kathleen edwards when budding "canadiana" star kathleen edwards first made her way to music city in 2004, she rolled into town trumpeted as the "next lucinda williams." honestly, that all seemed a little strange to us. to the best of our knowledge, lucinda is still very much alive and is in no immediate need of a replacement. and from listening to edwards' extraordinary debut, failer, and subsequently her stunning sophomore followup, back to me, kathleen doesn't need to ride on anyone else's coattails. it's true that, like lucinda, kathleen spins tales of tough, dark, damaged characters and conveys them with the same kind of slow, boiling sexuality and dirt road grit that williams has always employed. but edwards has a different voice, a different aesthetic and, well, she's canadian, but that hasn't stopped people from trying to hand her crowns she doesn't desire. "it's kind of like that whole theory that people praise your debut record because they've never heard of you before, and if you do something kind of good you are considered the next neil young or the next lucinda williams," kathleen tells atr. "and it's just like, way to f-king kill my relationship with lucinda williams before i'd even had the chance to meet her. thanks a lot. "in canada, when i first came out it was, 'oh, she's just like sarah harmer,' and that eventually went away," she says. "but i always assume that there's always going to be somebody that they're going to parallel me to, and over time it is probably going to go away. "and maybe 10 years from now, if i manage to do well for a while, there will be (artists) who will come out who don't sound like me at all that people will be saying 'oh, she's the next kathleen edwards, she finishes, laughing. jason moon wilkins nashvillerage.com				Album reviews Feature articles Interviews Show reviews