Dynamic Boston-area blues and folk artist Danielle Miraglia has just released her first album as a member of a band, "All My Heroes Are Ghosts" by Danielle M and the Glory Junkies.
"I've had bands on other albums, but it's the first time I've recorded an album as a band," said Miraglia, a nominee for the 2015 Boston Music Award for singer-songwriter. The group, all experienced musicians, "went to the studio (Woolly Mammoth Sound in Waltham) and recorded live," then produced it, Miraglia said. "It's just been so much fun." The album, which has an exciting live feel to it as Miraglia intended, came out Dec. 2.
With that, Miraglia will be back performing live, and solo, in two upcoming shows in this neck of the woods. On Jan. 6 at 8 p.m. she will be at Circle of Friends Coffeehouse in Franklin with guests Open Book opening. Feb. 10 will see Miraglia at John Henry’s Hammer Coffeehouse at the First Unitarian Church in Worcester with guest Kelsey Rose opening.
These will be her first solo shows in a bit, since she's been focusing on getting the word out about the band, she said. "I'll probably feel a little bit lonely, but I'll be able to do something bare-bones." That will include renditions of some songs from "All My Ghosts Are Heroes."
The title song laments the recent departures of rock and pop legends who made an impression on Miraglia, including Prince, who died on April 21, 2016. "We lost a lot of music heroes. Prince is my favorite of all time," Miraglia said. Friends knew that well. "I was getting tons of text messages that day (Prince died)," she said.
"Big rock star heroes are an endangered species in a way. You don't have the mystique that you used to have."
Or, as Miraglia puts it at the end of the title track, "Grown woman with a child in her heart/Reaching anywhere and everywhere to find that spark/It comes through in little waves/In an old song before the station fades."
All the songs on "All My Ghosts Are Heroes" are written by Miraglia, except for a version of Janis Joplin's "What Good Can Drinkin' Do."
Joplin is another of her heroes, and Miraglia's expressive singing voice can be reminiscent of the rock legend.
"I was always passionate about music for as long as I can remember," said Miraglia, who grew up in Revere. "When I was 13, I started playing guitar."
However, she studied creative writing at Emerson College in Boston after getting the idea of becoming a novelist. "I played guitar here and there, but then when I graduated I started writing songs and played my guitar a lot more."
Next came the question that writers of all kinds can face: "What do I do?"
An answer came when Miraglia performed at an open mic at the former Kendall Cafe at Kendall Square in Cambridge. "That was it. (I said) 'This is what I want to do.' "
Looking back, "I had a couple of cheesily written bad break-up songs," Miraglia recalled. She could have done three songs, but "I didn't even have a third one (prepared)." Still, "open mics, even to this day, they have kind audiences." It's "different for comics," she added. But for her that night, "the people I met became a community of friends that are friends to this day."
Miraglia got her unofficial postgraduate education by surrounding herself with people who were further along the music/singer-songwriter road than she was, she said.
"I played everywhere I could. Just by doing it a lot, and listening, it got better."
As for her rich, soulful singing voice, "I always had the potential there. I was such a Janis Joplin fan, I could just belt. Another thing I learned was my control. The belting has more effect if you start subtly."
The music took time, and there was a day job in IT. But when she lost the day job, Miraglia wasn't metaphorically singing the blues — although, literally speaking, she was
"I was pretty decent at it but my head was so into music." With a downturn in business, "there were a bunch of layoffs." She was spared in one round, but was saying to herself, " 'Please let me be in the next.' " She was. "I had to contain my happiness."
Miraglia's songs can be alternatively humorous, edgy, socially aware and heart-wrenching. As she moved on to coffee houses and listening rooms from bars, more people started to listen.
She's toured and played major venues across the United States and beyond on both the folk and blues circuits, and has four full-length studio recordings — "Nothing Romantic," Box of Troubles" and "Glory Junkies" in her own name, and now "All My Heroes Are Ghosts."
"I also have some guitar students. I do enjoy being home more now than I used to. But the majority of income comes from performing."
Danielle M and the Glory Junkies is Miraglia (guitar, vocals), Laurence Scudder (viola, vocals), Erik White (guitar, vocals), Jim Larkin (bass) and Chris Anzalone (drums). Well-known to Boston-area music audiences, Scudder, White and Larkin are also members of Spotted Tiger, while Anzalone hails from Roomful of Blues.
"I love the guys in my band so much. I feel very lucky that it's turned into this cool thing," Miraglia said.
The initial response to the album has been good, she said. "I still have to get it out to a lot of people. We released it right at the holidays."
Miraglia would like to expand the band's orbit beyond the local concert circuit. Meanwhile, she said her next recording project "might be more bare-bones."
Upcoming venues for her solo concerts also include the South Florida Folk Festival in Fort Lauderdale.
Audiences aren't the enormous turnouts that greeted her heroes, but people who do go to shows these days "are so passionate about it," she said.
"Live music — it's a special thing. Having a shared experience where you're all kind of present," Miraglia said.
Contact Richard Duckett at richard.duckett@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @TGRDuckett
Danielle Miraglia with special guests Open Book
When: 8 p.m. Jan. 6 (doors open at 7:30 p.m.)
Where: Circle of Friends Coffeehouse, 262 Chestnut St., Franklin
How much: $20. (508) 528-2541; www.circlefolk.org