Mary Hoffman page for CT

Something about Mary

Mary began her transition from a tone-deaf teenager to a singer/songwriter in 1996. Her mom brought home an old, beaten-up guitar from a pawn shop and thought, “someone will get some use out of it.” It sat for almost a year when one night, Mary picked it up and started trying to play. Mary fiddled around with it everyday more and more, then she begged her dad for a better guitar. For Christmas, he took her down to the local music store and bought a black and white, electric guitar and a little amp. To some, it wasn’t the greatest guitar on earth, but to Mary it was everything. She played everyday (well just about) and took lessons for about six months. When she learned the basics, she quit the lessons and started teaching herself.

When Jewel came out with “You were meant for me,” Mary was obsessed with the song. She practiced it, and nothing else, for 6 months. She sang it at a High School talent show and became known as the “Jewel girl.” A year later, Mary sang one of her originals at the talent show. One of her friends wanted a copy of it, so she started recording her first CD, "Sometime Soon" during her senior year. It took three months of recording in her closet and she finished it right before she graduated high school. Mary finished her second 'make shift' album "Better than U" a few years later and it turned out pretty well considering Mary played all of the instruments on it (You'd be amazed what you can do with an Alesis keyboard and a drum machine!) If you really want 'old school' Mary Hoffman, there may be a few copies of it still left on www.cdbaby.com.

The new CD came into play when Mary ran into Ric Campbell at an open mic night and he said he wanted to completely redo the album with a full band. How could Mary refuse? It took about two years to get it done, but it was well worth the wait! Before it was even done, it was being played on the radio! (97.3FM now 94.1FM Phoenix).

Recently, Mary has been in the top ten of the Arizona Idol competition, on Fox 10 and Good Morning Arizona, was one of the fifty finalists in the Pantene Pro-voice competition, and was the Arizona State University Idol for 2004.