Kathleen Edwards brings dark material to Phoenix The only bad songs, Kathleen Edwards believes, are those that leave nothing to the imagination. Even so, the 29-year-old, Ottawa-based singer-songwriter gets pretty close to the nitty gritty several times on her just-released third CD, Asking For Flowers, the roots music star's most confident and outwardly focused recording to date. Perhaps not coincidentally, its most remarkable achievements are songs that deal less with her inner life and the realm of imagination than with human behaviour of the worst kind. The long ballad "Alicia Ross," a signal departure for Edwards, tells the story of the 25-year-old Markham woman who was savagely murdered in 2005 by her next-door neighbour. He was never a suspect till he came forward five weeks after she disappeared and led police to her remains. Edwards focuses on the grief of Ross' mother, not on the grim details of the event itself, to create a powerful statement about the effects of violence. "It was a hard song to write, brutal, and it took a long time," Edwards says during a recent stopover in Toronto. She performs Wednesday night at the Phoenix Concert Theatre with Justin Rutledge opening. "But it was a song I really wanted to finish. I was moved by her story, the randomness, the senselessness of it, but it was her mother's pain that got to me. She was very visible in the media during the five weeks the police were looking for her daughter and I could see my own mother... Anybody's mother... How could you live another day with that much pain? "Our parents spend their lives trying to protect us, teaching us to be careful... But how can you prepare a child for something so unexpected?" Recorded in Los Angeles with producer Jim Scott - he has also worked with Tom Petty, one of Edwards' favourite songwriters and performers - Asking For Flowers arrives a full three years after her sophomore album, Back To Me, and six years after her groundbreaking independent debut, Failer. There's no mystery to the long wait between albums, Edwards says. "I just didn't have the songs. I took some time off, I got married (to guitarist and collaborator Colin Cripps), I worked last summer in a winery in Niagara, I spent time in my garden. "I usually write alone and locked away... I'm the stereotypical depressed songwriter. I envy writers like (Bruce) Springsteen - I've seen pictures of him carrying a notebook and scribbling ideas down whenever they occur to him. I usually have to wait for the right circumstances. This time, when Jim called to say he'd put together a band he wanted me to play with, only a couple of songs were finished. The rest I wrote in California, some actually in the studio." The unscheduled break in her professional routine gave Edwards time to reflect on the world around her, on tough issues affecting everyone - the Iraq war, political fugitives, incipient racism in her homeland, mortality and violence - that surface in unusually brave and sophisticated ways in the songs "Oil Man's War," "Oh Canada," "Scared at Night" and "Alicia Ross." There's evidence, too, of her trademark black sense of humour ("I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory," about her long-time band mate, Ottawa guitarist and songwriter Jim Bryson), her propensity for dirty words ("Sure as Shit," a tender love ballad in which passion finds expression in a profane mumble), and outlaw sensibilities ("Buffalo," "Run"). There's enough wit, emotional depth and bravado to have earned Edwards significant critical praise this time out. "My mouth can get me into trouble," she laughs. "I'm always acting on my gut reactions. My big concern on this album was over 'Oh Canada.' Maybe as a white middle-class woman I'm not entitled to write a song about racism. Part of me feels I could be harshly judged because I didn't include myself in the song." Still, she has made the album she wanted to make, she says, and without record-company meddling or advice. "It was scary handing it over (to her U.S. label Zoe Records)... And no one has called me yet to tell me I made a great record." Not that she's looking for extra approval. Asking For Flowers was picked up for release outside North America by Universal Music, which guarantees major-league exposure and the trappings of stardom. "Well, maybe better hotel rooms," Edwards says with a cheeky grin. Greg Quill Toronto Star				Album reviews Feature articles Interviews Show reviews