[Image: Caitlin Rose, looking rather pensive and (if you ask me), well, a little Paris-in-the-’20s, no?]

In the photo above, she may look like some sort of exotic Continental anachronism. But Caitlin Rose is a Nashville native. (This may surprise you if you’d encountered her name but not her music. That name almost sounds like it belongs to someone performing with Celtic Woman, Enya, or Loreena McKennitt.) And while her music is not exactly country, the “Americana” label drapes easily about her shoulders. She’s got a great voice.

She has some songwriting chops, too, which she may have come by naturally, via genetics. According to the bio at her Web site:

Growing up in Nashville to music industry parents (her mother, Liz Rose, is a songwriter who found success working with artists like Taylor Swift, Leann Womack and others), Rose inherited her mother’s “inclination towards melody — the ability to naturally know where melody could and should go” early on and again credits her love of songwriting to a long list of influences, many of which would be easily found in either of her parents record collections.

Here’s “Pink Champagne,” from her most recent LP, The Stand-In (which was inspired, at least in part, by Bob Fosse’s film All That Jazz of all things!):

[Below, click Play button to begin Pink Champagne. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 4:05 long.]

[Lyrics]

I’m not sure how best to describe NoiseTrade. It’s something like a musicians’ collective. The performers who list their work there may or may not be represented by “labels” as such; you can download music, tipping the artists as much (or, I guess, as little (you miserly, inconsiderate clod)) as you want. They’ve recently initiated a new live-music project they call the NoiseTrade EastSide Manor Sessions, and Rose brought hand-picked sidemen to kick the series off to a fine start. The video below includes three songs (time codes approximate):

• “Pink Champagne” again (0:25-4:25)
• “Everywhere I Go” (5:15-8:35)
• “No More Lonely” (9:30-12:19)

There’s also some background chat, obviously. (And I’m a little disappointed that we don’t hear more of that spontaneous blues-y fooling around that the session musicians get into at the very end.) I kind of prefer these live versions, myself; the sound seems fuller to me, and a little less engineered.

(I was a smoker for decades, so maybe I’ve got no call to bring up that issue — but I really, really hope Rose kicks that habit. It contributes to her voice’s “smoky” sound, no doubt. But jeez, at what a potential cost…!)