Everything is coming up roses for Laura Cantrell with the release of her much-anticipated second album, When the Roses Bloom Again.
Her 2000 debut album, Not the Tremblin' Kind brought the Nashville-born, New York City-based performer & radio personality the type of praise for her own music that had previously been reserved for her longrunning weekly radio show on acclaimed free-form station WFMU in Jersey City. The "Radio Thrift Shop" has aired on Saturday afternoons for the past ten years, and earned her the "Best Radio DJ" award in the Citysearch "Best of New York City" poll for 2001.
Not the Tremblin' Kind struck a chord with critics and fans on both sides of the Atlantic, receiving glowing reviews in Rolling Stone (four stars), Mojo, USA Today, and The Sunday Times of London. When the Roses Bloom Again has earned similar kudos, including four-star reviews in Q and Rolling Stone, features in the Daily Mail, Telegraph Magazine and The Sunday Times’ Culture section, and her U.S. television debut on the Late Show with Conan O’Brien. Laura has also been heralded by such unlikely champions as legendary BBC personality John Peel, who called her debut "my favourite record of the last 10 years and possibly my life," and Elvis Costello who hand-picked Laura as his opening act for 17 concerts on his 2002 U.S. tour and said "If Kitty Wells made ‘Rubber Soul’ it would sound like Laura Cantrell."
When the Roses Bloom Again builds on the previous album's strengths, demonstrating Laura's fondness for her songwriting peers from the New York scene, such as Amy Rigby ("Don't Break the Heart"), Dave Schramm ("Conqueror's Song"), Joe Flood ("All the Same to You"), Jay Sherman-Godfrey ("Wait") and Dan Prater ("Vaguest Idea"). These selections frame four stunning new originals, including "Too Late for Tonight," "Early Years" and the Appalachian epic "Mountain Fern," based on the life of '40s hillbilly singer Molly O'Day.
The title track, When the Roses Bloom Again is a cover of an out-take from the Wilco/Billy Bragg collaboration Mermaid Avenue, that was dropped from the album of Woody Guthrie-penned lyrics when it was discovered that the song was actually copyrighted by A.P. Carter of the Carter Family (further research has found that the song was previously published in 1901 and credited to writers Gus Edwards and Will D. Cobb under the aliases Will Whitemore and Harry Hilliard). Laura also displays her deep appreciation of vintage country music with renditions of Jim & Jesse's "Yonder Comes a Freight Train" and Kitty Wells & Webb Pierce's "Oh So Many Years," which has also been recorded by the Everly Brothers.
The 12 tracks on When the Roses Bloom Again feature many of the same musicians that accompanied Laura on Not the Tremblin' Kind and were recorded and mixed in four different studios located in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Producer Jay Sherman-Godfrey also handled guitar, keyboards and harmony, while Jon Graboff contributed pedal steel, mandolin, autoharp and 12-string guitar, Jeremy Chatzky (bass) and Doug Wygal (drums) provided the rhythm section. Guests included Kenny Kosek on fiddle on the title track, and Robin Goldwasser and Mary Lee Kortes who sang harmony.
