If you ask Kathleen Edwards, the best thing she ever did was quit. By 2014, the singer-songwriter had released four studio albums and amassed widespread critical acclaim. She had been touring since the release of her 2012 album Voyageur, and the prospect of returning home--only to start writing another album, felt impossibly daunting. She put her guitar away and opened a coffee shop aptly named "Quitters" in Stittsville, Ontario. “I had no desire to write, no desire to play. Quitters gave me such a clean break, I worked my ass off building a shop, I didn't have to be 'just a singer' anymore.”
But in 2018, Maren Morris invited her to Nashville for a songwriting session. Their collaboration, “Good Woman,” wound up on Morris’ album, GIRL. “It reminded me that writing and creating music is entirely my wheelhouse,” she says. “Funny enough, the third writer in the room was Ian Fitchuk, and [we] ended up starting the process of producing a record.”
Edwards made her long-anticipated return with Total Freedom, her fifth studio album out August 14 via Dualtone Records. Recorded in Canada and Nashville with longtime collaborator Jim Bryson and Grammy-winning producer Fitchuk, Total Free