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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us November 3, 2005 New Ashland singer/artist set to release three new albums By Cindy Blankenship For the Tidings Laura Cantrell Maryott Driver, a vocal and visual artist, has been called since birth by her middle name, Cantrell, which in Old English means “Little Singer.” “That’s me. I’m five foot one,” Cantrell laughs, adding that the singing connection wasn’t intentional, although she did start performing at an early age, and the New Age CD “Listen with Your Heart,” that she recorded with Grammy finalist Will Clipman climbed to position 17 last year in the Top 100 new age/ambient/world radio/Internet airwaves chart. The CD features tracks such as “Coyote Rain” and “Treedance,” born of the Sonoron Desert where Cantrell grew up. Cantrell remembers her first performance: singing “Oh Susannah” with autoharp at show-and-tell time in the first grade. She sang in choirs throughout school in Tucson. Her professional singing and vocalist career began when a local rock and roll band invited her to audition after hearing her sing at a party. At 16, she was performing with Mint Julep in Tucson bars. A couple years later she began performing original music, and has since performed in a variety of genres in a variety of countries in South America and Europe as well as in the United States. “I encourage everybody to sing. It’s good for you,” Cantrell notes, adding, “It’s the thing I do the best. It’s in my heart.” ARTIST SKETCH Name: Laura Cantrell Maryott Driver Hails From: Sonoran Desert Age: 49 Training: Self-taught Niche: “Renaissance artist; everything I do is art.” Claim to Fame: Her new age CD, Listen with your Heart, reached 17th on the charts Inspiration: Life Three of her new CDs are scheduled to be released in December. Two, yet to be titled, are a collection of lullabies written by 15 women and a country rock fundraiser for the Sky Island Alliance, an organization dedicated to the preservation and restoration of the native biological diversity in the sky islands [mountains] of the Southwest and northwestern Mexico. “Moving, Not Leaving,” is her first fully original recording. Cantrell wrote all of the songs, performed all the vocals, while friends, including Holland guitarist and pianist Philippe Pfeiffer played backup. The CD was recorded in Tucson and Holland where she’s visited annually since being invited to perform her chanteling there in an old church 10 years ago. Chanteling, she says, is “singing the songs of sacred spaces. It is about hearing voice reflected in a room, it is as much the sound of the room as it is the song.” To accomplish this, she vocalizes in an acoustically charged place, with the microphone behind her. “Moving not Leaving,” recorded in Holland and Tucson is “very eclectic” says Cantrell. “There’s R&B, folk, cellos, saxophone, accordion — it’s just all over the place … I’ve always strived to use the different sounds that my voice can create. The voice is quite an instrument.” Cantrell’s voice not only has a wide range, it also produces a wide variety of tones, from a clear to that bluesy, crackling one. The CD’s title was inspired by Cantrell’s move here in February. “My husband and I looked for a number of years for a community that was small, cooler, wetter (since we planned to grow our own food), had a university and was within an hour from an airport because we travel often. We just love it here. We’ve planted our winter greens and they’re lovin’ it, and I have an art studio in one half of the two-car garage.” In her art studio, Cantrell creates sculptures with found objects, such as wood and metal. Recently accepted into the Ashland Gallery Association, Cantrell began collecting these types of objects during childhood walks in the Sonoron hills and arroyos where she says “old and misshapen parts, rusty and washed with an ancient patina, became mysterious treasures.” And, as Cantrell enjoy creating harmony in her visual and vocal arts, she says she loves finding in these treasures “a connection between the doings of a people and the forces of the land, a sacred connection found in the most disjointed elements and brought together in harmony.” To view Cantrell’s art and listen to her music or contact her (she’s looking for musicians to perform her music), go online to www.cantrellmaryott.com, or to www.cdbaby.com. 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