Pamela Laws was born in Houston,Texas and raised in San Francisco, The family moved to Sacramento when she was 7 years old. Music became a reservoir of meaning. Pamela dove into it constantly. She was influenced by her parent's record collection - Hank Williams, Gene Autry, Johnny Cash, Roberta Flack, Janis Joplin, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Linda Ronstadt. At UC Berkeley she studied English Literature and started writing songs. Pamela sang backing vocals for Counting Crows, was signed to Warner Chappell and Warner Reprise Records and played a folk singer in “Mad City”, a Warner Brothers picture starring Dustin Hoffman and John Travolta. In the film she sang a Lou Reed song called “Is Anybody Listening?” set against a track written by Chuck D. As the front person for Seven Day Diary, Pamela toured extensively in the United States and Europe opening for major acts such as Weezer, Hootie and the Blowfish, Counting Crows and Tears for Fears.
Pamela’s family tree is rooted and with many branches in the part of Texas between San Antonio and Corpus Christie. The life and love in county seats, leased farmland, drought, and floods are where she is from. Though her mother and father wrapped her in a blanket and drove out West before she could walk, it is their life and stories of surviving the downs and ups of the South that inform Pamela’s songwriting the most.
MASTERS & GARDENERS (2025 Remastered) is Pamela’s first solo album remastered for this 2025 release. Originally out in the early 2000’s, this album marked the beginning of her career in New York City. Local NYC promoter, Foster Stevenson, recognized the subtle groove (implications of an R&B leaning phrasing in Pamela’s vocals and songwriting). he connected Pamela with GTO (Black Rock Coalition, Roger Sanchez) and Bassy Bob Brockman (The Fugees, Notorious BIG…) and the collaboration resulted in Masters & Gardeners. This re release celebrates the diversity in the music community of New York City. Pamela’s songs which have always held the stories of hope, family, self discovery, and change integrated here with the underground grooves of HIp Hop producer, GTO and mixing engineer, Bassy Bob Brockman and expresses Pamela’s love of New York City and the creative life she has cultivated. Masters & Gardeners was originally released on No Mayo Records with distribution through Jeff Brody at SONY RED Distribution.
THE ONES I LOVE is Pamela’s fourth studio album. Its’ origins can be traced to the total lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic but listening you’ll hear the coming out, the freer, deeper breaths of fresh air we all began living in 2023. THE ONES I LOVE is Pamela’s first collection of songs that truly embraces (and celebrates) the people and places - all the humanity and love and joy and fear - she comes from. She is blessed to have recorded and worked with the phenomenal producer talents of Joe Ciccarrelli, Larry Klein and Gil Norton. THE ONES I LOVE features Pamela’s most roots oriented collaboration to date - producer and co-writer Jack Petruzzelli, co-writer Adam Bernstein, and recording and mixing engineer, Justin Guip. With special guest artists, Larry Campbell, Cindy Cashdollar and musicians Rich Pagano (drums), Adam Bernstein (bass), Jon Graboff (lap steel), and Shawn Pelton (drums), THE ONES I LOVE breathes deep and propels us all forward on the real-life stories of the past.
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Pamela’s career in music started out in an acoustic duo with Nancy Hess which would later be called Seven Day Diary. After being signed to Warner Chappell and Reprise/Warner Bros Records, Seven Day Diary ended up letting go of 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). Pamela also colaborated 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. Pamela performed the compositions as part of Dill’s Drunk with the Starry Void opening at the George Stein Gallery in New York City and for Lesely Dill’s retrospective at The McNay Museum of Art in San Antonio, Tx.