No Way There From Here
– Laura Cantrell
Ranking just ahead of gothic novelists, toward the top of
the list of magical things about the American South, is the equanimity of its
women. In perfect tones, for instance,
they can use the term “sweet” to make it clear to you that you are an incapable
fool doomed to drown face-down in a swamp of your own haplessness, or that you
are God’s perfect Lothario, due the romantic tithings of many counties.
Laura Cantrell lives and works and sings and makes records
in New York City. But her songbird
voice, generally arriving low, even and impeccably clear, manifests a similarly
devastating Southern effect. Since
launching a traditional-and-now-therefore-basically-alternative-country singing
career in 2000, Ms. Cantrell has maneuvered within the same relatively limited
vocal range, but the results of her work have been so haltingly affecting, with
so little apparent strain to the attendant craftsmanship, that it must be
asked: how is this woman not from the
South?
So it turns out she is.
Cantrell was born and grew up in Tennessee, and although it is difficult
to locate an accent in her singing, the equanimity is everywhere. Her songs rarely labor and rarely falter,
and while the lack of bumps and bruises could render a country music album or
career vulnerable to charges of laziness or inauthenticity, the miracle of
Laura Cantrell’s body of work is that her music has unwaveringly communicated
the opposite. She doesn’t sound like a
product; she sounds like a natural.
A fitting example this latest time around on No Way There From Here is the opening
one-two leadoff punch combination of “All the Girls are Complicated” and
“Starry Skies.” The former track, were
we to jump to conclusions based upon the title, might be suspected as some sort
of Ryan Adams exercise in romantic exasperation. That would not be the Cantrell Way. Enter that wonderful voice, paced by
typically concise lines:
From the ones who tend their looks,
To the ones that mind their books,
To the one whose got her hooks in you,
You know she doesn’t have a thing to prove.
From the ones who tend their looks,
To the ones that mind their books,
To the one whose got her hooks in you,
You know she doesn’t have a thing to prove.
There is no rush here; no strife and no angst, either. At least not on the part of the
narrator. The words themselves make this
clear, and the way they are sung makes the clarity devastating. We arrive at the evenly-intoned advice
portion of the song:
Listen close to her,
The way you
would if your life depended;
It’s never just the words,
It’s never just the words,
Feel your
way and you will mend it.
Chugging along behind and around all of this is characteristically
(for a Cantrell album) understated, diverse, and beautiful instrumentation. In addition to the usual guitar suspects
there are wonderful currents of brass, and a well-placed clarinet. The ramshackle pacing and playing—including
some hilariously casual drumming—and the hodgepodge of instruments all combine
suggest a charming antique store, and Laura Cantrell is obviously the blush of
knowledge and charm behind the counter.
There is nothing thrown-together about follow-up track “Starry
Skies,” however. The din has calmed and
settled, and Cantrell’s voice remains suspended midair and center-stage. The voice itself remains poised—and
reassuring—as ever. The reassurance is
necessary, because the topic this time around is physical separation, and the
big wide skies that define it, or overcome it.
Brief verse vignettes about a love interest, and then the narrator, living
under different nightscapes lead the way to the one of the universe’s most
content-sounding choruses:
When I dream
myself to sleep,
Thinking all those lovin’ things,
Don’t you know it’s just fine,
Yes, yes it’s alright.
Thinking all those lovin’ things,
Don’t you know it’s just fine,
Yes, yes it’s alright.
A lot of things in this song, it turns out, are “alright”
and “just fine” according to the narrator, and herewith we end up captured again
in the spell of the women of the South.
“Just fine” and “alright” are not classically chosen as vectors of
rapture or great enthusiasm. Lovers do
not endeavor to win plaudits of “alright” or “just fine” from each other. But here, in this gorgeous song crooned by a
rare talent, the regard and devotion sound unassailable. “Starry Skies” is one of the prettier songs
of this young year, and perfectly suited to the chill evenings of early Spring.
The remainder of No
Way There From Here does not stray far from the template of these first two
songs, and although the lyrics eventually grow quite a bit more overtly emotive
(from “When It Comes to You:” “When it
comes to you I’m helpless / When it comes to you I don’t make sense,”) that voice
remains forever even.
The album’s devastating center of impact arrives at late, at
track 11 “Washday Blues,” and in the aftermath of a few other increasingly
vulnerable songs. Of course it has to be
this way—that the thin points in the armor are buried deep, behind an even and
glowing exterior, and that it takes quite a while to find them. In keeping with the album’s penchant, great
sadness is admitted to only via a quiet meditation on the mundane. The narrator is doing the wash—“back and
forth, round and round”—and although there aren’t many details brought to the
fore, the quiet, aching refrain is always “you know what I mean—you know what I
mean.”
The hurt is too great to lessen with attempts at specifics
(remember from earlier: “It’s never just
the words.”) The deeds are done. The water can’t go back into the faucet. The effect is quietly shattering. Pedal steel offers a lament.
Laura Cantrell’s great leap forward on this latest album is
compliments of her quality control.
There are no clunkers here (save perhaps for a title track which doesn’t
quite come together,) and no overreach.
In these ways No Way There From
Here is a marked improvement over past efforts in the scale and uniformity
of its triumph.
Classic or traditional country viewed in retrospect always
seems like an uninterrupted deluge of humble, catchy and timeless melodies—but
this is because we relocate it now through hits collections culled from decades
and careers of scattered works. It is
another thing altogether for a contemporary artist of traditional country to slap
together an entire new album of similar humble beauty under the sodium lamp of
modern recording technologies, and for the result to be as consistent as a hits
package, and potentially as immortal.
It is a phenomenally rare and difficult thing to do. And here it is, done.
Keepers 1-3, 5-12
April 2014
