The rise of the house of Edwards nothing but excellence will do for the queen of raw roots, kathleen edwards the last time i saw kathleen edwards she was in anything but a good mood. playing to a packed house at the south by southwest music conference in austin, texas, she was glaring at the back wall, looking like she was measuring the distance to see how far she could chuck her guitar. her evident frustration, brought on by bad sound and poor monitor mix, might have hobbled her own enjoyment of the show, but industry insiders and fans were spellbound by the resulting intensity. dark places, friendly faces 'The curse of south by," she sighs over the phone from her ottawa residence. edwards gets approximately three days off before she heads back out on the road with willie nelson, and at least part of that time will be spent fielding questions from the press. gamely replaying old gigs for the benefit of an interviewer, edwards runs over the assorted difficulties of attempting to be professional in an unprofessional situation. "like, it's supposedly all about music, but you don't get your own soundcheck, you play in a room with a mirror behind you [which reflects the sound back at the performers], and the drums are taking your head off. it's like, is this about music or is it about something else? we didn't feel it was about music." sounds pretty grumpy, right? well, edwards is actually anything but grumpy: she's quite cheerful this morning, even slightly playful in her retorts. her occasionally moody onstage persona and penchant for writing raw roots-rock that sounds like it was wrenched from some dark corner of her soul can mislead listeners into thinking that she's challenging van morrison in the angry curmudgeon polls. edwards is certainly aware of her moodiness: "disgruntled bitches on the road," is how she refers, with characteristic black humour, to her just-completed tour with mary gauthier. truth is, that darkness has to be there to some degree if the wounded protagonists in her songs are anything to go by. like the alienated girlfriend in "copied keys," who feels that 'this is not my town and it will never be," or the vengeful narrator of "back to me," the title track of her new album: "i've got ways to make you sorry, start my life with someone else". any assessment of this complicated singer-songwriter has to take many things into account, including her mercurial personality. no time to suck willfulness, however, does not a crafty songwriter make; if she was nothing more then an angst-ridden rocker, she could share that genre with a million other mediocre performers. she's an unusually determined and talented songwriter, and if there's one thing that comes across in a kathleen edwards' interview, it's that she assesses herself by harsher standards then anyone else could. "i think one thing that colin [cripps: husband, guitarist, and producer] brought to my life, along with so many other things, is the philosophy that we don't have time to suck," she states bluntly. "what's with this myth of the 'great white rock 'n' roll band'? hip-hoppers are like, 'yeah, i'm here and i'm big and i'm going for it.' indie kids are like [uses a small, hesitant voice], 'oh, well, uh, you know, if we do something that, uh, might be good'. are you kidding?" she laughs in bewilderment. "if you want to be anonymous then go home and do that, otherwise... it's not about the charade or the shtick, it's about striving to be great. let's be vocal about the fact that we want to be great. there's nothing wrong with that; in fact, i think it's admirable." the desire to transcend runs hard in edwards, to be sure, as does her desire to keep control of her work. "rounder (records] has pretty much left me alone." not without some turmoil; despite the fact that rounder wanted to use an outside producer to make back to me, edwards dug in and insisted that cripps take the job. 'The record company was not happy about that," she admits. 'They were willing to pay for a name producer, someone that's really expensive, but that's not what i wanted. i mean, daniel lanois would never produce my record, but let's say that he did. i would be so intimidated by that, so afraid to speak my mind if i didn't like something. i didn't want that. i think, no, i know, that sometimes producers have their own agendas. colin's agenda is me, though, so i'd beat him to death with it." tom murray seemagazine.com				Album reviews Feature articles Interviews Show reviews