Nash Rambler
Earlier this week I learned from my college alumni magazine that one of my old classmates is enjoying a blossoming career in music. Fans of sweet-voiced female traditional country and bluegrass singers in the Gillian Welsh mode - and I know there are a few of you out there - should check out the work of Laura Cantrell. I knew Laura a bit in college. She was originally from Nashville and hung out some with one of my good firends, who hailed from Knoxville. On weekends, I worked as a bartender at the campus folk music club, where her band, The Nash Ramblers, would sometimes play. This was the mid-80s, and if there was such a thing as alt.country back then, we city boys hadn't heard of it. Then, as now, she was into Carter Family-style old timey classics, simply arranged to feature her very pretty voice. Apparently, after spending the 90s working in a bank, she decided to seriously pursue her musical ambitions and now has a couple of records out, both of which received high marks from critics. If the samples on her website are any indication, I'm'a run out and git me some over the weekend.
Update: So I found Laura's most recent album, When the Roses Bloom Again, yesterday. It's a great CD, but in a different way than I was led to believe. The songwriting is great, her voice is terrific, but the sound is a bit more "produced" than "old-timey" and the material is contemporary and complex, rather than self-consciously minimalist and traditional. Still well worth a listen.
7:45:48 AM 
|
|
