Laura concert , July 9th , McCabes

[johnfoyle]

http://homepage.mac.com/bob.m/iblog/C1122819829/E20050710085951/index.html

The Laura Cantrell concert last night was fantastic! I'd normally say it rocked, but since it wasn't rock I really shouldn't.

The venue was nice and intimate. 150-200 people is my guess.
I was about 7 rows back, pretty much right in the middle of the room. No problems hearing or seeing anything.

She did a nice selection from all her albums and she gave a little background on a few of the songs. It's really amazing how knowing a bit about what a song is about can help you to better understand the meaning behind the words.

The performances were all spot on fabulous. The nice thing about seeing someone like this live is that it's not going to be the same song you hear on the album. Here it's a simpler arrangement, that let's you hear the words and the emotion very clearly. Very nice to get a different version in my head along with the ones I know so well.

It was also interesting to watch what she was looking at while on stage. She would put her focus on whoever was doing the accent or solo (Jimmy Ryan-Mandolin Mark Spencer-guitar/piano Jeremy Chatzky-bass), but not as if to say, "Hey audience, check this out." It was more in the vein of she just wanted to watch too.

It was also nice after the show. She took time to meet with the audience, and see what they had for her. She didn't rush anyone, and asked their name shook their hand and thanked them for coming out. Don't see that too often, but I don't go out often.

Bob Magdziarz

[johnfoyle]

http://reedfish.blogspot.com/2005/07/thats-me-with-laura-cantrell.html

...........has a photo of Laura with a fan after this show.

[johnfoyle]

New on Laura's site -

http://www.lauracantrell.com/downloads.asp

Letters (4.5 MB)
Recorded live @ McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, CA, this acoustic version of the Lucinda Williams song features Mark Spencer on guitar, Jimmy Ryan on mandolin and Jeremy Chatzky on bass.

[johnfoyle]

http://hollywoodreporter.com/thr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000977162&imw=Y

The Hollywood Reporter

July 12, 2005


Laura Cantrell


By Tom Roland
McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica
Saturday, July 9

"She looks like a schoolteacher," an admirer whispered when Laura Cantrell took the stage at McCabe's on Saturday night. "God, she's beautiful."

Indeed, her black velvet top, simple skirt and unassuming visage gave Cantrell a bookish aura, one that nicely matched a very literate collection of songs. Playing in Los Angeles for the first time in her career, her 75-minute set drew heavily on material with specific visual imagery, a strong geographic sense and a healthy appreciation of personal histories. It was almost as if she were a librarian, filing away small pictures of people and scenarios that have touched her life in some precious manner.

Indicative was a trio of songs that paid homage to significant West Coast musical figures who've been sadly overlooked by the mainstream. "California Rose" drew an empathetic portrait of Rose Maddox, whose long association with her brothers and a tight-gripping mother both bolstered and hindered her artistic growth.

The aching "Bees" recalled Zeke Manners, of the original Beverly Hill Billies. "Bees" ignored his heyday, when the group gained acclaim on Los Angeles' KMPC Radio and backed Tex Ritter in western movies; instead, the song sensitively captured his final years, when his wife and friends had died, leaving Manners alone in a bustling but unfamiliar world.

Finally, "The Queen of the Coast" toasted the inimitable Bonnie Owens, who put her own aspirations on the back burner and literally stayed in the background as a vocalist for then-husband Merle Haggard. Lines about the "catch in her voice and the beehive on her head" lent a snapshot of the '60s-era Owens, nicely enhanced by a lyrical reference to "Swinging Doors" and mandolin player Jimmy Ryan's recapitulation of the hook from "The Fugitive."

Cantrell delivered her stories in a voice that claimed the best tonal parts of Shawn Colvin and Emmylou Harris, avoiding vibrato to effect a forlorn fragility that reflected the vulnerability of her 14 songs.

Ryan and guitarist Mark Spencer, both former members of Blood Oranges, displayed rippling dexterity with their instruments. More often, however, they joined Cantrell and bass player Jeremy Chatzky in providing a crisp acoustic rhythmic base that more closely mirrored the historical sound of Grand Ole Opry-style string bands than the polished sound that dominates current commercial country.

In one rather telling moment, Cantrell introduced an "old murder ballad," "Poor Ellen Smith," by telling a story about a Chattanooga, Tenn.-based relative in the 1920s who was so concerned that the advent of radio and the jazz age would obliterate the oral folk tradition that she collected a host of rural songs and compiled them in a book.

Cantrell's performance suggested that she's restructured the family's past by establishing an aural tradition of music that embodies the most illuminating facets of good literature. She did it quite beautifully.