The Wily Filipino

Laura Cantrell, Cafe du Nord, SF, 07/06/05.

(Photo by Ted Barron, which I stole from WBUR.)

I've increasingly become a fan of American country / folk / bluegrass music in the last year or so. And so earlier this evening I found myself front and center, practically eye-to-eye in front of Laura Cantrell (my new musician crush), in a tiny club, at (incredibly) her first San Francisco performance.

I adored her debut album from 2000 when I first heard it only last year; her third album, Humming by the Flowered Vine, out on Matador, just came out sometime last month, and it's every bit as sweet as the first two. (It's more of a New York album than a Nashville one, if that makes any sense.)

And what a show it was: Cantrell, who has the voice of an angel, and her band (mandolin, bass and acoustic guitar with Mark Spencer, Jon Graboff and Jeremy Chatzky) played a fantastic set; she herself was quite chatty, introducing each song and referring, every now and then, to her former life as an investment banker. They started off with "When the Roses Bloom Again" (surely an antiwar song, from where I stand), then "Churches off the Interstate," and onto a good helping from her three albums for the next 90 minutes (maybe even longer). Highlights included a stripped-down "Not the Tremblin' Kind," a gorgeous "Khaki and Corduroy" (probably my favorite song from the concert), and an encore of "The Whiskey Makes You Sweeter," "The Early Years," and a beautifully hushed "Bees" to end the concert. In a perfect world, Cantrell would be a star...

There is a generous number of downloads at her website if you folks are interested. There are also some great photographs as well, where she seems to have this cute deer-in-the-headlights look every time. "Check this out! I'm actually standing next to Steve Earle!" (And I can't forget the interactive subway map.)

Posted by the wily filipino at July 7, 2005 01:09 AM