Laura Cantrell is a country singer, songwriter and sometime disc jockey who was born in Nashville, Tennessee but lives in New York. Although her involvement with music began in her home town, it was not until she moved to New York to study at Columbia University that her career as a performer and DJ began. After university, she continued working in a day job (for a Wall Street investment firm) until the acclaim gained by her records (especially her first album, Not the Tremblin' Kind) made it possible for her to pursue a full-time career in music. Two more albums followed, When the Roses Bloom Again (2002) and Humming By The Flowered Vine (2005), but then motherhood obliged Cantrell to take a break from recording and performing. She returned with a download-only album, Trains and Boats and Planes (2008) and in 2011 made a tribute album to the first female star of modern country music, Kitty Wells Dresses.
Despite her Nashville origins, Laura Cantrell is closer to the alternative country and back-to-the-roots movements in country music than to the commercially dominant pop-country style. She has many prominent admirers from outside the country music world; among them was John Peel, in the final years of his life.
When Peel obtained a copy of Not The Tremblin' Kind in 2000 he was highly impressed, calling it "my favourite record of the last ten years and possibly my life" (although his initial reaction was less unequivocal: "She does look, I have to say, not like my idea of a country singer. Kind of thin-lipped and stroppy really, and not like a Playboy bunny"[1]). He went on to play tracks from the album regularly and eventually invited Cantrell to do a session for his programme. As she was not simply a performer but a DJ with her own show on a New Jersey radio station, The Radio Thrift Shop, concentrating on older styles of country music, she and Peel found they had musical tastes in common and she visited (and recorded at) Peel Acres. In the end she did five sessions for Peel's show. When Peel and his wife Sheila went to New York they stayed with Laura Cantrell and her husband Jeremy Tepper (also a musician).
When 9/11 occurred in New York, Peel said on air that his first thought was for Laura Cantrell's safety, because she worked in the financial district worst affected by the explosions. After Peel's death, Laura Cantrell paid warm tributes to him on radio and in the press. She also dedicated her 2005 album Humming By The Flowered Vine to his memory.
All the above from LP 'Not The Tremblin' Kind' (Spit & Polish)
2002 Festive Fifty: 'Too Late For Tonight (LP-When The Roses Bloom Again)' (Spit & Polish) #07
2004 Festive Fifty: 'I Lost You, But I Found Country Music' (with ballboy) (#17). B side of 'Past Lovers' (SL) #17[1]
Post Peel
2005 Festive Fifty: 'Bees (LP-Humming By The Flowered Vine)' (Matador) #10
Sessions[]
Five sessions, including three from Peel Acres. The session duet with ballboy of 'I Lost You (But I Found Country Music)' was released on the b-side of the band's Past Lovers single. Selections from all five sessions are on her 2016 album "At The BBC: On Air Performances and Recordings 2000-2005": 'When The Roses Bloom Again' from session #1; 'The Whiskey Makes You Sweeter' and 'Legend In My Time' from session #2; "Hong Kong Blues' and 'Christmas Letter Home" from #3; 'Wait' and 'Rain Boy' from session #4; 'New Year's Resolution', 'Oh So Many Years', and 'I Lost You But I Found Country Music' from session #5. These titles are from the album sleeve and are not identical to the session track titles below.
