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Laura Love is not a household name. She has never had a hit record. She plays fewer than a hundred dates a year. And yet, she has thousands of fans throughout North America and Europe, Billboard Magazine continually includes her cds on their annual top ten lists and the first gig she ever played on the East Coast was at Carnegie Hall. She released her controversial cd, Welcome To Pagan Place, on KOCH Records in 2003, is about to debut her memoir, You Ain't Got No Easter Clothes, with a major publisher, and will release her ninth cd as a companion to the book this summer.
Laura is a rare recording artist - authentic and deeply rooted, with extremely diverse audience appeal. Her management, publicists, the record label suits and the media all struggle to define her style. She is an African-American funk bassist with an astonishing voice, who is greatly influenced by blues and bluegrass, jazz, folk, gospel, reggae and country. Laura sometimes refers to her style as "folk-funk", "Afro-Celtic" or "hip-Alachian". Regardless of how she is described, Laura has an uncanny ability to get her audience to listen beyond their own musical boundaries. She often performs at festivals to older fans who have come to hear, say, Ralph Stanley, and by the end of her set, the octogenarians are lined up shoulder to shoulder with the pierced and tattooed and their middle aged parents to get their cds autographed. It's quite a sight.
How did she get this way? Laura has an interesting story. So interesting, in fact, that, despite the fact that she is not a household name and has never had a hit record, Hyperion Books will publish Laura's memoir, You Ain't Got No Easter Clothes, in August, 2004. The book tells of her growing up in poverty and isolation in Nebraska in the 1960's. Laura's mother, Wini, had been a singer in her father's jazz band. Preston Love enjoyed a bit of success in the hot climate of Midwest jazz in the '40s. He played sax with Count Basie, Lucky Millander and Johnny Otis and formed his own band in the '50s. He fathered two girls with Wini but never married her, as he had his "real" wife and children to consider. Wini was not well and spent time in mental institutions while Laura and her sister bounced around in orphanages, foster homes, convents and homeless shelters. Laura was told that her father had died when she was an infant, and so was a bit surprised when she ran into Preston at a nightclub in Lincoln when she was 16, which only led to more disappointment. A harrowing tale, indeed, but told so well with Laura's trademark humor and insight, that the book is a pleasure to read.
Laura had an enormous will to survive her difficult childhood and that spirit burns bright in her today. That strength, combined with her far flung musical influences and enormous talent, make Laura a remarkable and unique performer.
On stage, Laura's voice soars into the stratosphere, her long time loyal band grooves along with her, she wisecracks with her side men and women, she mentions a local political issue, she dances as she snaps her funky bass intro and no one who hears this is ever the same. Laura is whip smart, down to earth, and funny as hell. It's a winning combination, as evidenced by the long lines of fans waiting to meet her after every show, but apparently difficult to market to the mainstream. After producing four cds on her own label, Laura signed a recording contract in 1997 with industry giant, Mercury Records. With Mercury, Laura released two critically acclaimed cds and went from selling a few thousand a year to over 50,000. She was ecstatic. Not impressed with those numbers, Mercury dropped her like a hot rock. Many musicians would find this discouraging but Laura dusted herself off and released a great series of CDs on the independent labels, Rounder Zoe and KOCH.
KOCH is well known as the leading distributor of independent music. They have released a slew of great re-issues and anthologies and have assembled a diverse roster of pop, jazz, rock, rap, folk and country artists over the past few years. When Laura saw that KOCH released albums by Ringo Starr and Joan Baez in the same year, she knew she'd fit right in. Welcome To Pagan Place is Laura's typical ragout of content and style - an up to the minute snapshot of her topical concerns, a small tidbit about her personal life, a childhood memory, a couple of great cover tunes and a traditional gospel song. Her band mates, Jen Todd, Rod Cook, Chris Leighton and Barbara Lamb contribute acoustic and electric guitars, drums and fiddle on this project. Jen Todd, who sometimes performs with Laura as an acoustic duo as an alternate to the full band, is prominently featured as a vocalist on the disc.
So, what do you call a style that incorporates folk-ish melodies, a wall of harmonies, funk bass and acoustic instrumentation with leanings toward jazz, country and rhythm and blues? It doesn't matter what you call it - Laura Love survived many personal difficulties to get where she is today. She is happy and grateful to have a life that allows her to tour the world playing music and her joy is evident every minute that she's on stage. And that joy, for Laura and her audience, is all that really matters.
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