Laura Cantrell

Laura Cantrell, who writes and performs her own material, arrived on the worldwide music landscape in 2000 through Not the Tremblin' Kind. That first album displayed her luminous, precise, and emotionally resonant voice, her thoughtful lyrics, and her keen judgment when selecting players and other composers. Her route to becoming a respected figure in Americana took an uncommon turn: after relocating from Tennessee to New York City, she pursued studies in law and accounting, then balanced a position in finance against parallel pursuits as a performer and radio host. Rather than commit to a conventional cycle of recording, touring, and repeating the process, Cantrell has chosen to create only when genuinely moved, a habit that has preserved the vitality and assurance of her work; the nine-year interval separating 2014’s No Way There from Here from 2023’s Just Like a Rose: The Anniversary Sessions scarcely registers in the finished recordings.

Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, Cantrell grew up with a father who practiced law and later joined the Tennessee Court of Appeals; she once planned to follow the same profession. As a teenager, however, she cultivated a strong passion for music, and before departing for Columbia University she spent a summer guiding visitors at the Country Music Hall of Fame. That experience awakened her curiosity about classic country styles from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. While at Columbia she joined the campus radio station, where she presented a program mixing vintage and contemporary country tracks and also immersed herself in the local alternative-rock community. She discovered her own singing voice and began making occasional appearances at clubs alongside musically active friends; her first time on record came in 1990, when she contributed backing vocals to a single by the lo-fi project Bricks, formed by Mac McCaughan of Superchunk and Andrew Webster of Tsunami.

Her growing involvement with radio secured her a show on New Jersey’s WFMU-FM, one of the nation’s most respected free-form outlets. Through Radio Thrift Shop she attracted a devoted following by programming classic country, folk, and singer-songwriter material alongside selections from New York’s emerging alt-country circles. In 1996 she issued her first solo release, the locally available EP Hello. By then she was underwriting her musical activities with a job at Bank of America’s New York offices, eventually advancing to Vice President of Equity Research—an uncommon accomplishment for a musician comfortable reading a label’s financial statements. In 1999 she cut her debut album, Not the Tremblin’ Kind, produced by Jay Sherman-Godfrey, formerly of the New York honky-tonk band the World Famous Blue Jays; the group’s leader, Jeremy Tepper, is also Cantrell’s husband. Issued by the small Scottish imprint Spit & Polish Records, the album earned widespread critical praise, most memorably from British broadcaster John Peel, who declared it “my favorite record from the last ten years, and possibly my life.” Cantrell appeared on his BBC program five times. Tepper’s Diesel Only Records brought the album to American listeners in 2000, after which Cantrell began juggling live dates and studio work with her finance and radio commitments.

Her second album, When the Roses Bloom Again, appeared in 2002; to promote it she toured Europe and the United States as opening act for Elvis Costello, another admirer of her recordings. In 2004 she released The Hello Recordings, a five-song set of early demos, followed in 2005 by the full-length Humming by the Flowered Vine, produced by J.D. Foster and dedicated to John Peel’s memory. After touring in support of that record, Cantrell largely stepped away from performing to raise her child, appearing only occasionally between 2006 and 2011, including a warmly received 2008 concert at London’s Barbican Centre. She returned in 2011 with Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs of the Queen of Country Music, produced by Mark Nevers; the album contained one original song and numerous interpretations drawn from the repertoire of Wells, who at ninety-one remained the oldest living inductee of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Cantrell traveled to Nashville in 2013 to record her fifth studio album. No Way There from Here, which revisited the approach of Humming by the Flowered Vine, reached British listeners late that year and American audiences in early 2014. In 2016 she issued At the BBC: On-Air Performances & Recordings 2000–2005, gathering scarce radio sessions made for British outlets. Although she has added guest vocals to projects by the Soldier String Quartet, Davis Kathriner, Vince Bell, and Son Volt, she has devoted most of her schedule to her professional career, parenting her son, and hosting two radio programs: “Dark Horse Radio,” devoted to the life and music of George Harrison on SiriusXM’s Beatles Channel, and “States of Country,” which examined roots music from each of the fifty states on a weekly basis through GimmeCountry. She intended to mark the twentieth anniversary of Not the Tremblin’ Kind with a new album in 2020, yet pandemic restrictions obliged her to record portions remotely; the project was finished only after lockdowns eased and sessions could be arranged in both New York City and Nashville. Just Like a Rose: The Anniversary Sessions appeared in June 2023 and included contributions from Buddy Miller, Steve Earle, Rosie Flores, Paul Burch, and David Mansfield.