Cantrell was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee; her father was a lawyer (in time, he earned a seat with the Tennessee Court of Appeals), and she initially intended to follow suit. However, as a teenager she developed a keen interest in music, and before leaving Tennessee to attend Columbia University, she landed a summer job as a tour guide at the Country Music Hall of Fame. The job sparked an interest in classic country sounds of the '30s, '40s, and '50s, and while at Columbia she became involved in student radio, hosting a show in which she spun country sounds both old and new, as well as immersing herself in the alternative rock scene. Cantrell discovered she liked to sing, and began making occasional club appearances with her many musically inclined friends; she also made her recording debut in 1990, singing backup on a single by Bricks, a lo-fi collaboration between Mac McCaughan of Superchunk and Andrew Webster of Tsunami. Cantrell's interest in radio led to her landing her own show on New Jersey's WFMU-FM, one of America's best regarded free-form radio stations, and on Radio Thrift Shop Cantrell won a large and loyal audience playing classic country, folk, and singer/songwriter recordings as well as her favorite artists from New York's burgeoning alt-country scene.
Not the Tremblin' Kind In 1996, Cantrell released her first solo recording, a locally distributed EP called Hello; by this time, Cantrell was supporting her enthusiasm for music by working in the New York offices of Bank of America, where she rose to the position of Vice President of Equity Research (making her that rare musician who can actually understand an accounting statement from her record company). In 1999, Cantrell recorded her first album, Not the Tremblin' Kind, which was produced by Jay Sherman-Godfrey, a former member of New York-based honky tonk rockers the World Famous Blue Jays (whose leader, Jeremy Tepper, is also Cantrell's husband). Released by a small Scottish label, Spit & Polish Records, Not the Tremblin' Kind soon received a stack of rave reviews, most notably from legendary British disc jockey John Peel, who called it "my favorite record from the last ten years, and possibly my life." (Cantrell made five appearances on his BBC Radio program.) Tepper's "rig rock" label Diesel Only Records released the album stateside in 2000, and Cantrell quickly began balancing tour dates and recording sessions with her careers in finance and radio. (Cantrell, describing music as "insanely expensive," has yet to quit her day job, despite her growing success in music.)
When the Roses Bloom AgainCantrell's second album, When the Roses Bloom Again, followed in 2002; to support its release, Cantrell toured Europe and the United States opening for another noted fan of her records, Elvis Costello. In 2004 she released The Hello Recordings, a five-song collection of demos, followed by the full-length J.D. Foster-produced Humming by the Flowered Vine in 2005, which was dedicated to the memory of John Peel. After touring in support of the album, Cantrell chose to spend her time child-rearing and performed only sporadically between 2006 and 2011, including a well-received performance at the Barbican Centre in London in 2008. Cantrell re-emerged in 2011 with the Mark Nevers-produced album Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs of the Queen of Country Music, a collection featuring one original and a slew of interpretations associated with Wells, who -- 91 years old at the time of the album's release -- was the oldest living member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
No Way There from Here In 2013, Cantrell traveled to Nashville to record her fifth studio album. No Way There from Here, a return to the style and outlook of Humming by the Flowered Vine, was released in the U.K. in late 2013, and appeared in the United States in early 2014.
Laura Cantrell's career is a lovely example of the virtues of quality over quantity. No Way There from Here is only the fifth studio album Cantrell has released since 2000, and her first dominated by original material since Humming by the Flowered Vine in 2005, but while she doesn't record often, when she does she delivers something special, and No Way There from Here ranks with the strongest and most mature work she's created to date.
Like nearly all of Cantrell's work, this album displays a strong country influence, and with Cantrell writing the bulk of the songs for a change and recording in Nashville, Tennessee (where she was born and raised), No Way There from Here feels personal in a way her earlier albums did not, as fine as they were. But while the country undertow of this music feels pure and natural, there's as much pop and contemporary folk in the arrangements, and instead of looking to the past, these songs are very much of the here and now, as Cantrell tells stories of women trying to make sense of their lives as they struggle with life and love. Just as the music is a mix of styles that complement each other well, Cantrell revels in the complicated lives of the characters in her songs, whose circumstances range from the joyous attraction of "Can't Wait" to the rejection of "Barely Said a Thing" and the struggle to make sense of it all in "Washday Blues," an especially powerful three-song sequence that comes near the end of the disc. Cantrell's songwriting is splendid here, and her singing is every bit as effective, with her clear, strong vocals sounding as real as an overheard conversation throughout, and with an intelligence that doesn't allow excessive histrionics. Expertly arranged and produced, and written and performed with smarts and compassion, No Way There from Here demonstrates that Laura Cantrell remains one of the best and most thoughtful singer/songwriters working in roots music today, and while it would be great if we heard from her more often, as long as she makes albums as excellent as this, she should be allowed to take just as long as she needs
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