Standup comedian Robert Klein used to do a short routine about US President James A. Garfield. Every reference to Garfield (1831-81), said Klein, said exactly the same thing about him. Apparently Garfield never actually did anything else; consequently, they all said: Shot by a disappointed office seeker. “George Washington: Father of our country. Abraham Lincoln: the Civil War. James A. Garfield: shot by a disappointed office seeker.”

The present artist is something like that, in one respect: pretty much every interview with or feature about her includes this information somewhere in the first paragraph.To wit: Aoife O’Donovan‘s first name is pronounced EE-fuh. (I’m not saying it’s required, but I’m damned if I’ll be the first to break the chain.)

O’Donovan has had a successful career already, as a member of “neo-bluegrass” band Crooked Still and the “folk noir” trio Sometymes Why. Her first solo album, Fossils, debuted last week. I’d previewed several of the songs already, at one site or another, and I gotta say: love at first hearing — even without being able to parse out all the lyrics. (And the album’s so new that the lyrics haven’t started to be posted anywhere online, it seems.)

Fossils has gotten so many rave reviews one might be inclined to conspiracy-and-collusion theories… but yes, I think it’s really that good, and I’m just a tiny caboose at the tail end of a loooong train of praise.

Here she is in a live performance of one of the songs on the album, “Red & White & Blue & Gold.”

[Lyrics to come]

…and here is “Beekeeper,” from the album:

[Lyrics to come]

O’Donovan will join Garrison Keillor and company this summer on his “Radio Romance” national tour. Live performance tickets are not something The Missus and I normally spring for, and Keillor almost never ventures this far south anyhow. But I’d have to fight temptation not to see her in concert.