I first heard of Laura Cantrell through an ad in No Depression (an alternative country whatever…ahhh shut up!) magazine for her first CD, Not The Trembling Kind, and a Town and Country feature in that same magazine. I saw a quote from legendary BBC DJ John Peel saying that he had loved Not The Trembling Kind "to the point of madness". I drove 45 miles, to Greenville SC’s Horizon Records, to finally find the CD. Driving back home to Prater’s Creek, it was 95 degrees and I had no air conditioning in the car. When I got back into town, I bought a twelve-pack and went home to listen to my new CD, and to wet my parched throat and do some serious damage to my liver. I put Trembling on and was floored to say the least. Nine songs into the CD, I realized I still had the first bottle of beer in my hand, unopened! I kept playing that CD over and over. Really good songs penned by her NYC folk buddies and a couple Laura wrote herself. That voice…..feisty one song and fragile and heartbroken the next. And her next CD two years later, When The Roses Are In Bloom, was just as good. Elvis Costello picked her to open his tour and he was quoted as saying: "If Kitty Wells Made ‘Rubber Soul’ it would sound like Laura Cantrell".

Well the new CD, Humming By The Flowered Vine is just as great as her first two releases. The Elvis quote still applies, but throw Brian Wilson in there also. Producer JD Foster’s fleshed out arrangements on such songs as "14th Street", "Khaki and Corduroy", and "Bees" show a new, more lush, sound. Once again Laura has picked some great songs to record. "Letters", an unrecorded Lucinda Williams song written when Williams lived in NYC (the new CD has many NYC references. Cantrell, born in Nashville, has lived in NYC for twenty years), "And Still" and "What You Said" are highlights of the album. "14th Street" kicks off the album and lets the listener know right away that Cantrell is trying new things on this CD with a kind of 60’s era acoustic guitar opening and lush background vocals.

But the four songs Cantrell wrote are as strong as the well-chosen songs from other people’s pens. A lot of times I need musical motivation to get me going and I will put on Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, or maybe Iron Maiden live. "Old Downtown" is turning out to be one of those songs when I have to hear that "one song" that’s gonna do the job. It has the greatest guitar licks on it, and Laura’s singing has never been better. "California Rose" kicks off with some excellent twin guitar picking and honors country legend Rose Maddox. "Bees", which she co-wrote with Jay Sherman-Godfrey, starts out with grand piano, soon joined only by Laura’s voice. When she hits the chorus and the kettle drums or whatever kick in, well….this is why you listen to this lady. Sheer musical beauty. "I miss the bees, I miss the honey. I miss them humming by the flowered vine. My time is short now, I feel it coming. I’ll see you darling in the morning light". Listening to this song is like watching Casablanca. When she and the band performed this recently in Atlanta I had not heard the new CD yet and this song floored me. I will never forget that the rest of my life.

The best thing I can say about this album is that just like her first two CDs, as soon as the last song finishes, you have to play the whole thing again! Your soul, as well as your ears, need it.

Bluegrass Express

Last week I drove down to Hartwell, GA to see The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show perform at the Bluegrass Express. Bobby Hall has been running this venue for 21 years now. Every Saturday night he has a guest band play and Bobby and his band also perform. Last Saturday, Clem Sayers performed Ernest Tubb’s “Soldier’s Last Letter”, and I was sitting there under the American flags that are hanging on the ceiling posts, and thinking about our men and women fighting over in the Middle East, and a tear came to my eye. The Drovers did a fine version of “Sweet Thing” by The Stanley Brothers. Grandpa turned to Dalvin and told him “Dalvin, that’s the best we ever sang that”.

Bobby has always put on a good clean program down there and it’s a great place to spend a Saturday night. Bobby’s late wife Jessie used to play bass in the house band, also known as The Bluegrass Express, and she was an excellent clogger. Jessie succumbed to cancer two years ago and there is a memorial to her there with a picture of her playing bass with that big smile she always had. Her clogging shoes are also on display.

Homer, of The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show, told me that “I always love going to play down at Bobby’s. Those folks are bluegrass through and through”.

The Bluegrass Express is located in downtown Hartwell, GA on Depot Street. Shows are every Saturday night at 7 PM. Give Bobby a call at 706-376-3551 and he’ll reserve you a seat

Y’all asked for it: SHAKESPEARE

My favorite quote from any of William Shakespeare’s great works is from Macbeth, Act V Scene 5, where Macbeth is standing on the castle walls, under siege from his enemies. Macbeth learns that his wife has killed herself, and knowing the violent futility of life, he launches into one of the most famous Shakespearian speeches:

She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.