"These girls just wanna have fun" continued:

Adds percussionist and singer Pam Delgado, "We all decided that it didn't really matter what happened - our only goal was to play good music."
Since the Harcourt, Pasqual, Delgado and Jeri Jones formed the band in 2000, they've been enjoying themselves so much, it didn't matter if Blame Sally achieved commercial success by conventional standards. But almost by accident, it started to happen.
Their first CD, "Blame Sally Live," came out in 2001 and became a KFOG favorite. "Whenever we played it, we heard a lot of positive feedback from the community," says KFOG programming director Dave Benson. The track "The Planet Ranch" appeared on last year's "Acoustic Sunrise 10-Year Anniversary" CD with the likes of Paul Simon and Dar Williams.
Their new album, recorded at Harcourt's home studio in Mill Valley, was released in April 2004. The track "Water" became a highlight on KFOG's World Class Rock compilation CD, "Local Scene," which raises money for the nonprofit organization Music and Schools Today.
"When we were putting together the local-bands-only CD, they made the final cut out of hundreds of possibilities," Benson says. "They just kept rising to the top of the pile because of their quality sound."
That exposure gave the band the boost it needed. "We've sold a few thousand CDs just off our Web site and at gigs. We also have downloads on iTunes and other sites," says Pasqual, who does soundtrack work for a documentary film company.
After KFOG started playing the live CD, bookings picked up and now Blame Sally does up to six shows a month. A favorite gig is the in-home concert they donate to the annual fund-raising auction at Marin Horizon School, where Harcourt's daughter is a student.
Without the intense pressure of making money, Blame Sally's live shows are kicked-back affairs with plenty of audience interaction. "A big part of what distinguishes our band is that we're so connected to the people and each other," Pasqual says.
On-stage banter creates an intimate environment, and the musicians feed off the audience's pleasure. The band members say their synergy is one of their major strengths.
"You're always close to people you play music with, because it's such an intimate experience," says Harcourt, a graphic designer for a Sausalito firm, "but this group is really different. I think the audience picks up on the 'love fest' we have going. It may be part of our appeal."
The other part of that appeal is, of course, their music. The four women draw from disparate American roots of soul, blue grass, country, funk and classical piano, while infusing their sound with a quirky modern edge.
The band's beginning dates back to 1990, when Harcourt moved to Sausalito from Los Angeles and met Pasqual at the Napa Valley Folk Festival Emerging Songwriter's Contest.
"I won that contest, but Monica proceeded to win just about every other songwriting contest we entered," Harcourt says. "We joke about how we've been in competition ever since - until Blame Sally of course."
In the mid-'90s, Harcourt's band, Ruby's Tattoo, occasionally shared bills with Monica Pasqual and the Planet Ranch (of which Jones and Delgado were already a part) at venues in Marin and San Francisco. In the fall of 2000, Pasqual released her second solo album and invited Harcourt, Jones and Delgado to do backup work.
"We had so much fun, we just took off from there," says Jones, who makes a living as first assistant to a nationally renowned food photographer.
Their quirky name comes from an old roommate of Pasqual's.
The Blame Sally women are equally adept at vocals, songwriting and instrumentation. They have a remarkable vocal range and tight harmonies. Delgado, a professional gardener from San Luis Obispo, has the experience, personality and front-and-center presence on percussion that helps make the magic happen at live shows. Harcourt and Jones prove their versatility often by trading rhythm guitar and bass duties back and forth throughout the set.
"It allows us a short private moment of contact that's grounding between songs," says Jones, who grew up on Air Force bases all over the country and now calls San Francisco home. "It's sort of mysterious. Our partnership is about mutual respect and being supportive."
With all four women writing lyrics, the band's albums are diverse and rich. "We listen to different music and we think about different things, but our disparate influences come into one sound and nothing gets sacrificed along the way," Pasqual says.
Quirky narrative songs such as "Beat Nouveau," which evokes a beatnik coffeehouse scene in 1950s New York City, show that these women aren't taking themselves too seriously. Saucy lines appear in such songs as "Grape": "My skin is thin / I feel like a grape / I'm sort of sour with a chalky taste / and I don't give a damn if you purse your lips / as a matter of fact I think I like it like this."
"Give a Damn," which is about dealing with the break-up of a 10-year relationship, is further evidence of Blame Sally's wide emotional bandwidth.
"Most of my lyrics are very personal and drawn from life experiences and relate to matters of the heart," Harcourt says. "I don't try to get too deep. I usually just need to get a feeling out. Songwriting is very cathartic. I find it a good way to move through stuck places."
The band members are amused that the "just having fun" attitude has led to success that eluded them in previous projects.
"We tried them out here when they opened for Houston Jones a few months ago," says Max Brown, a Rancho Nicasio spokesperson. "We wanted them back as headliners because they're such interesting women with a great sound and they've got a good following already."
In March, the band will head to Italy to play at the Sardinia Music Festival.
"It works because we admire each other," Pasqual says. "We're opinionated and we have fiery disagreements, but mostly we back each other up. We're all pretty strong-willed, but we trust each other enough to battle through to a place that's better. There is so much potential in this band."

By Elsa Knox Butler, IJ correspondent