It’s a bit surreal for me to believe “Failer,” the effortlessly self-possessed and polished debut album by Canadian singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards, turned twenty this year. I won’t say it seems only yesterday that I first heard the record, and immediately wanted to talk to the talented person behind it. Or that, interview secured, my cat jumped right on my desk, startling me and scrambling my notes right smack in the middle of my phone conversation with Edwards in Ontario. A while ago, sure. But 20? Two decades and two major life moves across five states? Two parents and pets gone, one child and three pets added? Okay, I guess when you put it that way …

But that’s what good and great music can do: ease or erase the passage of time so that listening to it puts you in a perpetual here and now, memories rebooted and refreshed into the moment at hand. That’s what “Failer” does for me (and several of the excellent albums Edwards has made since then). The good news is, that after several years laying off, and laying low, from the music business — and even, by her own account, not wanting to record or tour anymore — a chance phone call spurred her inspiration to begin writing again.

The result is her latest album, “Total Freedom,” which you can certainly learn more about at her official page kathleenedwards.com. There’s also been a vinyl reissue of “Failer,” opening its considerable charms to listeners old(er) — ahem — and new.

All of which made me want to take a warm glance in the rearview at where it all started for Kathleen, as well as for me and countless listeners who first heard this remarkable, emotionally redolent collection of songs by this then-24-year-old artist. Like me, I’m sure many of you have never stopped listening — or taking her music along on the road trips of our lives. Even across five states while thinking about cherished pets and people lost and gained along the way.

What follows is my profile piece on Kathleen originally published in The Boston Phoenix in the February 6-13 2003 issue, originally titled “Dressed For Success.” I believe it was among the first published pieces on Edwards’ fresh, compelling music anywhere in the States, which made it a special little coup for me. Hope you enjoy the fond look back, as much as I, and we, continue to look forward, always.

The thing about classic records is that, more often than not, you know one the instant you hear one, and rarely is anything the same afterward. After all, that’s what makes them classic records. For Canadian-born singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards, who grew up the daughter of a diplomat whose formative years in Korea and Switzerland were spent listening to American Forces radio, discovering Whiskeytown’s sophomore outing, Strangers Almanac (Outpost, 1997) changed everything. She had come to love music much earlier, having studied classical violin for a dozen years, and had put the training to good use by teaching herself guitar and taking some early stabs at singing and searching for a voice. Like a flash of silver recognition, she heard something close to it in Ryan Adams’s  narratives.

“What I loved so much about Strangers Almanac was that the melodies, the lyrical content, and the overall arrangements, in some ways, seemed to simple,” Edwards says by phone from Ontario. “Suddenly, I was thinking about writing songs in a totally different way, where maybe I used to sing more aggressively or not sing with my natural voice, or force notes I couldn’t sing. There was a brutal, perfect simplicity to that record that just connected with me.”

Much the same is already being said about Edwards’ Zoe/Rounder Records striking full-length debut, Failer (out this past Tuesday), which, given that it’s the work of an unknown female artist who writes in a mostly melancholic country-rock vein and sounds older –  rather than younger –  than her 24 years, comes as a bolt-out-of-the-blue. With the album barely in stores, Edwards already has a rash of television appearances lined up with everyone from the Late Show with David Letterman to CNN Headline News to Last Call with Carson Daly. (She’ll hit T.T. the Bear’s Place Feb. 18 as part of a national tour that is expected to keep her on the road promoting Failer for much of this year).

With the possible exception of her record company – which has worked hard to get the buzz going but appears genuinely astonished at the volume and rapidity with which its traveled –  no one is more gratified, or dismayed, by the attention than Edwards herself.

She shouldn’t be that surprised (and let’s face it: unless it’s a supreme act of masochism, anybody with the moxie to name their first album Failer knows, deep down, that the work is anything but enervating). Against a gliding, uncluttered backdrop of acoustic and electric guitar, bass, drums, organ, and the occasional hint of horns and strings, Edwards unfurls spare, evocative tales about ordinary folks caught up in various stages of creeping distress and dirty desire; flagging relationships and fumbling rootlessness; and yes, far-gone failure. There’s a dark depth and candor to her stories, but light and wit and terrific pop instincts too.

“You spend half your life trying to turn the other half around,” Edwards sings in  “Six O’Clock News”, the album’s opening track  in which a young pregnant woman vainly tries to talk her armed, distraught lover down from a building surrounded by police. That the track is slated as *Failer*’s first single tells you something about Edwards’s’ knack for submerging a tragic scenario inside an engaging pop melody. Like Lucinda Williams’s best work, the sadness sneaks up you; the heartbreak reveals itself with an accumulative wallop.

“I definitely was sad and dark when I wrote these songs,” says Edwards, who had just ended a romantic relationship and moved to Quebec around the time she penned most of the songs. “It wasn’t so much the breaking up thing (that motivated her writing) as it was where I moved to. Suddenly, I had no distractions. I didn’t even have a TV. I didn’t have the coffee shop down the street. The bar wasn’t just around the corner. It was in the middle of nowhere and I ended up becoming incredibly hermit-ish. I started enjoying my seclusion and that allowed me to think about writing songs. With all that free time, I just picked up the guitar and stuff came out that I had always wanted to come out.”

By her own appraisal, the new album’s a huge leap forward from a demo-quality EP called Building 55 Edwards self-released and sold from the stage at gigs several years ago.

 Asked to assess why Failer is striking such a chard with people, Edwards hesitates.  “I can’t speak for why people like the record, but I think maybe the reason is because it doesn’t come off as artificial. It’s not fake in any way. I will say that this record was initially recorded as a demo to get arts funding to go and record an album. And I went in and started recording and just kept on going because something clicked and I stuck with it.” She pauses. “I don’t know how I am where I am right now, to be perfectly honest.”

Part of the work’s unforced, un-self-conscious strength may have to do with the fact that Edwards wrote with an audience of one in mind and made exactly the album she heard in her head. “I don’t necessarily think I wrote the songs for other people,” she says. “In some respects, I wrote entirely for myself and that might sound a little selfish, but I certainly don’t write to please other people. Not to sound vain, but to me (the songs) sounded like the way I wanted to write songs and the way I wanted other people to hear me play songs.”

While much of  Failer is not directly autobiographical, the material doesn’t, and can’t,  exist in a vacuum. It’s impossible to separate Edwards entirely from each first-person narrative, from each gently rippling tide pool of melody.

“They’re definitely me. I have a personal experience in some way that relates to (each song), but the songs aren’t necessarily about me per se,” she says. “They may be observations, or something I saw briefly, or thought about briefly, or was exposed to briefly. Or, I just sat down to write and that’s the story that came to my head. Some people are surprised that I would be so open about certain subjects or experiences. But I wasn’t writing for anybody except for me so I really didn’t think of it that way.”

In an effort to entice the public to take a chance on an untested independent artist whose U.S. profile has, so far, been limited to a fall opening tour slot for Richard Buckner and a handful of industry showcase appearances, Zoe/Rounder held off releasing Failer until now to avoid the crushing competition from corporate superstar acts that traditionally command the holiday-season dollar. The disc’s also initially being sold at a $9.99 “developing artist” price. And glowing press in high-profile music magazines such as Rolling Stone (which named Edwards as one of its “Ten Artists To Watch In 2003”) shouldn’t hurt either.

“I don’t think we could have asked for more in terms of people reacting to the record at this point. In an uncertain climate, as far as the music business goes, it’s nice to have something like this (album),” says Rounder president and CEO John Virant, who acknowledges, however, that the tastes of pop critics and the music-buying public are often two radically different things. “We’re not expecting it to blow up out of the box, and we want to develop her gradually. But I think it’s safe to say that our expectations for the record are increasing every day.”

Jeff Walker, Rounder’s head of publicity and artist development, views the critical and commercial success accorded newcomers such as John Mayer, Jack Johnson, and Norah Jones last year as an encouraging sign that Edwards can break through to listeners. “I think the record is instantly accessible,” Walker says. “In the first 30 seconds, you know you’re in it for the long haul. But at this stage, people don’t know who she is, so we’re doing our best to make sure (Failer) is in every listening station. The media response has been overwhelming and it’s one I haven’t seen in many years of doing this. But what will bring it to the next level is radio airplay and that’s going to take a lot of effort on Kathleen’s part. We’ve told her not to expect to have a life for the next 12 months.”

What’s ironic about the clamor surrounding Failer is that until now, according to Edwards, it’s been virtually ignored in her native country. She claims she finished the album roughly two years ago but couldn’t get anyone to release it (it’s since been released on Maple Music, a new Universal Music subsidiary). The bitter broadside of “One More Song The Radio Won’t Like”, is directed at nay sayers who refused to take a chance on one of their own.

“No one in Canada knows who I am,” Edwards says, recalling numerous occasions of being wined and dined by music business reps. “They all loved the record and said ‘we haven’t heard something like this in awhile’ and it was flattering. But there was always a loaded comment, which was that they loved it but didn’t hear anything that was going to make it on the radio and  there wasn’t much they could do for me. They weren’t willing to take me on as a developing artist because it was too risky. These people are so scared to do something about Canada for fear of  being ‘local’. Artists in Canada call that the ‘Canadian Curse’ and I really didn’t want it to be true. But it’s been really tough.”

“I think that song is a perfect response to ‘Do you have any singles?’ ‘Do you have any songs that are more radio-friendly’? If anything, I think it made me more determined to prove them wrong,” Edwards continues. “And even if I don’t prove them wrong, I’m still getting an opportunity that a lot of people probably didn’t think I was going to have. As much as I’m not a vengeful person, I also feel validated by that.”

Virant says Edwards first came to Rounder’s attention through her manager Patrick Sambrook, who also manages Sarah Harmer, another Rounder artist. “We didn’t exactly have to beat the bushes to discover her,” admits Virant, who recalls Sambrook urging him to check out the batch of songs his newest client had written. “I thought it was a tremendous record. The songs speak to me on an emotional level. They really resonate in a way that not that many records do and I just thought it was special. She came up with a gem.” And just like that, in one instant, everything changed.