Laura Cantrell
- Country
- Folk
- Singer/Songwriter
Country singer Laura Cantrell has balanced different aspects of her music life over the course of a 20-plus years career, whether as a recording artist, radio host, writer, or working parent of a high-school aged musician. Well-known as a recording artist with a devoted following in the US and UK, and as the host of “Dark Horse Radio,” a program devoted to George Harrison on SiriusXM’s The Beatles Channel, or as a performer curating “States of Country,” her monthly live series exploring regional diversity in country music, Cantrell has expressed her passion for country music through various platforms. Last June, she returned with Just Like A Rose: The Anniversary Sessions, an album of original music celebrating her first 20 years of striking this balance. Just Like A Rose is a buoyant collection showcasing Cantrell’s songcraft, sense of history, and conviction as a modern woman singing country music.
Since 2000, Cantrell has released Not The Tremblin’ Kind, When The Roses Bloom Again, Humming By The Flowered Vine, Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs of the Queen of Country Music, No Way There From Here, and The BBC Sessions. She has toured extensively in the US, UK and Ireland, and was a favorite of pioneering British DJ John Peel, who called her first album, Not The Tremblin’ Kind, “my favorite record of the last ten years, and possibly my life.” Cantrell recorded several Peel Sessions for the BBC from 2000-2004 and appeared on the first Peel Day program on Radio One commemorating the first anniversary of Peel’s death. Cantrell’s music has been celebrated in the press, including features in the New York Times, “O”Magazine, Elle, the Wall Street Journal, The Sunday Times of London, and Maverick Magazine. Cantrell’s music has been featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” “On Point” and :”Weekend Edition” and the BBC’s “Women’s Hour.”
She has performed on “A Prairie Home Companion,” “Mountain Stage,” and the “Grand Old Opry,” and appeared on the television programs “Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” and BBC One’s “The Andrew Marr Show.” She is currently the host of “Dark Horse Radio,” SiriusXM’s program about George Harrison that runs on The Beatles Channel. Just Like A Rose features songs Cantrell wrote in Nashville with acclaimed cowriters Gary Burr, Fred Wilhelm, and Mark Winchester, and with longtime collaborator and guitarist Mark Spencer, as well as tunes written by Amy Rigby and Joe Flood, artists Cantrell knew from the roots music scene in New York in the 1990s. The material spans Cantrell’s most recent songwriting and songs she’s been humming to herself since before she’d had her own band or played her own shows. “It is interesting maturing into your musical worldview, you still have songs that hit you like you’re a teenager with your first crush, and others that reflect more experience and nuance, or frustration with tough realities, and then those you just love purely as music–there’s a bit of it all on this album.”
“… she sings in a sweet, clear, purposeful voice…” —The New York Times
