» Kathleen Edwards

3 years less 3 days ago I put out my last record.  The night before I spent 13 hours on a Greyhound bus going from Canada to New York City for an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman.  As fate would have it, my flight was cancelled after a massive storm blew into the eastern seaboard, closing all NYC airports.  When I reached the border, the customs officer was quite amused by my reason for going to New York.  “To perform on a late-night television show,” I said.  She probably thought I was nuts, but let me get back on the bus.  I later recalled someone backstage saying to me, “You know, honey, most people just cancel.”  Not likely.

And so, two years after my first album Failer was released, a year and half of amazing times followed.  I got to play on Austin City Limits, open for Willie Nelson, John Prine, Aimee Mann, My Morning Jacket, John Mayer and Bryan Adams.  I was invited to perform at Farm Aid ( I cried when Neil Young played “Old Man”), played the Grand Old Opry (Colin, my husband and bandmate wore his original Nudie Suit!), had a song in Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown, toured Australia, Europe, in a van, in a tour bus, by plane, by ferry, solo and with a band…... and then home.

In January 2007, I started working with Jim Scott at Plyrz studios.  I had wanted to work with Jim ever since I read his name on the back cover of Whiskeytown’s Strangers Almanac.  We hit it off so well mixing my last album Back To Me that it was an easy decision to go back for more and have him work on this new album Asking For Flowers.  A dream come true, I had to frequently pinch myself having him by my side during the making of this record. 

It was such an honor working with Don Heffington, Bob Glaub, Benmont Tench, and Greg Liesz, who mainly served as my band.  It is always a risk recording with people who don’t know you, but not in this case.  “The Cheapest Key” was a song I wasn’t sure was even ready to record, but after a few passes, we had the take and it remains in my mind the most fun song I’ve ever recorded.  “Goodnight, California” is a six and a half minute song we got on the second take.  It features a bass line that was played impeccably by Sebastian Steinberg, with John Guinty on Hammond.  “I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory” was a song I wrote after Jim Scott overheard me singing one line I had written.  He pushed me to finish it at the hotel that night, and with a little help from some wine I did.  We tracked it the next morning.  Most of the vocal is live off the floor, as is all of Greg Liesz’s amazing pedal steel part.  My mother is featured on the “oohs” in the choruses, which I threatened to take off the track when she complained about the title of “Sure As Shit.” 

Asking for Flowers
2008

1. Buffalo
2. The Cheapest Key 
3. Asking for Flowers  
4. Alicia Ross 5:06  
5. I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory  
6. Oil Man's War 
7. Sure As Shit  
8. Run  
9. Oh Canada  
10. Scared At Night 
11. Goodnight, California

Resentie / Persbericht

We zijn nu vijf jaar en twee platen verder, en de conclusie is dat Kathleen Edwards op Asking for Flowers het ultrahoge niveau van haar debuut handhaaft. Een van de geheimen is haar stem. Haar wat afstandelijke, ouwelijke looks - ze kijkt je vanaf de cd-hoes als een koele pianolerares minzaam aan - doen anders vermoeden, maar Kathleen heeft een ongelooflijk warm, licht-hees, kwetsbaar stemgeluid. Een stemgeluid dat vaak aan het einde van de ademtocht licht vibreert, wat de nummers een extra gevoelige touch meegeeft. Toch klinkt ze net zo krachtig als de veel oudere Lucinda Williams waardoor ze met gemak zowel luisterliedjes als zwaardere rocknummers aankan. Dat doet ze dan ook met verve en waar dat op andere platen nog wel eens een ratjetoe oplevert, klinkt Asking for Flowers als een spannend luisterboek. Er is, kortom, een plot en een climax.