Pamela Laws - bio

In 2020 I came full circle and found HOME in the sounds of my acoustic beginnings. With collaborators that included Jack Petruzzelli and Rufus Cappadocia, songs like Helium, Let Angels Sing, Sun, and Orphan, start to weave together what feels like the essential threads of the stories of my life. I found there’s a toughness and a courage that gets heard in the space left open by these acoustic arrangemnts. In 2021 I began adding layers - collaborating with Jack Petruzzelli as producer, multi-instrumentalist and co-writer and with Adam Bernstein as co-writer. In 2022 I am releasing songs written during the height of lockdown with remote collaboration with Jack Petruzzelli and Adam Bernstein. HIGH WEST is an EP collection that I released on July 29th 2022. These songs are the stories that began to emerge when the world came to a halt and there was so much uncertainty. The creative process as my pillar was highlighted during the pandemic. Writing songs for my HIGH WEST release and my UPCOMING ALBUM (to be released in 2023) was my anchor during these times and was truly a life-saving process. These new songs occurred on a solid foundation of what I now understand is the musical earth of my song creation.

My career in music started out in a San Francisco acoustic duo called Seven Day Diary. Signed to Warner Chappell and Warner Bros Records, Seven Day Diary ended up abandoning the acoustic format and recording in a world of distorted guitars, orchestras and drum-fills. Seven Day Diary made two records - Starfish (produced by Joe Chicarellli) and Skin and Blister (produced by Gil Norton). In New York City I collaborated with GTO and "Bassey" Bob Brockman. The result was my first solo record, Masters and Gardeners, - a tapestry of deep grooves, acoustic and electric guitars and samples. My next project was a collaboration with visual artist, Lesley Dill, on a collection of musical compositions called “Drunk With the Starry Void”.  The collection of nine compositions was an exploration of human stories set in a landscape of digitally and acoustically recorded layered sounds. Helium Acoustic, my first 2020 release, is a culmination of the collaboration with New York City cellist and slide guitarist, Rufus Cappadocia. I wrote Let Angels Sing, my second 2020 release, from the perspective of a coal miner reflecting on life. Jack Petruzzelli produced and played guitars on Let Angels Sing. Let Angels Sing also includes Olivier Manchon on Violin, Rufus Cappadocia on cello and Martin Keith on upright bass. Orphan is my first release co-written by myself, Jack Petruzzelli and Adam Bernstein. Orphan is the beginning of a new collection for me. Look out for Till The Morning, to be released April, 2021.

I was born in Houston,Texas and raised in San Francisco, We moved to Sacramento when I was 7 years old. Music became a reservoir of meaning –“ I dove into it constantly. I was influenced by my parents' record collection - Hank Williams, Gene Autry, Johnny Cash, Roberta Flack, Janis Joplin, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Linda Ronstadt. At UC Berkeley I studied English Literature and started writing songs. I sang backing vocals for Counting Crows and played a folk singer in “Mad City”, a Warner Brothers picture starring Dustin Hoffman and John Travolta. In the film I sang a Lou Reed song called “Is Anybody Listening?” set against a beat written by Dr. Dre.