03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Local folk artist to debut trio at Saturday show
A Hamilton singer-songwriter is debuting her trio on Saturday, May 3 at an intimate gathering in a book store café.
The Laura Keating Trio will perform at the Dog-Eared Café in Paris, Ont., with members Laura Keating, drummer Gord Moss and lead guitarist Paul Llew-Williams.
Keating had her first paid gig in 2014. Four years later, she started performing with Moss.
Although she wrote songs on the piano as a teen, Keating did not start performing until after she had already entered and left the corporate world. She worked in radio advertising as a writer before leaving the workforce to raise her four sons.
For the next 20 years, she would teach piano at home, to have some extra income and exercise her love for music again.
'In the middle of that, there was a real rough spot in my life and I hadn't written songs in a few years and I really needed something to get me through,' said Keating.
'The music came back to me.'
This was after a push from her son to take her acoustic guitar out of hiding and start playing again.
'I started writing like a maniac and I wrote for two, three years,' she said. 'I got a lot of music and I got this desire to perform.'
That led her down the path of busking and performing at open mics.
Keating writes all of her songs and has a bunch that have not yet been released, she said.
The singer released her first and only album, 'Let Me Tell You,' in 2017.
Now Keating hopes to record with her new band, on top of performing as a trio.
She does not see herself moving away from music again, but developing within it.
'When you need something to pull you through things, whatever your passion is, that's usually very helpful to you,' said Keating.
Cheyenne Bholla is a reporter at The Hamilton Spectator.
cbholla@
