Laura Baird - I Wish I Was A Sparrow CD

With a musical timeline dating back to her early childhood, LauraBaird is an exceptionally talented multi-instrumentalist andsinger-songwriter, best known for her projects with her sister, Meg,as The Baird Sisters, and guitarist Glenn Jones. Baird’s own soundstems from the Appalachian folk tradition, and she connects to it viafamily lineage--her great-great uncle I.G. Greer’s folk recordings forthe Library of Congress are a large influence. Also woven into hersonic influences are classical composers like Bach and Satie, andmodern day musicians such as Opal and Yo La Tengo.For her upcoming debut solo album, I Wish I Were A Sparrow, Bairdplays odes to the tradition from which she learned to play, combiningAppalachian balladry, the roughness of old field recordings, and adose of dreaminess and solitude that captures the distinct environmentof sleepy central New Jersey. This is where Baird departs fromtradition, leaving the communal origins of folk music and capturingthe singular self. An amalgam of old and new can be found in theoverall sound, as well as the lyrics, with half of the songs onSparrow, including "Dreadful Wind and Rain" and "Pretty Polly", beingpassed down from the folk tradition, and the other half, including"Wind Wind "and "Love Song From The Earth To The Moon" coming fromBaird’s own hand. While the most salient part of her last BairdSisters project was the melding of familial voices and variousinstruments, Baird’s solo effort is centered around the combination ofher virtuosic banjo playing and prominent but airy vocals.