Laura Cantrell

In pure Cantrell fashion, the revered singer-songwriter once again artfully merges her lifelong affinity for American country music and folk traditions with an unmistakably contemporary sensibility on Kitty Wells Dresses. Cantrell has often celebrated the women of country music, both on her own acclaimed albums and her long-running "Radio Thrift Shop" program on WFMU.
Kitty Wells Dresses was prompted by Cantrell's invitation in May 2009 from the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville to present a musical program for their "Kitty Wells: Queen of Country Music" exhibit. Inspired by the first-ever solo exhibit dedicated to a female Hall of Fame member, Cantrell composed an original song with friend Amy Allison called "Kitty Wells Dresses." She also reacquainted herself with Wells repertoire, rediscovering old favorites like "I Don't Claim To Be An Angel" and "I Gave My Wedding Dress Away," songs she'd been performing since she'd first started playing music. After the concert, she decided to make a recording honoring the sound and songs of Wells, whose trailblazing commercial and artistic achievements made her Country Music's first female superstar.
"I've been a Kitty Wells fan since childhood," says Cantrell, "inheriting my regard for her music from my father's family from West Tennessee. While preparing for the Hall of Fame show, I was reminded how great her music is, and how wrong it seems that it is not better remembered today. I always responded to the fundamental feeling in Wells' singing, her way of sounding both emotional and restrained at once, a really affecting combination."
More than merely paying tribute, Cantrell strives to find the emotional foundation of Wells' work on Kitty Wells Dresses. She covers the important hits and the hidden gems of Wells' catalog, building her own, very personal statement of the importance of Wells to multiple generations of country singing women and fans alike. Cantrell comments, "Sadly, the casual country music fan of today doesn't know Wells' story beyond 'It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,' the 1952 answer to Hank Thompson's 'Wild Side of Life' that has become the short hand sum of her musical legacy - a reduction that bothers me greatly. In putting together this recording, I wanted to include some material written for Wells by her husband Johnnie Wright - of Johnnie & Jack and The Tennessee Mountain Boys. I wanted to represent her range - the songs specifically written from a woman's point of view like "I Don't Claim To Be An Angel," the classic ballads, the cheating and heart songs that make up her body of work."
Recorded in Nashville with producer Mark Nevers (Lambchop, Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire, Will Oldham), musicians Chris Scruggs (BR549, M Ward), Fats Kaplin (Kane Welch Kaplin), Paul Niehaus (Calexico) and a duet with BR549 frontman Chuck Mead "One By One," Kitty Wells Dresses always aims for the heart of the songs. Recording for the first time in Nashville, Cantrell notes, "I made this record in my hometown with a great group of musicians dedicated to playing country music with a sense of its craft and history. I sincerely hope that listeners will rediscover the beauty and resilience of Kitty Wells and her music."
Cantrell has had a vibrant recording and performing career ever since she began releasing original material in 2000. In addition to her work as a DJ at New York radio stations such as WFMU and Columbia's WKCR (she graduated from the acclaimed university), her early days as a performer started with groups like Bricks, led by future Superchunk/Merge Records kingpin Mac Macaughan. She eventually befriended John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants, who recruited her to sing on the band's Apollo 18 album and who later produced and released an EP of her original compositions.
Cantrell released her debut album Not the Tremblin' Kindin 2000. The release earned a four-star review in Rolling Stone and rave accolades from legendary BBC DJ John Peel, who called it "my favorite record of the last ten years and possibly my life," and recruited Cantrell to record five prestigious "Peel Sessions." Her 2002 sophomore release When the Roses Bloom Again earned even more attention, including high-profile appearances on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and the Grand Ole Opry, airplay on numerous NPR programs, profiles in The New York Timesand O Magazine, and opening slots on Elvis Costello's 2002 U.S. tour. Cantrell's 2005 release on Matador, Humming by the Flowered Vine, led to appearances on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion and KCRW's Morning Becomes Electric.
Her latest recording, Trains and Boats and Planes, delivers heart-felt interpretations of a diverse set of tunes including her bittersweet reading of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David-penned title track, along with poignant interpretations of Merle Haggard's "Silver Wings" and Roger Miller's "Train of Life," a wry take on John Hartford's "Howard Hughes Blues," a mournful reworking of New Order's "Love Vigilantes" (which appears on the soundtrack to the documentary film Body of War, alongside songs by Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and Eddie Vedder), and an evocative arrangement of the Gordon Lightfoot epic "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
In recent years Cantrell has been a contributor to The New York Times and Vanity Fair.com, and wrote on the subject of Kitty Wells' legacy for the anthology Rock And Roll Cage Match: Music's Greatest Rivalries, Decided.For Kitty Wells Dresses, Cantrell uses a voice tuned to the incredibly rich history of country music to continue an ongoing meditation on femininity in country music. At 91, Wells is the oldest living member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, and her success opened the door for subsequent female superstars including Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. But in Cantrell's view, it is Wells' music that is the real treasure of her legacy, a wealth of classic country music at its best. Cantrell is thrilled to dedicate her latest recording to Kitty Wells, the first and only real "Queen" of Country Music.