Kathleen Edwards w/ Lauren Morrow
KATHLEEN EDWARDS
DOORS AT 7PM / SHOW AT 8PM
INDOOR SHOW, ALL AGES
FACEBOOK EVENT / SPOTIFY / INSTAGRAM
For decades, Kathleen Edwards has been a cornerstone of North American roots music.
Since making her debut with 2002’s Failer, she’s spent the 21st century occupying the grey area between genres, swirling together her own mix of alt-country, folk, and heartland rock & roll. It’s a sound that has earned its creator more a half-dozen Juno nominations, as well as Top 40 success on both sides of the Canadian/American border. Now in her third decade as an artist, Kathleen Edwards has done more than carry the torch of songwriting heroes like Tom Petty, Neil Young, and Lucinda Williams — she’s opened the door for others, too, inspiring a new generation of artists who, like her, blur the boundaries between genre and generation.
A native of Ottawa, Ontario, Edwards was still in her early 20s when she released the critically-acclaimed Failer. The album’s warm, woozy sound — crystallized on radio hits like “Six O’Clock News” — quickly turned her into one of the era’s alt-country heroes. From the very start, though, Edwards’ music seemed to exist somewhere out of time, resisting categorization even as Failer received a Juno nomination for “Roots & Traditional Album of the Year.”
“No one knew what to call my type of music back then,” she says of those early years. “The Americana genre didn’t exist yet, so they couldn’t categorize me. I just made the kind of music I wanted to make.”
Edwards continued blazing her own trail with follow-up albums like Back to Me and Asking for Flowers. By the time Voyageur arrived in 2012, Americana very much did exist as a genre, and Edwards found herself riding a newfound commercial peak. The album reached Number 2 on the Canadian Albums Chart and Number 3 on Billboard’s Folk Albums chart. Even so, a busy decade on the road had left her exhausted. After touring in support of Voyageur’s release, Edwards left the music business altogether and moved to suburban Ontario, where she opened a coffee shop called — defiantly — “Quitters.”
“Before I turned 30, I toured the world and put our nearly four records, performed on TV, and had an incredible run,” she says of her first 10 years in the spotlight. “What’s interesting is that I walked away from all of it, too — and when I came back, I felt better than the person who put out Failer.”
By the late 2010s, Edwards felt recharged and revitalized. When a phone call arrived from Maren Morris, who was looking for songwriting partners for a new project, Edwards jumped at the chance to collaborate. The two musicians co-wrote “Good Woman,” which appeared on Morris’ Grammy-nominated album Girl in 2019. Back home in Canada, Edwards continued to write new material, eventually partnering with producer Ian Fitchuk for the album Total Freedom. Released in 2020, the album expanded her sound and her audience, boosted by two hit songs — “Options Open” and “Hard on Everyone” — that both reached the Top 30 on the Triple A chart in America. Total Freedom didn’t just mark her return to the music industry. It was a rebirth, too.
What’s next? New music, of course. Edwards remains a fan of “ripping guitar riffs and good songs,” and she’s combining both into a follow-up album that showcases her legacy as well as her evolution. She maintains a presence on the road, too, playing her own gigs one minute and sharing shows with her heroes — including Willie Nelson, John Fogerty, and Bob Dylan — the next.
“The amount of things I’ve gone through might make someone else quit…but quitting doesn’t quite do it for me,” she says. “I can’t help but want to write great songs, connect with people, and see what’s ahead. I don’t love looking behind, even though it’s one of the ways we can see what we’ve done, so I’m looking forward.”
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LAUREN MORROW
OPENS THE SHOW
People Talk is the album Lauren Morrow was born to create. The Nashville-based, Atlanta-raised singer-songwriter has spent the better part of the last fifteen years cultivating her sound, pouring in a variety of influences, and honing her live show until the sound felt unabashedly her own.
After spending more than a decade as the frontwoman of popular Americana band The Whiskey Gentry, Lauren stepped out with a 2018 self-titled debut EP and received widespread acclaim. She landed on many Best Of year end lists from Rolling Stone to Garden & Gun, filmed an episode for PBS’ “Bluegrass Underground” and toured the US playing festivals such as Pickathon and Bristol Rhythm & Roots. However, there were so many parts of her that remained creatively silent through the years. Sure, with her soprano voice and vulnerable vibrato, she could belt a country tune with the best of them. And yes, she could write a fast-paced, witty, Americana banger with the bands she fronted before. But what about all of the influences and truths she knew were untapped? The years of obsessing over 90s Alternative, BritPop and 80s New Wave bands with moody, brutally honest lyrical content and rock n roll attitudes that she so deeply loved? With the encouragement of her husband and business/creative partner, Jason, she mined those memories and dug into the root of who she is, pulling the pieces together to forge sincerity and vulnerability into an uninhibited creative work.
When it came time to write the songs for her first full-length record, Lauren knew she had to find those around her who could pull her out of the Americana rut and inspire her to tap into parts unknown. After moving to Nashville in 2017, both Lauren and Jason found the community they so desperately wanted, including a mental/songwriting guru in producer Parker Cason. “It was the best decision we’ve made. We decided in July 2017 to move and we sold our house, packed our bags, and moved here less than two months later. We met Parker almost immediately, and it felt so kindred to me. I’d finally found someone who understood all of my influences and could really see the vision beyond what I’d done in my prior career.” They began writing and recording the songs for People Talk in 2019. Lauren found herself finally writing the songs she always knew were within her, and together they created a soundscape that reflects her eclectic well of influences and songwriting growth since moving to Nashville.“I used to write stories, made up things about others I’d imagined in my head, but this record is all true to me. There’s not a single lyric that hasn’t happened to me in some shape or form, and I think it’s taken me to this point in my life to be able to articulate it and confidently stand behind the vulnerability of it all, which isn’t easy for me. I didn’t want to be defined anymore by my past musical experiences or feel like I was ‘enough,’ because my past bands didn’t quite ‘make it.’ In my head I was thinking, ‘Geez, she’s in her 30s and releasing a debut record? Shouldn’t she hang it up already? Her time is running out.’ But in reality, I had to silence that negative voice, and let myself show through these songs, and it’s taken all of this time and these experiences to really shape who I am as a human. I feel like I’m just now figuring that out, and now I finally have something to say.”
While recording for People Talk began at Sound Emporium in November 2019, the pandemic put an immediate stop to the record production, forcing Lauren to surrender to the uncontrollable (not an easy task for her) and learn to trust the cosmic alignment that awaited her debut record. It also fully committed Lauren and Jason to their craft - they knew they had a great set of songs and now they had the extra time to fully plan its wealth of soundscapes and its release. They truly learned the meaning behind the word “Hustle,” just like Track 7 on People Talk, implies - they painted houses to make ends meet when touring stopped, took out a second mortgage on their East Nashville home to self fund the release, and even sold a little “Mary Jane” to pay for players on the record and studio time. Determined to never give up on this dream, they made use of every resource and every free minute - they transmuted all of that angst and uncertainty into the originality of this record.
You’ll find even more of these universal truths on People Talk: arguing with a loved one and just wanting the fight to be over (“I’m Sorry”) or doing whatever it takes to live your dreams (“Hustle”) and trying to find whatever brings you peace when you’re having anxiety attacks (“Only Nice When I’m High”) or having to claw your way through self doubt (“Nobody But Me”). “I just want the stories on this record to feel relatable and real. We’re constantly fed a fake narrative through social media and reality TV, etc, and I just want to come across as the person I am. Flaws and all.”
That “realness” came early to Lauren as a child. On the surface, she had a fairly conventional childhood, riding her bike around her suburban Atlanta neighborhood and stealing her older brother Kris’s alternative rock albums. From there she fell into a world of U2, Oasis, David Bowie, The Beatles, Jeff Buckley, Outkast, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, Alanis Morrisette, and Tori Amos. She gravitated towards lyrics that made her feel deeply and allowed a form of escape. Her homelife turned tumultuous - her parents’ constant fighting ultimately led to a divorce, and her mother fell into addiction which drove Lauren to further retreat into her room and into her headphones. Never the “popular girl” but always oddly confident in her nerdy quirkiness, she bought her first guitar at 15 and realized she possessed a tool to express herself through song and also escape the chaos around her. That same year, she won a radio contest that allowed her to sing with Butch Walker in front of 90,000 fans and ultimately changed the trajectory of her life - she knew she wanted to play music forever.
As Lauren moved further into adulthood, she was still rattled by adolescent trauma and ultimately felt trapped in Georgia. “I wanted to get away as far as possible, and by doing so, I was able to disconnect from that baggage, responsibility, and codependency I’d felt for my mom as a teen and really spread my own wings and discover myself.” She moved to Newcastle, England and dug more into her songwriting and eventually found the confidence to perform in front of others. Up until then, she only sang in front of a very small group of trusted friends. Moving to the UK changed Lauren in a way she didn’t fully understand until she came back home to the states. As much as she wanted to get away, she missed the South. She returned home self-assured and with the initial building blocks of her sound.
At Georgia State University, Lauren majored in English and started her first band, where she was lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist. She met Jason shortly thereafter. They fell in love, broke each other's hearts, but ultimately settled into their destiny together where they have been creating music and a life ever since. Lauren credits Jason with pushing her to fullest potential. “He was the person who always had my back as soon as he heard me sing. He’s always believed in me even when I didn’t - whether it was in The Whiskey Gentry, or now as a solo artist, we’ve been on the journey together, and it’s really special.”
A firm believer in timing and synchronicities, Lauren knows that every moment in her life thus far has led her to make People Talk. The untapped musical influences, the move to Nashville, the people in her life, her childhood, and decades of touring, writing, and fronting bands has all melded within her to explode in the form of ten songs that express a woman fully formed. “I couldn’t be more proud of anything in my life. It’s real, and it’s me. Finally.”
