>>

The duo Sarah & Shannon -- Sarah Holbrooke and Shannon LaBrie -- are the collaborators on the song called Any Other Way. Despite the three vocalists, the track takes a more intimate sound, with the absence of the percussion. <<>>

The album closes with an unlikely cover song, the U2 classic I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking for, done in vocal duet with veteran singer-songwriter Garrison Starr. It takes the song in a quiet contemplative direction, giving it an interesting spin. <<>>

Tomboy, the new 10^th album by Maia Sharp is a sophisticated yet appealing collection of literate songs with creative arrangements. A number of the compositions are a bit confessional in the manner of Joni Mitchell, and generally take a more upbeat lyrical direction than some of her previous work. Like many Nashville-based songwriters, Ms. Sharp collaborates with others in the writing, and they join in with the vocals. So there is some variety in perspective. After previously collaborating with others in the studio in the recording and arranging process, on this album, Ms. Sharp largely created this album based on tracks she herself recorded in her home studio, with the contributions from others coming later in the process. Still, it comes off as musically organic, and warm.

Our grade for audio quality is an B-plus, with the usual bugaboo of too much volume compression, and vocals are especially compressed and not very sonically clean.

Maia Sharp has proven herself to be an outstanding singer-songwriter in the classic mold going back to Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian or Karla Bonoff. Her new album is one of her best yet.