I’ve been meaning to write about former Georgie James vocalist, Laura Burhenn for… well for at least four days.
The name on the tip of the world’s tongue is Dusty Springfield and that’s OK except, yuck, do you really want your second band, the Mynabirds, debut album, What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood, compared to Dusty In Memphis?
Not so much though the first single is a sixties pop ripp with soulful vocals which is probably enough in this day and age. And it is a good song which you’d think might crack the college charts.
The producer is Richard Swift which, if you know about this stuff and I don’t, is something like a big deal. The album was written recorded and then when Saddle Creek heard it they agreed to release it Saddle Creek are distributed by Warner Bros so the album will be available.
I can see what Saddle Creek liked about Laura and her touring band (if I’m reading it right) and will probably have a better feel for it after I catch em opening for Chris Garneau’s”baroque pop” -per wikipedia, haven’t heard him muself.
Mynawise I’ve dug a little (but not much) deeper and watched a girl named Laura and her piano from 2008 singing “Not Your Fault” -sorta dark and lovely. And then a live version of “Numbers Don’t Lie” from SXSW that cuts the original. Also a song here and song there. Laura has a soulful voice at least enough to feel like the real deal though the band seems to live in that netherland between the real and the faux with only the audience left to arbitrate between them.
So I am waiting to get home and pony up for the whole of the album and they are playing at the Bell House (that’s the Garneau gig), June 3rd. My recommendation? “At least try out “Numbers Don’t Lie”… break local, break college, break pop, break big.