In these short summary articles, I make a quick assessment of the careers of those artists that have joined me on The Art of Longevity podcast. Who knows, each of these short articles might add up to the chapters of a book on lasting careers in music. For the time being celebrating each artist’s body of work and their individual brand of success is enough for a blog!
Levitating Laura Veirs, by Mick Clarke
As she releases album number 12 Found Light, it is worth celebrating Laura Veirs’ continued contribution to the music scene across two decades of making her unique brand of indie folk pop. The secret to her success is not being attached to outcomes and focusing on the craft of making very good albums as cohesive works. She is not as self-critical as many of her peers and would rather get stuff made than worry about perfection or how it will be received. Ironically then, her music is critically revered and I’m sure Found Light will again receive 4 or 5 star reviews.
Early albums and songs
Laura’s proper commercial debut was in 2003 with Troubled by the Fire, which got her noticed enough to be signed to Nonesuch - a major label in the Warner Music Group family. Then came Carbon Glacier, which brought Veirs to the edge of stardom. However, rather than carry on in the same vein, she diversified her sound to make two albums with rock/pop stylings mixed in with the folk she was known for: Year of Meteors (2005), and Saltbreakers, in 2007. All these records were critically revered but commercially speaking didn’t make enough numbers for her label and she was dropped. But here’s the thing...Laura Veirs made her masterpiece right after that. July Flame was again given widespread praise by critics and fans but it also sold better than anything she’d released up to that point. All the way through her first decade (and since), Laura has never had a hit song, with just a couple of albums making the lower reaches of the chart. It hasn’t really mattered.
Crossing the rubicon to longevity
Once Laura had established a way to release her albums independently and keep on going (on her label Raven Marching Band, distributed through the highly respected Bella Union independent label) she was destined for longevity. Having built enough of a fan base in her native USA and in Europe, her run of albums continues to be very strong and arguably, each album is in many ways better than the last. The Lookout (2018) and My Echo (2020) are cases in point.
Key collaborators
Tucker Martine was producer on many of her albums including Carbon Glacier, Year of Meteors, Saltbreakers, July Flame, Tumble Bee and Warp & Weft (he was also Laura’s spouse until their divorce in 2020). She worked on the album Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens, and has collaborated with Jim James. Veirs also took the lead on the 2016 album case/lang/veirs, a superb collaboration with k.d. lang and Neko Case.
Overcoming obstacles
When Veirs was dropped after her fifth album, she was “bummed” (her word) and disorientated. But she went on to make her best record. More recently in 2020 she went through a divorce, meaning she separated not just from her husband and co-parent but her principal musical collaborator, Tucker Martine. She has set out to be more independently in control of the way her music sounds from hereon in. The new album Found Light is a deep expression of overcoming break-up and moving on and may be yet another high watermark for Veirs.
Defining success
How does Laura measure her own success? She doesn’t stop to think about it. As one project gets done, she’s onto the next. In her own words “I’m not attached to the outcome”. A prolific songwriter and increasingly accomplished musician, Laura is constantly moving forward with all the restless energy of a fast flowing river. Despite being a relatively small streaming artist (230k followers on Spotify) and never troubling the charts, she is often featured in mainstream music press (she even made a recent appearance on the BBC’s lauded arts magazine show Front Row).
Beyond the music
Like many artists of longevity, Laura is a true artist who has expressed her art through poetry, a children’s picture book (Libba: The Magnificent Musical Life of Elizabeth Cotten) children’s music (Tumble Bee), art and also teaching both music and arts & crafts.
New album Found Light was produced by Veirs with Shahzad Ismaily. Revisit Laura discussing her career, the ups and downs of making commercial music and defining her own success on The Art of Longevity Season 1, Episode 3.