Kathleen Edwards
Kathleen Margaret Edwards[1] (born July 11, 1978[2]) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and musician. Her 2002 debut album, Failer, contained the singles "Six O'Clock News" and "Hockey Skates".[3] Her next two albums – Back to Me and Asking for Flowers – both made the Billboard 200 list and reached the top 10 of Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart. In 2012, Edwards' fourth studio album, Voyageur, became Edwards' first album to crack the top 100 and top 40 in the U.S., peaking at #39 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and #2 in Canada. In 2012, Edwards' song "A Soft Place To Land" won the SOCAN Songwriting Prize, an annual competition that honours the best song written and released by 'emerging' songwriters over the past year, as voted by the public.[4] Her musical sound has been compared to Suzanne Vega meets Neil Young.[5]
Kathleen Edwards
July 11, 1978
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
- Musician
- songwriter
- Guitar
- violin
- vocals
- bass guitar
1999–present
Zoë, MapleMusic Recordings, Rounder, Dualtone
Early life[edit]
Edwards, the daughter of a diplomat,[6] spent portions of her youth in Korea[7] and Switzerland. Her father is Leonard Edwards, former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. At age 5, Edwards began classical violin studies that continued for the next 12 years.[8] As a teenager she lived overseas, where she spent much of her time listening to her brother's records of Neil Young and Bob Dylan.[9] Her brother also bought her her first record, a Tom Petty album. After high school she decided not to attend post-secondary education, instead opting to play local clubs to pay the bills.
Personal life[edit]
In 2004, Edwards married guitarist and collaborator Colin Cripps. They divorced in 2011. Edwards was later in a relationship with Justin Vernon, Wisconsin-born singer/songwriter and front-man of the band Bon Iver.[22] Edwards and Vernon separated in 2012.[23][24] In 2020, Edwards married property developer Sean McAdam.[25] The couple now make their home in St. Petersburg, Florida.[26]
Edwards stepped back from the music scene in 2014, launching a coffee house in Stittsville called Quitters along with Rick Tremblay (who was her manager when she worked in a downtown Starbucks in the 1990s).[27] She insisted that she is not leaving music but just taking a break, and that the name Quitters is "kind of tongue-in-cheek". Quitters closed on March 6, 2022 after Edwards sold the business, so that she could return to her music career.[28]
As of 2018, Edwards continued to perform sporadically, including a number of new songs.[29] In August 2019, following the suicide of American singer-songwriter Neal Casal, Edwards opened up on Twitter about the struggle with depression that led her to take time away from her music career.[30]