By Quentin Yarolem
Anna Laube is coming home.
At 8 p.m. today, the Iowa City-born singer/songwriter/producer will perform at the Mill, 120 E. Burlington St.
“I love playing in Iowa City, and the Mill is always a good time,” she said. “I brought a few friends with me to Iowa City a few years ago, and one of them was having a hard time and didn’t want to come out that night, and I kept telling her she had to come to the Mill with us because it’s ‘a healing oasis.’ ”
Homecomings are always special, especially in Laube’s case. Iowa City is the place she was born, but more importantly, the place she was introduced to music.
“I come from a musical household and grew up listening to the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, and the Dave Clark Five. My parents signed me up for piano lessons at Preucil School of Music in Iowa City with Lauree Chrisman when I was 3,” Laube said.
While Laube is an Iowa City native, she was not raised here. When she was a young child, her family relocated to Madison, Wisconsin. There, her love for music took off as she learned to play everything from the violin and the saxophone to the oboe.
Laube had a solid, concrete musical background growing up. Looking back it’s almost obvious that she would pursue a career as a musician, but if it weren’t for two girls at her high school, she may have never started writing her own music.
“When I was in high school, I saw two sisters singing an Indigo Girls song and knew then that I had to learn guitar,” Laube said. “I started writing songs soon thereafter.”
Music is more than just organized sound to Laube — it also possesses a unifying component. It’s a magnet working to bring like-minded people together. It’s a translator, helping communicate with the soul.
“Music is a beautiful and powerful entity that affects people in as many different ways as there are types of music. I think it helps people feel their emotions and understand what is going on inside,” she said. “Making music feels satisfying to me, like something in me is meeting something in the world and birthing a new song or sound.”
This connection to the music and to her instruments — specifically the guitar — played a large part in the creation of her latest record, Tree. The relationships between musicians and instruments — as well as humans and nature — are a major theme of the album.
“I love the guitar — something about holding the instrument in my arms feels good,” she said. “My new album is called Tree, and [just as] I think I have a special connection with trees, [I think I also do] with a guitar, because it is made out of wood.”s
