Laura Cantrell – “Letter She Sent”

SXSW 2020 - OEB Score: 8; Popularity Index: 6 

Pairs Well With…Gillian Welch, Nikki Lane, Kathleen Edwards

Laura Cantrell is a Nashville-born, New York-based country music artist with a voice like a clear bell that you want to just keep ringing.  She’s no newbie either.  She has been recording for over twenty years and her 2014 “No Where Here From There” was got rave reviews in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and she has been featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and has performed on “A Prairie Home Companion,” “Mountain Stage,” and the “Grand Ole Opry.” Laura also hosts “Dark Horse Radio,” a weekly program about George Harrison on SiriusXM’s The Beatles Channel.  She has promised new music in 2020, but for now we’ve featured one of the more popular tracks from her 2014, “Letter She Sent,” a classic country ballad.  But, don’t stop there.  Cantrell’s song also contains some slyness, for example, on “All the Girls are Complicated.”  Thus, while her pure country purr is worth hearing, this New Yorker, at least, hopes that her new material integrates more of New York sensibility and sophistication with her classic Nashville sound. (David Zlotnick)

2014 Review: Laura Cantrell’s music is alt country songwriting in fine form, a precise artist with a pretty, welcoming voice.  Her latest record, this year’s No Way There From Here, is a throwback to simple and effective melodies, pleasant and pointed rather than shooting for pop radio hooks.  Cantrell’s storytelling is front and center here, backed by a crack band, anchored by slide guitars and acoustic picking.  Her sparest tracks stand out the most, led by the striking closer “Someday Sparrow” and the gospel-tinged “Letter She Sent”.  The train doesn’t fall off the tracks throughout No Way There From Here, a country record that is concurrently comfortable and straight from the heart.