A Conversation with Laura Cantrell (continued)

PM: Was that a clarinet solo on "Khaki and Corduroy"?

LC: Actually, that's a claviola. Have you ever seen one of those things?

PM: I can't really place the instrument in my mind, no.

LC: It's sort of like a melodica, only with a shape, a more round kind of horn. It's sort of shaped like an autoharp or something, but without strings. It's got a keyboard on one side, and you blow into it, and play it on the keyboard.

PM: Oh, I want one.

LC: It's a very cool instrument. It has a very clarinet kind of reedy sounding tone to it.

PM: Right, without that hokey sound, though.

LC: Yeah.

PM: It's got a more serious sound. Really beautiful. That was a pretty solo, too.

LC: Yes. That's Rob Burger again. He and Ted Reichman are players that J.D. knew, and I would have never known to ask them to come play. I was so glad to hook up with them through J.D.--he'd worked with both of them. Rob Burger also plays with a woman here, Mary Mulliken, who is a local singer/songwriter who does some kind of country-ish stuff. And he plays really beautiful things on her albums, too.

PM: What was Lucinda's reaction to your unearthing the old song "Letters" from her bare '70s days?

LC: Unfortunately I didn't get to talk to her in person about it. She was busy, and we had to go through her manager to get the stuff to her in order for her to approve it. But some friends of friends had been with her when she was listening to it, and they said she was very pleased and thought that it was a cool take on her song.

PM: Wow. Did she even remember the song?

LC: When she heard it, she definitely remembered it.

PM: Because that's a really good song. You've got dates coming up with her, right?

LC: We're so sad to find out that she has an ear infection and can't fly.

PM: Oh, too bad.

LC: She just played in New York, and she was not feeling well here. And I think she went to the doctor. We were all getting on a plane tomorrow.

PM: Oh, what a drag for you.

LC: Yeah, it's a drag. I we were so looking forward to it. It would have been a lot of fun.

PM: So what will you do? Go do the shows alone or get somebody else on the bill?

LC: I think that they will probably reschedule her shows. I don't know if I'll be available when her stuff is going to be rescheduled, because we have other things planned for the fall. But we have a couple of our own shows in the UK that I think we'll go over and do, shows that were scheduled in and around her schedule. We'll probably go do those anyway.

PM: Right. Yeah, because that's a great place for you. You do very well there.

LC: We've had a great experience there.

PM: Being originally a Nashville girl, do you have a lot of friends down here in town?

LC: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, I have. In fact, I just went on tour with Paul Burch.

PM: Oh, yeah, he's a casual friend of mine. We always go for brunch at the Red Wagon [a favorite cafe in Nashville, owned by Paul Burch and his wife Meg Guiffrida].

LC: I wish I could go there and have brunch right now, even though it's a little late. Paul just did about ten shows with us on the East Coast. And yeah, I'm friendly with a lot of the folks from Lamb Chop and, between Jeremy and myself, we've had a lot of friends in Nashville over the years. And it's great to go, because I have a big family as well. It's good to be able to go and sort of balance out the family part with escaping for a while and visit some friends also.

PM: Would you ever do a record down here? Are you going to do that sometime?

LC: Yeah, we thought about it for this album, actually, because there are tons of beautiful studios in Nashville, and lots of great professionals to record.

PM: For sure, there are so many good players who will keep it in whatever pocket you care to be in.

LC: Yeah, I know. I definitely want to come and record there at some point. For this particular project, when we were getting going, I had the basics of my band here, and we decided to kind of stay closer to home and just to get it going here. But as I said, we thought about it. Even midway through, we thought, well, maybe we should go do a session in Nashville, but didn't end up doing it. But it's definitely on the list of things we'd like to do.

PM: I was recording this morning with a co-writer best friend of mine who had very nice things to say about your husband. What's he up to these days?

LC: Jeremy is working for Sirius Satellite Radio in New York. He's the programmer for one of their--I call them channels, I think they call them streams of music. It's kind of alt-country related. It's called Outlaw Country. And it's a really cool channel that plays a lot of old music mixed in with a lot of new country stuff that's sort of influenced by Waylon and Willie and the like.  continue

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