Jane Voss is searingly honest in showing her heart and tipping her hand. She describes some difficult milestones on her journey down this road and turns a ‘long, slow season’ into art and a tribute to the resilience of the spirit. (Laurie Lewis)
Her songwriting is both literate and vernacular. (Dave Van Ronk)
At the root of it is the ability to write a believable song in a given genre. ... Voss has created here a perfectly believable blues, Mexican canción, Motown number, hillbilly hymn (with shape-note harmonies), and country ballad. (James Goodfriend, Stereo Review Magazine)
Many of Voss’ songs are about the struggle to maintain dignity in the face of discouragement, calm in the face of calamity. ... She aims for accessibility, using straightforward language in surprising ways, to evoke a mesh of emotions. (Demetria Martinez, The Albuquerque Journal)
(She writes) some Great American Songs of (her) own, steeped in the blues/jazz traditions of giving hopeful voice to the common concerns of average people ... . If they hadn't announced (“You're Wrong!”) as an original song, I would have thought it was one of the old greats that I had just never heard before. (Craig Heath, Chico (Calif.) News & Review)
Voss' own compositions ... stand up well next to the standards. ... “I've Been on the Road Too Long” really knocked me out. (Linda Waters, Cotton Patch Rag)
Her creations are lyrically profound and melodically refined. (Mary Hyslop Jones, The Kalamazoo Gazette)
Voss made (“I'm in Debt”) her own hard-driving yet light-hearted statement just as a Tom Waits or a B.B. King might work the lyrics in their own irrepressible way. (David Steinberg, The Albuquerque Journal)
Ms. Voss's own songs are a true delight ... and “Song to a Shrinking Violet” is one of those you wish would never end. (Eamonn O Cathain, “Best for Ages”, In Dublin [Ireland])
Few are untouched by this song (“Keep in Mind That I Love You"). (from Here's to the Women: 100 Songs for and about American Women, H. Wenner & E. Freilicher, eds.; Syracuse University Press, 1987)
