Editorial Reviews
Humming By the Flowered Vine
Music Review:
Music Review
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Amazon.com
Laura Cantrell has exceptional taste. One listen to her celebrated radio show "Radio Thrift Shop"on WFMU and you will know this instantly, as she mixes old school country and bluegrass with the best contemporary singer-songwriters. The cover art to this, her third album, is by the superlative artist Fred Tomaselli, and her choice of arcane, literate, and lovely cover songs is exquisite: a previously unreleased Lucinda Williams song ("Letters"), an obscure Appalachian murder ballad originally collected by her great-great aunt ("Poor Ellen Smith"), and a fabulous tune by singer-songwriter Emily Spray ("14th Street"). Of course, if good taste were all it took to be a great artist, we'd all be great artsists, right? Laura's not a crooner per se, but she has become an amazing singer, with delightful control over her voice. In fact, Cantrell sounds a lot like the long-lost, Tennessee-born sister to Linda Thompson, especially on the Dave Schramm-penned "And Still," and her own "Old Downtown." This is cosmic, American music, sung with subtlety and produced perfectly by JD Foster. –Mike McGonigal.
From Amazon.co.uk
Laura Cantrell's third album, Humming by the Flowered Vine, emerges into daunting company. Her debut, 2000's Not the Tremblin' Kind, was famously acclaimed by John Peel--who'd probably listened to more albums than anybody else--as "my favourite record of the last ten years, and possibly my life." The follow-up, 2002's When the Roses Bloom Again, was also widely, and rightly, hailed a classic. Humming by the Flowered Vine finds Cantrell understandably reluctant to tinker overmuch with a winning... read more
Album Description
The follow-up to 2002's "When The Roses Bloom Again" is nothing less than masterful. Produced by JD Foster (Richard Buckner, Marc Ribot), the album features such stellar musicians as John Convertino and Paul Niehaus of Calexico, Amy Helm and Fiona McBain of Ollabelle, Jon Graboff, Mark Spencer, Dave Schramm, Jeremy Chatzky, and many more. Sad and sweet in all the right doses, Cantrell is one of the unique voices and minds in American music, and this third album shows the sort of poise and invention that we associate with the all-time greats, regardless of genre.