LAURA CANTRELL



By Jim Manion
PD/MD, WFHB Bloomington

The Album
Humming By The Flowered Vine

The Label
Matador Records

Liner Notes
Listening to one of the more straight-up country songs like “California Rose” on Laura Cantrell's new album Humming By The Flowered Vine, one gets the sense she has been doing nothing but singing country songs all her life. Born that way. With a friendly story-telling voice both simple and rich, Cantrell easily makes a personalized psychic connection with the listener that feels like home. Beneath this welcoming surface lies the passion of a complex, whip-smart woman whose wide range of experience underpins her determined path into the music world.
Cantrell is a Nashville native who escaped Music City in order to find the heart and soul of country music amongst the tall buildings of New York City. Talented enough in the left-brain to climb the Wall Street ladder to a VP position at Bank of America, Cantrell kept her life-long love for music going as a volunteer DJ at WFMU (where she still presents her weekly Radio Thrift Shop). As a radio host since the early '90s, she has been on a constant path of musical discovery, putting her free-form mixes together from the deep well of American roots music. 
Somewhere in there she's also found the time to be steady-on in her development as a singer and songwriter - steeped in her hometown's classic country and everything else she exposed herself to through her radio work and NYC's music scene. Along the way Cantrell befriended many fine musicians and radio colleagues (like the late John Peel) who, once they heard her sing, had no choice but to put their all into spreading the word about her musical charms. While she was still clocking in at the bank, the buzz on Laura Cantrell grew on the stateside Americana scene as well as in England and parts of Europe.
It all reached critical mass a few years back when she used up her day job's vacation time to open for Elvis Costello on tour. The choice was obvious – goodbye Wall Street, hello full-time music career. Cantrell's star slowly rose with her Diesel Only releases Not The Trembling Kind and When The Roses Bloom Again. Humming By The Flowered Vine ups the ante and is her best one yet.
Joined by musical friends like Dave Schramm, Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico, Mary Lee Kortes, Rob Burger of Tin Hat Trio, Mark Spencer of The Blood Oranges and producer JD Foster, Cantrell takes us to a place where classic country dances with a modern sensibility. Humming By The Flowered Vine holds enough hard core country songs for a good set at The Grand Ole Opry – especially the mid-album trio of songs “California Rose," Wishful Thinking” and “Poor Ellen Smith”. The album also features some subtle curve-balls like Dave Shramm's elegant and stirring “And Still," the demo-only Lucinda Williams rarity “Letters” and Cantrell's contempletive “Bees”. 
Cantrell's own songwriting (“Khaki & Corduroy," “California Rose," “Bees” and “Old Downtown”) conveys a sense of detail that is cinematic, her rich yet unassuming voice drawing the listener into the story like a good book. 
Now that she's at it full time, expect Laura Cantrell's star to rise higher and brighter.

Site
www.lauracantrell.com

Spins
WFUV New York
KCRW Santa Monica-Los Angeles
WXPN Philadelphia
WMFO Medford-Boston
WERS Boston
WUMB Boston
WDET Detroit
KUNM Albuquerque
WRUR Rochester
WYEP Pittsburgh
WYSO Dayton
WNCW Spindale-Asheville/Charlotte NC/Greenville/Spartanburg SC
KUNI Cedar Falls IA
KRVS Lafayette LA
KRVM Eugene
WFHB Bloomington IN
WUKY Lexington
WVIA Pittstown PA
 
Specialty Spins
KCMP Minneapolis
WFPK Louisville
WNCS Montpelier-Burlington VT/Plattsburgh NY
KBCS Bellvue-Seattle                
KWMU St. Louis
WUWM Milwaukee
WMNF Tampa
KPFT Houston
KDHX St. Louis                
WAPS Akron
WHRV Norfolk
WCBE Columbus
WFMU Hoboken NJ
KMUW Wichita KS
WUWF Pensacola FL

Quote
If Kitty Wells made Rubber Soul it would sound like Laura Cantrell.”
—Elvis Costello in WORD magazine (U.K.)

“My favourite record of the last ten years and possibly my life is an LP by a New York woman born in Nashville called Laura Cantrell. It's country, and I don't know why I like it, but it has the same sort of effect on me as Roy Orbison had in the '60s.”
—John Peel, BBC Radio 1 (In Their Own Write: Adventures in Music Journalism)

Tour/Appearances
June 21 New York, Virgin Mega Union Square Instore
Jun 22 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts (Calder Courtyard)
Jun 23 Burlington, VT, Higher Ground
June 24 Northampton, MA, Iron Horse
June 25 Hoboken, NJ, Maxwell's
June 27 Philadelphia, Tin Angel
June 28 Arlington, VA, Iota
June 29 Charlottesville, VA, Gravity Lounge
June 30 Raleigh, The Pour House
July 1 Atlanta, Red Light Café
July 4 New York, Battery Park
July 6 San Francisco, Café Du Nord
July 9 Santa Monica, McCabe's Guitar Shop
July 12 Seattle, Triple Door

She's on tour most of the summer, doing U.S. dates for most of the next month, and then heading over to Europe where she'll support Lucinda Williams. She's playing Battery Park on July 4, with Yo La Tengo and Stephen Malkmus. She's had opening slots for Elvis Costello (U.S.), Joan Baez (U.S.) and Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys (U.K. and Ireland), and appearances on The Grand Ole Opry, Cambridge Folk Festival (U.K.), Celtic Connections (U.K.), Blue Highways Festival (Holland) and Kilkenny Rhythm & Roots Weekend (Ireland).

World Café performance to air later this summer, and Morning Becomes Eclectic to air 7/8. Her frequent U.K. visits have included five prestigious “Peel Sessions,” and back home she has appeared on The Grand Ole Opry and Late Night with Conan O’Brien, as well as being featured on national public radio shows like All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, On Point, Studio 360, World Café and Mountain Stage. She has also been profiled in the New York Times Arts & Leisure section, W, and Oprah Winfrey's O magazine, along with such mainstream U.K. publications as the Sunday Times, The Telegraph Magazine, and the You magazine in the Sunday Mail.

Retail
Humming By the Flowered Vine is now available in stores.
Note: The Tremlin Kid and When the Roses Bloom have each sold over 10k on her husband's label, Diesel Only.

Contact
Fred Navarrete,  Radio Promotion, Beggars Group and Matador Records
212.995.5882
frednavarrete@beggars.com 

John Rosenfelder, Earbender Promotion
212.586.5277
earbender@earthlink.net