johnfoyle
08-07-2005, 07:37 PM
http://www.elle.com/article.asp?section_id=36&article_id=6729&page_number=2&preview=&magind=5795
Elle , July '05
NORTHERN EXPOSURE
SINGER LAURA CANTRELL PLAYS NASHVILLE CLASSICS WITH A NEW YORK FINISH
I'm no Ryan Adams,” quips singer-songwriter Laura Cantrell, explaining why she includes covers on her records. The sprig of crocheted lace at the throat of her vintage blouse underscores the difference between the prolific bad boy and the poised Nashville native who prudently took a Wall Street banking job soon after graduating from Columbia to support her songwriting habit. But we think Cantrell, 38, who makes country music for cosmopolitans who know from high lonesome but are allergic to cornpone, could school Adams on breaking hearts without stooping to schmaltz. After releasing her first two records, 2000's Not the Tremblin' Kind and 2002's When the Roses Bloom Again, on her husband's tiny label, Diesel Only, she has signed to Matador for her latest, Humming by the Flowered Vine. And since she quit her day job two years ago, she's freer to tour and bring her sound to a wider audience.
Matador head Gerard Cosloy thinks her talents transcend the genre. “Laura's interpretive skills and songwriting chops are matched only by her amazing voice,” he says. He's not the only one smitten. She charmed the late (and famously prickly) Radio 1 DJ John Peel; Elvis Costello, her teenage hero, was so taken with her first record that he invited her to tour with him.
While Gillian Welch goes down a little too easy with a Starbucks latte and the Lucinda Williams who wrote “Passionate Kisses” has sadly faded from view, Cantrell, who spends Saturday afternoons hosting “Radio Thrift Shop” on Jersey City's WFMU, resurrects the yearning, unaffected twang of bygone angels of the wireless. Whether she's covering a '60s classic or singing of a Tennessee war hero, her girlish but steely voice can give you chills.
On Humming, Cantrell pays tribute to New York, the city in which she blossomed. “I needed to see what it felt like to play music out of the shadow of Nashville,” she says. “And to find my own place to worship the giants without bumping into them.” On “Old Downtown” and “Khaki & Corduroy,” which meditate on histories both regional and personal, her eye for the telling detail and ear for the quietly devastating chord are sharper than ever. “It's not a modern way of saying what's in your heart,” she says of her fondness for lyrical storytelling, “but I'm trying to hammer away at my own version of it.”—C.B.
Elle , July '05
NORTHERN EXPOSURE
SINGER LAURA CANTRELL PLAYS NASHVILLE CLASSICS WITH A NEW YORK FINISH
I'm no Ryan Adams,” quips singer-songwriter Laura Cantrell, explaining why she includes covers on her records. The sprig of crocheted lace at the throat of her vintage blouse underscores the difference between the prolific bad boy and the poised Nashville native who prudently took a Wall Street banking job soon after graduating from Columbia to support her songwriting habit. But we think Cantrell, 38, who makes country music for cosmopolitans who know from high lonesome but are allergic to cornpone, could school Adams on breaking hearts without stooping to schmaltz. After releasing her first two records, 2000's Not the Tremblin' Kind and 2002's When the Roses Bloom Again, on her husband's tiny label, Diesel Only, she has signed to Matador for her latest, Humming by the Flowered Vine. And since she quit her day job two years ago, she's freer to tour and bring her sound to a wider audience.
Matador head Gerard Cosloy thinks her talents transcend the genre. “Laura's interpretive skills and songwriting chops are matched only by her amazing voice,” he says. He's not the only one smitten. She charmed the late (and famously prickly) Radio 1 DJ John Peel; Elvis Costello, her teenage hero, was so taken with her first record that he invited her to tour with him.
While Gillian Welch goes down a little too easy with a Starbucks latte and the Lucinda Williams who wrote “Passionate Kisses” has sadly faded from view, Cantrell, who spends Saturday afternoons hosting “Radio Thrift Shop” on Jersey City's WFMU, resurrects the yearning, unaffected twang of bygone angels of the wireless. Whether she's covering a '60s classic or singing of a Tennessee war hero, her girlish but steely voice can give you chills.
On Humming, Cantrell pays tribute to New York, the city in which she blossomed. “I needed to see what it felt like to play music out of the shadow of Nashville,” she says. “And to find my own place to worship the giants without bumping into them.” On “Old Downtown” and “Khaki & Corduroy,” which meditate on histories both regional and personal, her eye for the telling detail and ear for the quietly devastating chord are sharper than ever. “It's not a modern way of saying what's in your heart,” she says of her fondness for lyrical storytelling, “but I'm trying to hammer away at my own version of it.”—C.B.