The magic of Mary Margaret O’Hara’s only album risks being overshadowed by its story – recording started in 1983, but O’Hara’s label refused to release the album; Michael Brook stepped in and helped oversee its ‘completion’ four years later, and while O’Hara would make fitful returns to the studio over the following decades, she’s avoided making another album. It’s still tough to place Miss America in its time, or indeed, in any other, as it’s such a unique collection of songs, and O’Hara is such a singular vocalist. You can hear her interest in improvisation in the way she stretches words, ad libs, and repeatedly encircles melody; the music behind her is similarly limber and flexible, whether working in vibrant disjoint (“Not Be Alright”) or essaying the gentlest of country laments (“Dear Darling”). Many have wondered what a second Mary Margaret O’Hara album would sound like, but there’s something so quietly definitive about Miss America, it’s no surprise that it ended up a definitive statement – and a full stop, of sorts.