Laura Bird LLC

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Laura Bird grew up along the St. Lawrence River, in the town of Gananoque, Ontario. She was born into a musical family - her grandfather Dr. Godfrey Bird played viola and piano, instilling his family with an appreciation of 'the arts' that flourished through the subsequent generations. With her parents both being choral vocalists, music is clearly in her DNA. From the moment Laura saw a CBC documentary featuring a late 1960's Mariposa Folk Festival, she knew she was destined to play. Getting her first guitar at 10 years old and discovering gems in her parents' record collection - Ian & Sylvia, Joan Baez, 1940's jazz standards - this self-taught guitarist was performing by her eleventh birthday. She began attending the Mariposa Festival in the early '70's, drinking in the music that was to shape her adult life. Soon her own record collection included James Taylor, Emmy Lou Harris, John Hartford, John Prine, Steve Goodman and Joni Mitchell; she hung out at the Kingston coffeehouses and followed the careers of Colleen Peterson and Stan Rogers among others. As her musical interests and influences continued to expand, so did her awareness of the 'songwriting craft' itself. She began to explore songwriters like Johnny Mercer, George & Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin and Hoagy Carmichael, ultimately discovering what she fondly refers to as her 'inner lounge lizard'. By her mid-teens, Laura was playing in her first acoustic folk-roots/bluegrass band, making appearances at local fall fairs and The Wintario Show, as well as performing for institutionalized children at the Brockville Psychiatric Unit. During the mid-to-late 70's she attended college in Kingston, Ontario, where she studied fine arts and graphic design and made her first foray into songwriting and performing at the St. Lawrence College and Queen's University pubs, the Scarecrow Coffee House and even the infamous Prison For Women. Leaving Kingston for Ottawa and eventually settling in Toronto in 1981, Laura continued to hone her skills as a songwriter and guitar player. She became well known on the Ontario Bluegrass 'circuit' making appearances as guest vocalist with the award-winning bluegrass band Blue Mule. By the late '80's she was with a folk-roots quartet (Robert Reid on guitar, John Merchant on mandolin/bass and Jack Walker on Dobro). In 1990 Laura married husband Javier Santamaria and moved to Orangeville, Ontario where she met songwriter Sharon MacLean. The two women began singing harmony together, sharing writing sessions and often performed locally as a duo. In 1998 Laura and Javier, along with Carl Borgstrom and a few other local music enthusiasts, formed the Headwaters Acoustic Music Society (HAMS) and began presenting the "Live! At the Opera House" concert series. Laura marks the turning point in her career precisely on the evening of March 12, 1999 when she performed an opening set for singer-songwriter Stephen Fearing which was recorded and mixed to disc. Making the live disc a reality inspired Laura to record and co-produce what ultimately became her first full-length studio release, Dreamwalker (August 2000).

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