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Tag: Nashville

Posted on February 8, 2024May 23, 2025

Benjamin Francis Leftwich releases his most emotional, spiritual album tomorrow. Leeds and York concerts to follow

Seeking the light: York singer-songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich. Picture: Harry Pearson

YORK singer-songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich will play a home-city concert this summer, but make sure to arrive early.

He will be opening Futuresound’s 5pm triple bill at York Museum Gardens on July 18 as the first of two special guests for headlining Scottish-Italian singer-songwriter Jack Savoretti, with Irish blues and folk musician Foy Vance as the other.

First comes tomorrow’s release of his fifth studio album in 13 years, Some Things Break, the follow-up to 2021’s To Carry A Whale as Ben continues a fruitful partnership with Dirty Hit Records, the label that made him its first signing in 2011 at the age of 21.

“Given the way the music industry is shaping up, maybe I’ll release albums more regularly than I do now, but I’ll just release them when I’m proud of something, though I definitely need guidance to say, ‘time to go, it’s ready’,” he says.

“In this case, we wrote about 20 to 30 songs, done at different stages. Some artists will just write ten songs and release them all on a record, but for me, I need to make mistakes along the way, try things out, and the more I write, the clearer my goal is.”

He kept Dirty Hit in the loop all the way, as the recordings progressed with Grammy Award-winning producer Jimmy Hogarth and the album became more focused.

The cover artwork for Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s new album, Some Things Break, out tomorrow on Dirty Hit Records

When judging a song, “my fear has got less thanks to God over the last few years,” says Ben. “But I’m not immune to needing friends, people who aren’t in the industry, to say what they think, feeding off their energy, because they’re less invested in the music industry politics. Ultimately, I want a song to be in everyone’s heart.”

Some Things Break was composed over two years, at locations across the globe, from Ben’s adopted home of Tottenham, London, to Nashville, Washington to Stockholm.

The recording sessions found him collaborating with fellow songwriters Mikky Ekko, The 1975’s Jamie Squire and Jon Green for an album with a broader range, both musically and vocally, combining his acoustic guitar at times with piano, choirs, drumbeats and effects in a layered soundscape.

“I do think these are the most emotional, spiritual songs I’ve done, where I thought I’d sing them in a higher range, but actually the voice has gone down – a bit of crooning! – and it’s nice to have those two voices,” says Ben, 34.

“The song always guides me, especially at the point of the vocal delivery or the choice of key. My thing is ‘whatever is best for the song’, if a friend is way better at playing the piano or Jimmy being better for a guitar part.

“Just by sheer chance, I did all the first album [2011’s Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm] in York, but now I have access to musicians all over. It’s been a long, long journey, starting 15 years ago, but I now feel God puts people in my path and I’ve got so lucky that people come my way.”

“I keep my head in the clouds but my feet on the ground,” says Benjamin Francis Leftwich. Picture: Harry Pearson

Take The 1975’s Jamie Squire, for example. “I had a message 12 years ago from Jamie saying ‘I’m a friend of Matt Healy [The 1975’s lead singer]…I really love your music,” Ben recalls. “I invited him to work with me, and he’s one of the best musicians I’ve ever met.”

Latterly Ben and Jamie have been working in London with Scottish singer-songwriter Katie Gregson-MacLeod, and Ben will link up with The 1975 pianist Jamie for his eight-date spring tour in support of the new album, opening at Leeds Brudenell Social Club on April 4.

Ben’s songwriting wanderlust took him to Nashville twice last year for three weeks each in April and October. “That’s where I met Mikky Ekko – best known for writing that beautiful song Stay, the Rihanna hit – and we wrote the most explicit song I’ve ever done, about my father [the late University of York politics lecturer Adrian Leftwich].

“I love writing songs that move people, and I was lost for so long that I feel like I’m almost making up for the time that I wasted. My diary is busy, busier than ever. I’m so lucky. I keep my head in the clouds but my feet on the ground.”

Tickets for April 4 at Leeds Brudenell Social Club: www.benjaminfrancisleftwich.com

Tickets for July 18 at York Museum Gardens:  https://futuresound.seetickets.com/event/jack-savoretti/york-museum-gardens/2929799

Copyright of The Press, York

Posted on June 19, 2023June 19, 2023

Laura Cantrell to open tour at Leeds Brudenell Social Club on Friday after releasing first studio album in nine years

Laura Cantrell: Leading off her summer tour in Leeds on Friday

NEW York country singer Laura Cantrell opens her 14-date British summer tour at Leeds Brudenell Social Club on Friday.

She will be promoting her first studio album in nine years, Just Like A Rose: The Anniversary Sessions, released on June 9 on the Propeller Sound Recordings label.

Nashville-born Laura, 55, is joined on the recordings by longtime friends Steve Earle, Buddy Miller, Rosie Flores and Paul Burch.

Featured too are musicians Mark Spencer(Son Volt, Lisa Loeb),Jeremy Chatzky (Ronnie Spector, Bruce Springsteen), Kenny Vaughan (Marty Stuart’s Fabulous Superlatives), Fats Kaplan (John Prine, Jack White), Dennis Crouch (Robert Plant, Diana Krall) and Jen Gunderman (Cheryl Crow, Jayhawks).

Cantrell’s co-writers include Mark Winchester(Randy Travis, Carlene Carter), Fred Wilhelm (Rascal Flats, Faith Hill) and Gary Burr (Patty Loveless, Ringo Starr). An unreleased Amy Rigby song and a new recording of When The Roses Bloom Again, adapted by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, are further highlights.

Originally, the album was intended to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Cantrell’s debut, Not The Tremblin’ Kind,in 2020, but recording was delayed by Covid restrictions. Eventually, the new collection was completed in studios in the New York City area and country capital Nashville.

“I thought I had figured it all out,” Laura muses, as she recalls her initial puzzlement in 2019 at how to acknowledge the approaching 20th anniversary of her first album. “I wanted to salute different aspects of my music life for the last two decades, to create more of a celebration than a traditional album.

“The idea of recording and releasing a series of singles in real time was intriguing, so I started a crowd-funding campaign and launched it on March 1 2020.”

Within days, the world was a very different place, however. Cantrell duly placed her plans on hold while the pandemic raged in her neighbourhood in Jackson Heights, New York, and throughout the world.

Slowly and fitfully, she pushed on as restrictions and delays changed the timeline and shape of her plans. “We moved so slowly I thought ‘this isn’t even happening’. But with the help of many great ‘music people’ the songs emerged,” says Laura.

The cover artwork for Laura Cantrell’s Just Like A Rose, her first studio album since 2014

“There was a risk working with different producers that the results would feel disjointed, but I love where the album landed. Having come through the gauntlet of the pandemic, I felt so much joy in the process, I hope people hear and feel that in the tracks themselves.”

The material spans Cantrell’s latest songwriting and songs she has been humming to herself since before she had had her own band or played her own shows. “It is interesting maturing into your musical worldview,” she says.

“You still have songs that hit you like you’re a teenager with your first crush, and others that reflect more experience and nuance, or frustration with tough realities, and then those you just love purely as music – there’s a bit of it all on this album.” 

Since 2000, Cantrell has released the albums Not The Tremblin’ Kind, When The Roses Bloom Again (2002), Humming By The Flowered Vine (2005), Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs Of The Queen Of Country Music (2011), No Way There From Here (2014) and The BBC Sessions (2016).

She was a favourite of the late pioneering radio presenter John Peel, who called Not The Tremblin’ Kind “my favourite record of the last ten years, and possibly my life”. She recorded several Peel Sessions for the BBC from 2000 to 2004 and appeared on the first Peel Day programme on BBC Radio One commemorating the first anniversary of Peel’s death. 

She presented a weekly country and old-time msuic radio show on WFMU, The Radio Thrift, and since August 2017 she has hosted Dark Horse Radio, SiriusXM’s weekly programme featuring the music of George Harrison on The Beatles Channel. Her show States Of Country streams on GimmeCountry.

Away from music, Cantrell held a day job as a vice-president in the equity research department of Bank of America until 2003 and later began working as a recruiter for AllianceBernstein.

Brudenell and Please Please You presents Laura Cantrell, supported by Doug Levitt, at Leeds Brudenell Social Club on Friday (23/6/2023) at 8pm. Box office: brudenellsocialclub.co.uk or seetickets.com.

Track listing for Just Like A Rose: The Anniversary Sessions

1. Push The Swing (Laura Cantrell/Mark Winchester)

2. Bide My Time (Mark Winchester/Laura Cantrell)

3. Brand New Eyes (Amy Rigby)

4. Just Like A Rose (Laura Cantrell/Mark Spencer)

5. When The Roses Bloom Again (Jeff Tweedy/Public Domain)

6. Secret Language (Laura Cantrell)

7. Unaccompanied (Laura Cantrell/Fred Wilhelm)

8. I’m Gonna Miss This Town (Laura Cantrell/Fred Wilhelm)

9. Good Morning Mr. Afternoon (Joe Flood)

10. Holding You In My Heart (Laura Cantrell/Gary Burr)

11. AWM – Bless (Laura Cantrell/Mark Spencer)

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