Mood music kathleen edwards brings her dark visions to etown what's it like when your career has so far been full of plum assignments such as opening tours for no less than willie nelson and bob dylan - and soon will include an appearance with the legendary doc watson, right here in boulder? if you're the remarkably candid canadian musician kathleen edwards, you admit that even work with the big names sometimes doesn't do much for your career. but it doesn't stop you from trying, either. scheduled for a monday evening "etown" taping with watson at chautauqua, edwards recently spent a few weeks at home as the opening act for the venerable nelson. and while it was great to be back in her home country, the ottawa native says that opening duties are a sometimes soul-beating bit of the music business - especially considering the huge buzz and wonderful reviews that have been generated for her recent quasi-country album, back to me. "it was such a weird dichotomy for me," she says. "i spent much of my childhood on the prairies, but it was so strange to be back where nobody knows who you are. it usually took a couple of songs for people to warm up to my music, if they did at all - so it was kind of the same experience as i had when i toured with dylan. great for you, but kind of a thankless job. and the reviews weren't kind at all - they all seemed to wonder why some pure country artist wasn't opening for willie." edwards says she found a sense of relief in the good relationship she formed with nelson and his band members - she's been invited to play at nelson's next farm aid concert, thank you very much - and says she has to focus on the positive and the realistic, at the same time. and while she's been acclaimed by figures including david letterman, who's featured the performer several times on his show, edwards' admittedly dark and moody music and its alternative country sonic bent make it difficult for her to find many mainstream outlets for her songs. imagine a combination of introspective (and occasionally and understandably angry) female artists such as pj harvey and aimee mann mixed with the somewhat misanthropic eye of tom petty and you have a mixture that closely approximates edwards' material... and quite the programming challenge. "i've had my best reception at triple-a format stations, but other stations have really struggled to put me on, especially country stations," she says. "when it does happen, it's usually because there are people working at the stations who are big fans and say, 'you know, this girl has done such cool stuff, we should play her.'" edwards says she also has to make a concerted effort to win over fans, who have much more easily digestible material available to them in the larger pop circus. "and it's all a challenge because i realize now, on my second album, i end up talking more in interviews about marketing than about the music," she says. "but that's an essence of being an independent musician. it's really very scary, when you think about it. we'll be on the tour bus and a band member will pull out a copy of rolling stone and show me a full-page ad for someone like kelly clarkson or joss stone and say, 'you are competing for market space with these exact people.' "it's times like that i think that they're right and i'm not going to make it; there are those days when i wonder if i really am selling any records or if i'm losing touch. but other times it's a much more rewarding experience - we may have only had 150 people when we played at the fox (theatre in boulder) last month, but i think the quality of the crowd was there. after all, it's not my job to worry about the numbers." edwards has a few more tricks up her sleeve as the year progresses; next month she departs on a west coast tour with mann ("i loved her last record and i'm really happy about the way she's so involved in the ideas of every aspect of what she does," edwards says) and john prine; in october she'll be back on the east coast working with my morning jacket and the fall calls for a series of headlining shows in dublin, london and glasgow. andy stonehouse dailycamera.com				Album reviews Feature articles Interviews Show reviews