I write songs for a lot of reasons; after an experience that's impacted me, or to express something that's going on inside, or for fun...or sometimes for therapy...in any case, however they come out, they're just an honest expression of where I'm at." It was a dim café on the North Shore, and a young girl was up on the tiny stage, spinning songs out for the crowd of hipsters and style kids that were filling the place on a sparkling Vancouver Friday night. At most of those café shows, the crowd's more into their conversations and lattes and cheesecakes than the music, but that night the place was dead quiet, everyone just totally taken away by the girl up there with the gorgeous, fragile voice. The crowd that night knew that the girl on stage was something special, and now, five years later, Laurell's music is still continuing to catch people's breath in their throats. Now 25, the B.C.-based singer-songwriter Laurell Hubick has become one of those rare artists who can draw from the mainstream, the sacred and the farther reaches of modern music to turn out work that's bright and unique, full of unforced honesty and free of artifice. With the release of "The Fool In Me," and a heap of accolades for "Into Your Love," an album of original spirituals, Laurell is one of Canada's brightest young talents, and the owner of one of its purest voices. With formal training in Jazz Studies at North Vancouver's Capilano College, Laurell has been honing her skills as a songwriter since the age of six when impromptu fireplace performances for her family made it clear she'd be going down the path of guitars and mics and the stage. Laurell's credits include winning the North Vancouver Battle of the Bands as a solo act in 1998, being named the "Vancouver Idol," and making the top 100 in the nation-wide singer search "Canadian Idol" in 2003. She's received widespread media coverage on CTV, BCTV and VTV and in the Vancouver Sun, the North Shore News and the North Shore Outlook. Laurell's talents have also earned her scholarships from Boston's renowned Berklee College of Music, and in 2004 she won Song of the Year at Canada's gospel Vibe Awards. On "The Fool In Me," Laurell shows herself to be a stylish, gifted musician and stakes out her space in the line of accomplished Canadian women singer-songwriters, a tradition that goes back to Joni Mitchell, passes through Sarah Maclachlan and Sarah Harmer, and culminates in Laurell and her peers. Hers is music that you feel at home in; there are breezy, curious melodies that roll along like a summer day in the valley hills, and a voice that is gentle, shining, occasionally heartbreaking, and always possessing an understated complexity that speaks to her jazz roots. Her new album's material is mostly autobiographical, without falling into the insipid self-importance that often affects lesser writers. "I think my story is pretty unique," she says. "I think my songs have a quirkiness about them, a playfulness, but I think as well that I try to be wise beyond my years. I want to be a positive role model, but I don't want to be preachy...I just want my stuff to inspire people." As one critic has said, "she draws you into a unique place. She projects her reflection on life experience...and you can't help but be drawn into that experience." It's music about pasts and loves and wishes and frailties, it's captivating in its optimism, and Laurell has that rare talent of making you feel like you're friends after the first listen. It's downright pretty music, and it's lifting, even when it breaks your heart. Culminating in the song "Cut Through," an entreaty to someone higher to cut through the numbness that so often affects us, "The Fool In Me" is full of promise of great things to come. "I want to earn the right to have my music heard," says Laurell. She's doing it the right way, building a career on honest writing and vibrant singing, and her hybrid, jazz-inflected pop has definitely earned the right to be heard. In years to come, it will be no surprise to see Laurell as a staple of the Canadian music scene. Website http://www.laurell.ca Discography Albums 1998 Nectar 2003 Into Your Love 2004 The Fool In Me