Love has achieved notice for her infectious, funk- and world- beat-influenced songs as well as for her exuberant, uninhibited stage presence. Upon hearing Love for the first time, people seem to be struck by "that voice," which she uses to ornament her songs with a profusion of sounds ranging from nonsense words to yodels to things that defy ready categorization. When asked where her vocal styles came from, Love gave a typically humble and unpretentious answer. "I don't know really. I just kind of sing and make the noises that sound pleasant to me and hope they sound pleasant to other people. I just always go towards the path of least resistance; I make sounds that I like to hear and try to amuse myself with vocal noises."

Love's music belies a wide spectrum of musical influences, from contemporary alternative rock to traditional gospel and folk. I asked how she absorbed all these influences: "I hate to admit it, but I don't listen to a lot of music. I've been listening to a lot more lately. The music I do hear I just kind of stumble upon. I catch little bits here and there and they just kind of sink into my brain."

Love's instrument of choice is a bit unusual for roots music: a bright red electric bass. I asked if she composes on the bass as well. "Yeah I do. A lot of times a groove just comes to me and kind of gets stuck on my hands, then I kind of put the lyric around that groove. I feel a great affinity for the groove, and then everything else kind of falls into place."

Love composes at home, preparing demos for her band to work with. "I've got a little Tascam 4-track. First I put down the lead vocals and the bass part at the same time. Then I do the background vocals. It's a lot of fun, because it comes to life in about ten minutes, it's all fleshed out; it's there. It starts out as sort of a groove and then all of a sudden it's a song. Then I take it to the band and it's really a song. (Guitarist) Rod Cook is really good at ferreting out chords. Julie Wolf, who plays accordion and guitar, is really good at just about everything. They've both got a lot of knowledge of music theory, as well as being self taught and trained, so the other parts kind of fall into place."

Love's band is currently in a state of flux, with the full-time addition of Wolf, the departure of multi-instrumentalist Linda Severt and the imminent addition of a percussionist. Severt's departure was necessitated by the demands of her own full time career. "She's a full time children's artist; she's got her own business, Juggletunes. She's been doing both Juggletunes and working with my band, so she's been putting in 20-hour days. We'll work with her as much as our schedules allow. She's been an integral part of the band. We love her, and we'll sure miss her."

Up until this year, Love's recordings have come out on her own Octaroon Biography label, which faced the same distribution limitations that all self-run labels experience. The recent national release of The Laura Love Collection on the Putamayo label has changed that somewhat. "This guy Dan Storper, who owns the Putamayo chain, approached us with a completely non-traditional approach to putting out music and to music in general. I've been very selfishly guarding my independence, my ability to make music and put it out, do everything on my own label. Dan Storper approached us and said, `I love what you're doing, and I want to make it more available to the world.' He didn't change it a bit, he just took our masters and compiled a collection to put out to a bigger audience."

Suspicious of the major label mentality, Love had her reservations at first, but is extremely pleased with the Putamayo deal. "Dan Storper is the only person who's been completely honest, completely forthcoming, and has actually done everything he said he's going to do, and has really meant what he said, which is that he just really loves the music and wants to have more ears hear it. I trust his outlook."

The Carnegie Hall concert, which featured most of the artists on Shelter performing their contributions to the CD, was a watershed in Love's career to date. "It was unbelievable. I'd never been to New York City in my life, and I really felt like a hick when I got off the plane in New York. I'm from Nebraska, and about the only similarity is that they both start with `N-E.' I was sitting on the plane thinking "I'm going to New York City for the first time to play Carnegie Hall!" It was just an incredible experience."

Love's latest project is quite a departure from her solo work. She has teamed with Jo Miller to form a (relatively) straight bluegrass band, called the Jo Miller/Laura Love Bluegrass Experience. "Jo is the one who convinced me that I could learn the bluegrass way. I always loved her voice, her band, and her whole approach to music. We're both managed by the same person, so we kept crossing paths. She heard me sing, and said `You can sing this stuff.' I was pretty skeptical, but she played me some, and it was just beautiful -- it seems to me like there's a fine line between white soul music and black soul music. Mary McFaul, our manager, put a show together, and Jo taught me all these songs and gave me some history about the songs, about the people who knew the songs. I just really fell in love with it, and she's just fun to sing with. We got a set together of music and it just really went well so we just keep doing it."

The group started as somewhat of a lark, but has become a serious outlet for Miller and Love. "We're gonna put out a record. We're going to go into the studio in a couple of weeks. We're actually learning -- well, I'm learning -- some songs. We're going to go ahead and do it, because it's too fun not to." Indeed, a couple of showcases at the Folk Alliance showed that the fledgling group will be a force to be reckoned with, albeit one that might set some bluegrass traditionalists back on their heels.

Before putting together her own group a few years back, Love played in alternative bands in the Seattle area. I asked her for a bit of perspective on the town's vaunted grunge scene and its relationship to the acoustic music community. "There are a lot of aspects of the grunge community that I really like. I love Kurt Cobain and I love Nirvana. I think he's a jewel, and I miss him every day. As far as the folk community goes, I don't see much of a line there. Folk music is soul music, and grunge music is soul music. Anything that's honest and true is fine, and I'm accepting of it. I think that people in Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, or Nirvana would like what I do, because I like what a lot of them do."

All this visibility has, not surprisingly, translated into a lot of work for Love and her band. "All summer long we're going to be all over the country. I'm looking forward to seeing the world, being in some beautiful places, and I just feel really lucky. My main goal is to be able to make a living for myself, my band, and the people around us. Anything beyond that is just gravy. I feel fortunate to just be able to make a living playing music, because there's nothing else that I want to do."

Upon being asked if she had anything of her own to add, Love offered the following words of wisdom. "I'd just like to thank everybody whose responded to my music, and I hope that in coming years there's this wave of kindness and gentleness that's as big as this Republican wave that just swept over the country. I hope it gets to be cool to be kind. The response to my music gives me hope for that. It's just a lot more fun to do something nice and have somebody feel good about it than it is to hit somebody."

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