Cara Luft
Cara Luft, one of the folk world’s most beloved singer-songwriters, is making her long-anticipated return with a joyful new album — her first solo release in over 13 years. A music veteran who’s spent decades navigating the ever-shifting music industry landscape and battling the tug-and-pull between heart and business, My Heart Will Always Be was born out of her desire to celebrate music’s enduring power to heal, connect and bring joy and will be availalbe digitally, on CD and vinyl on November 6 via Blue Case Tunes/Symphonic.
The first single, the title track, is out on streaming services HERE. It’s upbeat and harmony rich, with double banjos driving a song about coming home to yourself and finding self love on the other side of grief, sadness and relief. The album was mixed by Grammy-winning engineer D. James Goodwin (Anais Mitchell, Craig Finn, Rhett Miller) and features Canada’s prairie punk-rock poet John K. Samson (The Weakerthans) and Grammy-winning banjo queen Alison Brown.
LISTEN TO THE SINGLE “MY HEART WILL ALWAYS BE” HERE \ STREAM HERE
PRE-SAVE THE ALBUM HERE
As she turned 50, Luft faced multiple transitions: buying her first home, navigating perimenopause, receiving an ADHD diagnosis, and the end of her decade-long duo project, The Small Glories.
Rethinking how she wanted to live and work moving forward from this period of upheaval and transformation, her guiding principle was simple: to write and record with friends who embodied kindness, consideration and generosity of spirit. From this ethos emerged the foundations of My Heart Will Always Be and a trusted creative entourage she affectionately calls “The Quadrangle of Awesomeness:” session musician/producer Scott Poley (Liverpool, UK), musician/singer/songwriter Clayton Parsons (Cranbrook, BC), and engineer Julia Graff (Vancouver, BC). Recorded over 12 days in Vancouver, she, Poley and Parsons sang and played nearly everything themselves, making for an intimate, cathartic experience.
The songs cover a lot of ground, straddling folk, bluegrass and traditional music. “Find Love” has a folk-rock groove and a message as simple as it is powerful: love is the great equalizer. “Garbage Hill” is a duet with Samson and a love song to Luft’s adopted hometown of Winnipeg, named for the city’s tallest hill, a former dump turned park that overlooks a rail yard. Nobody would call it picturesque, which is exactly what makes it so quintessentially Winnipeg.
Luft honors her folk upbringing with two traditional songs. “The Snows They Melt the Soonest,” from the British Isles, comes from Dick Gaughan’s Handful of Earth, one of her top 10 desert island albums, and features plucked piano strings and a banjo and guitar duet. The Irish song “Lagan Love” is a hauntingly beautiful vocal duet and another banjo and guitar conversation. “Doubt and Belief” is a hopeful, harmony-stacked celebration of renewal with blazing solos, while “Come Undone” slows things down to sit with someone in their grief, a reminder that it’s ok to not be ok. “My Maureen” is a toe-tapping, old-time love song for a gambling, chain smoking, dancing grandma, sung from the perspective of her lifelong partner.
My Heart Will Always Be is a warm, big-hearted record built on friendship, kindness and the healing power of music. Right now Luft is touring Canada. Look for US dates to be announced soon and check in at www.CaraLuft.com.
