Elsa Cross

Beautiful, honest and true, Elsa Cross is a force to be reckoned with, both live and now on record. On her debut album, “Unavailable,” Cross croons, stomps and rocks out a mix of country, rockabilly and bluegrass, with the accent on blue.“My fans range from tattooed tough-guy punks to old church folks and everyone in between,” says Cross. “My music stems from my love for American roots music, but I have some angst I need to get out. That’s why I love to pound on my guitar and belt it out.”Critics compare her voice to Patsy Cline and June Carter, but fans say she sounds more like a female Johnny Cash. At turns husky and gruff or as light as a lullaby, hers is a voice uniquely all her own, the emergence of which Cross traces back to a break-through moment while leaning to play guitar.“Tom Waits said in an interview on NPR that, ‘It’s like your voice is just floating around out there getting ready while you’re starting out. Then finally one day at the right time, you meet and it’s magic.’ It seems to be what happened to me,” says Cross.“When I got into playing and singing classic country songs I picked up a Loretta Lynn CD,” she recalls. “‘Wine Women and Song’ was the first one I picked out and I started playing it over and over in my room. When it gets to the ‘Women’ part – where Loretta belts it out – it just came out of me one day. I felt my body leave the earth for a brief moment. I always knew I could sing on key and all that, but this was different.”Eight of the 10 songs on “Unavailable” are Cross originals. Listen and discover for yourself the tremendous natural talent of a woman ready to make some noise.“Zombie For His Love,” with its hard-driving rockabilly beat, kicks off the CD with a freewheeling blast of energy and explicit lyrics that serve as a catchy, cathartic anthem for anyone whose lover ever done them wrong. “Zombie” rips it up and sets the stage for more songs of love lost, burnt, broken and beaten to follow“The thing is, I care so much for other girls who might have gone through the same things as I have,” says Cross. “I want to tell them it’s going to be okay, you don’t have to run from your misery. I want the broken-hearted, lonely girls to know they are not alone. I know what it’s like to be a zombie for his love! I know what it’s like to obsess over a love gone wrong, or one you should have never gotten into in the first place. If I could, I would hug every lonely, confused girl in the world and tell her to hang in there.”This sense of hope is laid bare with great emotional strength and sincerity on “Before I Find a Man.” Set to an up-tempo country swing, Cross sings “I’ve got to find myself before I find a man. Because if I’m no good on my own, what good am I?”Formed in the Seacoast area of New Hampshire, Cross’s bandmates include bassist Steve Roy (High Range, Mill City Ramblers) and drummer PJ Donahue (Brick House, Amorphous Band). For “Unavailable,” producer Jon Nolan helped expand her sound by bringing in some of the area’s best musicians for the recording sessions: Joyce Andersen (fiddle), Bruce Derr (pedal steel), Jimmy Farquhar and Matt Robbins (electric guitar), Charlie Rose (cello) and Gary Sredzienski (accordion).