Customer Reviews

Humming By the Flowered Vine

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Laura Cantrell has a gorgeous voice.

I downloaded her song "14th Street" as it had the New York appeal. By the end of the week I had found her CD "Humming by the Flowered Vine" and it was well worth the import price. The fact that she is a New York based performer appeals even more as I love songs that are about New York or can be sung southerly about The City in the right note.

Laura does not disappoint or fail at any attempt. There are guest musicians that appear on the making of this record and just add an added bonus to the rotation of the music that spins in the player.

As the entire CD is outstanding, here are the A++ tracks:

-My number 1 favourite track is "Old Down Town," stunning at 6 minutes & never once gets mundane; many artists can not pull of a song for this length of time without losing the plot and heading in the wrong direction. This finds Laura singing about home and the complications of modern day city lifestyle.

-2nd Favourite is the downloadable MP3 "14th Street" which is exactly how I discovered upon this great very under-rated talent.

-The 3rd brilliant tune for me is "Letters."

Laura, all those times you played & sang in coffee houses surely paid off. I as a music lover feel the passion in the songs. This is fact not fiction as she was hand picked by Elvis Costello to open for his U.S. tour.

The New York times sums up the brilliance of Laura Cantrell best when they said:

"As Laura Cantrell performed 'Khaki and Corduroy,' her sleepy-sad reflection on being a Southerner transplanted to New York City . . . the auditorium [Jazz at Lincoln Center] was awash with the kind of cosmic wistfulness that the best country and folk music can conjure when it dreams of the past."
- Stephen Holden, The New York Times

I agree with Stephen Holden & I think many will agree with me when I simply say that Laura Cantrell is an artist with a STUNNING VOICE who produces songs in sweetest of melodies
- A.N.

Having adored Ms. Cantrell's first two outings, especially 'Not the Trembling Kind' (which I played obsessively, even non-stop, for three days or so after I bought it), I picked this one up the day it came out and popped it right into my portable CD player (yes, I'm one of those dinosaurs without an iPod)... and I have to say that I was a bit disappointed. She seems to have abandoned the largely traditional and stripped-down sound that made for so much of the charm of her first two CDs in favour of a ambitious palette... but one which I don't think suits her. I understand that L.C. wants to grow as an artist and not just keep cranking out what her fans expect of her over and over again, but I don't think she's playing to her strengths here...
...but then again, some of the music I love the most today I hated ay first hearing, so I'm willing to stick with this one - I'll get back to you if and when the penny drops!...

It's true this album is a bit of a departure from the 'updated' Kitty Wells
sound of her first two albums-- but I think successful. The only slight
overreach IMO is Lucinda Williams's "Letters," which even approaches
rock slightly, but isn't that distinguished a song (apologies to LW fans).
I like the somewhat new mix of instruments and those ballady songs like
"Khaki & Corduroy" (great stuff!!) & "Bees." I think her writing is finding
a more individualistic voice & this album is a positive step forward-- & I like the trad. ones too, including cool yet semi old timey vibe on "Poor Ellen Smith" (upbeat sad story approach!!??). Graceful & singular talent.

Since I concur with the positive comments on the performance posted by other LC fans, I won't bore you with repeating mine here. but I must add a negative comment here on the mixing and/or mastering of this CD: it is ill-suited to LC's extraordinary artistry. LC's beautiful voice is made distant, edgy and the volume is too low relative to the instrumentation. The dynamic range is compressed; the instrumnts are one big muddle, with too much upper midrange and little bass. This especially strange here, as her previous album (WTRosesBA) was mastered in pristine HDCD sound.Too bad about this one, as the perormances are very fine.

Still, I am a huge admirer of LC's work, and hope that no one will be deterred by these comments from buying this, despite the mediocre sound. I hope that the next one will be mixed and mastered at the high level of Ms. Cantrell's artistry.

I had not heard of Laura Cantrell, and purchased this CD on the strength of a glowing newspaper review. I was particularly interested in the reviewer's comparison with Lucinda Williams. The first couple of times I played the CD I was disappointed. There was not the raw energy of Lucinda; in fact a few of the tracks were a little too pretty for my liking. However I persevered, and I have come to like the CD immensely. The music is clever and subtle; there is excellent backing and some very good lyrics. Laura Cantrell's voice grows on you, and while not as raunchy as Lucinda Williams, it fits naturally with the songs on this CD.

I didn't think this album was as successful a showcase of Laura's musical taste and talent as her previous albums, but this is a beautiful collection of songs nonetheless. Aside from her hypnotic voice, I think what makes Laura so addictive is her impeccable taste in music. The obscure songs she pulls out and covers on her albums are just absolute gems and it sometimes shocks me that many of them aren't better known.

As for this album, the music and production are of the highest quality and Laura is on top of her singing game. My two main complaints are that the album is a bit slight (only 39 minutes of music!) and that there seems to be some out of place songs on here (Letters jumps out at me as one such example).

However, this is still a great album and "14th Street" is worth the price of the CD alone.

I like this CD. Ms. Cantrell has a very nice, lyrical voice, and the songs are pleasant to listen to. They've got a nice bluegrass/country sound that I enjoy. I use the word nice because it's that way. The album is good overall, but I can't say that I can name any one song that stands out for me. I would prefer to give it 3 1/2 stars because of this.

She reminds me of a little of Gillian Welch. The bluegrass quality is the same, but Ms. Cantrell has a very sweet voice compared to the earthiness of Ms. Welch's recordings. Her songs are also not so obviously dark. It's much brighter music.

From the very first sound (a cymbal roll on 14th St.), Laura Cantrell signals that this album will bring a new sound for her. It's a solid effort, and may well yield a wider audience

Both of Cantrell's first two albums were an exercise in nostalgia-nostalgia, in my case, for an era that I never experienced the first time, yet instantly felt transported back to anyway.

This album differs most markedly in regards to instrumentation. I identified her earlier works with that airy acoustical guitar sound, and also a fair share of steel guitar and violin. Here, we variously find electric bass, piano, even distorted electric guitar. Where her earlier works were all marked by clean, straightforward percussion, often in cut time or even a waltz, here we have find more modern percussion techniques, often no drumming at all. There is much less of the close harmony, and the background singers, when present, have a more pop sound.

Cantrell had earlier demonstrated a tendency to be anachronistic in her lyrical and thematic choices on her own compositions, combining classic country sound with modern lyrics and ideas (or, in other cases, classic lyrics colored with irony by the context of our modern world). But that sublime mix of nostalgia and wry irony is diminished. There are exceptions. "What You Said," particularly, along with "California Rose," "Wishful Thinking," and "Poor Ellen Smith," would fit comfortably into either of her prior two works.

The rest of the album is stylish and enjoyable, but I would describe it as more contemporary folk or pop than country. I'm reminded variously of Sarah McLachlan, Lucida Williams (who wrote "Letters," which appears here), Dar Williams, and Sixpence None the Richer, to name a few. For older fans, the tracks named above more than enough to justify the purchase price, and you may find you like the newer sound of Laura Cantrell as well.

I really liked her first two records. They were very unique , with great lyrics and interesting instrumentation. This album comes off as being safe, slow and, frankly, dull. If you don't have any Laura Cantrell records, purchase "Not the Trembling Kind" first.

Sorry, I'm disappointed. She used to sing vigourous songs. Only three of them can be heard here: What You Said, California Rose, and Wishful Thinking.
The rest is made of slow songs, the worst being Bees, Letters, and Khaki. The 8th song, Poor Ellen Smith has a good start, but is very repetitive.
Let's hope her next album will have more mandolin, steel guitar, and energy like Reba McEntire or Tanya Tucker, and less asthmatic tracks like Lucinda Williams.
If you want to discover the good songs of Laura Cantrell, get When the Roses Bloom Again and The Hello Recordings.