Clever with words Kathleen Edwards delivers Some metaphors are good, and some are even great. But a special few are so multilayered and weirdly brilliant you can only shake your head and ponder the twisted thought process that went into them. For example, we have "I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory," a charming chronicle of bar-band life by Canadian singer/songwriter Kathleen Edwards (who plays Wednesday at Carrboro's ArtsCenter). The chorus is set up as a list of comparisons in which the first-person narrator comes up short in each case. It hits a peak of cool with this: I'm a Ford Tempo, you're a Maserati. You're the Great One, I'm Marty McSorley. Fords and Maseratis, you know about. Unless you're a hockey fan, you might not get that second line. "The Great One," of course, is Wayne Gretzky, the most iconic player in professional hockey. And Marty McSorley was one of Gretzky's on-ice "protectors," a journeyman whose professional career ended after he was convicted of assault for hitting an opposing player on the head with a hockey stick in 2000. It's the perfect juxtaposition. "I'm still trying to figure out where that came from," Edwards says with a laugh, calling from a tour stop in Florida. "I was playing around with this goofball idea and had a couple of lines. Singing through it, I wanted to do a hockey thing and came up with that line: 'You're the Great One, I'm Marty McSorley ... Oh my God, that's it!' I've had a lot of joy out of that song, mostly people's reactions." McSorley apparently has no hard feelings about turning up in Edwards' song; he was enough of a sport to appear in the video. "He was awesome, a total gentleman," Edwards says. "You know, guys like that are raised to be a certain kind of guy, because it got the job done, and I was wondering how he would take this. But he was really nice. That was a fun day." "I Make the Dough" is one of 11 songs on Edwards' third album, "Asking for Flowers" (Rounder Records). Edwards has been a rising star in alternative-country circles since her 2003 debut, "Failer," which brought her widespread comparisons to Lucinda Williams. But "Flowers" is, quite frankly, better than anything Williams has put out in years. At first listen, "Flowers" seems like a deceptively casual affair. Edwards' singing voice is functional at best, and the arrangements seem like standard country-tinged bar-band rock. Keep listening, though, and "Asking For Flowers" reveals itself as a stunner, thanks to Edwards' unmatched eye and ear for detail. There's not a word or a sound out of place, and that no-frills voice of hers is the perfect instrument to evoke characters whose hardscrabble hopes come out between the lines. "I don't know why I write those songs," Edwards says. "I guess it's my way of getting rid of stuff so I won't have to carry it in my heart; get it out so I don't choke on it. Then I get to act like a ham all the time. I really am a happy person. But songwriting for me is an opportunity to deal with stuff I'm not comfortable dealing with in other ways. I'm from a British family, you know. We don't talk about feelings." The child of diplomats, Edwards grew up in Switzerland and Korea. Her parents encouraged her musical aspirations, although she first played classical violin before taking up songwriting. "I did the Suzuki method for a few years, then I started doing the conservatory thing, where you get more into theory," she says. "But Suzuki was great, because you spend a lot of time on ear-training and melody recognition before learning to read music. That shaped my musical ear. My mother is a very accomplished musician, but she can't really improvise and she has to read it. I'm the opposite - not a great sight reader, but I can play and sing anything by ear." In that, Edwards has something in common with Raleigh singer/songwriter Caitlin Cary, who also learned violin by the Suzuki method -- and later gained notice as fiddler and vocal foil for Ryan Adams in Whiskeytown. As it happens, Edwards cites Whiskeytown's 1997 album "Stranger's Almanac" as a key record in her personal cosmos. "That was one of the most influential records of my young life," Edwards says. "It really changed the way I thought about pedal steel guitar -- I was suddenly in love with music that had a country tinge - and the songs were great. It was the most cinematic music I'd ever listened to, and I just loved it. "I've never told Ryan [Adams] that because there just hasn't been a right moment," she adds. "Maybe one day. I'm one of those people who doesn't necessarily need to have a personal relationship with their musical heroes. You know, the magic of the music is good enough for me. I can feel like I love something without knowing the person who made it." David Menconi The News & Observer				Album reviews Feature articles Interviews Show reviews