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Kathleen Edwards: Tiny Desk Concert

Kathleen Edwards isn't a flashy singer-songwriter, but her music sticks: Easygoing and accessible, her songs burrow in deep and then stay put. Edwards' new album, Voyageur, wears a lot of sonic flourishes well — it was co-produced by Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, who lends it a lot of his distinct shadings — but at its heart lies a sort of unshakable sturdiness. Edwards is just a hell of a songwriter, never showy but nevertheless capable of spinning small moments into grand, universal emotions.

That's made abundantly clear in this gorgeous performance at the NPR Music offices, where Edwards strips four of Voyageur's songs — including the charming single "Change the Sheets," which gets its first-ever acoustic arrangement here — down to their sweet essentials. Backed more than capably by another guitarist (Gord Tough) and a perfectly complementary female voice (Hannah Georgas), Edwards sings these sweet, warm, relatable songs in such a way that they soothe as they nourish.

Set List:

  • "Chameleon/Comedian"
  • "House Full Of Empty Rooms"
  • "Sidecar"
  • "Change The Sheets"
  • Credits:

    Producer: Bob Boilen; Editor and Videographer: Michael Katzif; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait; photo by Doriane Raiman/NPR

    Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

    Stephen Thompson
    Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)