Tell Laura I love her

Country music singer, high-flying Wall Street executive, radio presenter... it’s fair to say that the Nashville-born, New York based Laura Cantrell is something of an oddity in today’s music world. But if her background is unconventional, then so are some of her best-known fans.

John Peel has called her debut, Not The Tremblin’ Kind, “my favourite record of the last 10 years and possibly my life.” Another major fan, Elvis Costello asked her to tour with him in the States recently, while the members of Teenage Fanclub were so impressed that they licensed her album for UK release through their own indie label, Shoeshine Records.

Sounding not unlike Lucinda Williams or Tift Merritt, Cantrell sings with an appealing fragility and simplicity, while her band provides suitably sympathetic backing.

“We tried to be simple and direct and to make the arrangements interesting but not fussy,” she explains. “What was in our mind when making the record was an old fashioned performance. But we also wanted to make music that sounded like it could be made in this current time.”

Her second album When the Roses Bloom Again, features the work of several New York songwriters, including Amy Rigby, Dave Schramm, Joe Flood and Dan Prater. Her own songs include the ‘Too Late for Tonite’ and the Appalachian epic ‘Mountain Fern’, based on the life of ’40s hillbilly singer Molly O’Day. The title track is a cover of an out-take from the Wilco/Billy Bragg collaboration Mermaid Avenue while Laura displays her affection for vintage country music with renditions of Jim & Jesse’s ‘Yonder Comes a Freight Train’ and Kitty Wells & Webb Pierce’s ‘Oh So Many Years’

Cantrell makes her first visit to Ireland over the May weekend when she appears with her band (which will include at least one member of Teenage Fanclub) at the Carlsberg Kilkenny Rhythm ’n’ Roots festival. “It’s pretty exciting for us,” she says. “A lot of my friends have told how great Kilkenny is. We have actually done more touring in the UK than in the States. In fact our trip with Elvis Costello was the biggest we’d undertaken in the States. It took us to some parts we haven’t been to before like the Deep South and Florida. I have to say that if we could have chosen an artist with an established audience, we couldn’t have picked anyone better than Elvis Costello. His fans are real music fans – we were thrilled with the response and we sold some records too!”

Meanwhile, Cantrell’s long-running weekly radio show Radio Thrift Shop has aired on Saturday afternoons for the past nine years on freeform station WFMU in New Jersey.

“I’ve had a very nice response to it over the years,” she says. “We were in a poll and it was named the best programme of the year which was nice. I’ve had a lot of guests into the show people like Sam Phillips, BR5-49, Marshall Crenshaw. I don’t promote it as if it’s a commercial enterprise. It’s kind of eclectic. I have this alter ego ‘Miss Q’. She takes the heat for when something goes wrong!”

Surprisingly, Cantrell still hangs onto her day-job in the equity department of the Bank of America in Manhattan.

“It’s allowed me to remain independent and to develop at my own pace.” she says. “I was not someone a record company would have given even a small amount of money to. It does get difficult the more we tour and I can’t say that I wouldn’t love to devote myself full-time to the music...we’ll have to see what happens.”