ABBY ZOTZ

On January 4th, Bob Leggatt of the LA Music Critic blog announced his list and I received the Best International Artist and was a nominee in the Best International EP category. It's so lovely to be acknowledged for all the hard work we indie artists do. I think it goes without saying that so many artists works their tuchus off to put their music out there, yet in this age of democratization courtesy of the worldwide web, there is so much on offer that it's super easy to get lost in in the shuffle. It's hard to feel heard at all. Awards and blog sites like Bob's have made me begin to look more deeply into indie artists. It's refreshing to be able to find sites and individuals who offer a cornucopia of musical likes, with well articulated reasons for their choices; personal offerings bereft of algorithms and corporate angles. It's the same as finding a movie critic you trust, or any cultural messenger whose tastes draw you in. It's REAL, it's HUMAN to hear from people like this...whether you win or not. Thank you Bob and thank you everyone who has offered me feedback on Local Honey, good, bad or indifferent. I feel a little more heard in this ocean of beautiful sounds...and a little more motivated to keep singing out! 

Today I released a live-in-concert video of All Through the Night, a traditional Welsh song that I have always loved and had to include on Local Honey. I timed the video's release to coincide with the holiday season and, while the song in no way reflects the event itself, I was also thinking about the Dec. 6th commemoration of the mass shooting at the École Polytechnique in which 14 women lost their lives 29 years ago. The piece has so many layers to it: it is a beautiful, soothing lullaby, a heart wrenching farewell, an epitaph to a king (in some versions), and for many, can be heard as a Christmas song. My reasons for recording it were very personal and I placed it where I did in the album's sequence to signify an elegy of sorts to my work with Two Roads Home, my pop-folk duo that ended a wonderful 20+-year run awhile ago. It was time to put "one young dream" to bed and find my own voice. The piano arrangement on the record so lovingly does that for me and it made recording the song a true joy; as did singing with my best friend of 30 years, Seana Lee Wood. Having her voice beside mine brings me even more comfort and courage to wish the past all the best and move on with love and compassion.

Please enjoy this gorgeous live video shot at the October 13th launch concert for Local Honey and catch the studio version below as well. My thanks to Gisèle Holt and Chris Marcucci for shooting and editing it respectively, and to my beautiful vocalists Anna Marie Therrien and Anne Gingras, as well as my drummer Bryden Chernoff, for this live version. I arranged it especially for our voices. 

All the very best for the season to every one of you. May you sing in the darkness. May you lovingly put the past to bed and courageously look to the future from this gift of the present. And, as the Welsh would say, "May mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance."

abby 

So video # 2...when my partner and I first bought a home, we were told the old place had "good bones." I have always been fascinated by the history that walls hold, the stories they could tell. And just like us, they're finite things, they come and go - sadly, these days, all too easily they get torn down, as ours did when we sold it. When we started playing this song live, I had no idea how many people would relate to it and respond with such enthusiasm.

Good Bones is another co-write with long-time collaborator and former Two Roads Home partner, Bryan Williston, and has a warm folk-country feel. It features my live band - including Joel and Chris Saunders, Bryden Chernoff, Anna Marie Therrien, Anne Gingras, and a special appearance by B-Dubs Williston himself - with videography and direction by Ryan Osman.  

Thank you to our friend Marney Simmons, whose charming and traditional dwelling in Mulgrave, Nova Scotia inspired the stories in Good Bones...check out the full version on the album for ALL the stories https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/local-honey/1420231383  A huge thank you to the Drury family, for the generous use of their century home - and all the tea, coffee, crackers and cheese we could handle - for the shoot. 

And thank you to Ryan for his careful attention to detail; it, combined with the presence of the band, create the genuine fondness and humour found in human connection and add depth to the message of the song: that we stand alone, but within a larger community, and that our bones, like a home’s, must be lived in and loved if we’re to make any sense of this life.

I hope you love it!

BIG HOPE is a co-write with my former Two Roads Home partner Bryan Williston. Inspired by the challenges of a refugee family struggling to re-unite in Canada, it was shot by musician and videographer Joel Saunders. The gorgeous setting in the Scarborough Bluffs area of Toronto reflects the optimism and joy the song is infused with. 

We had a blast filming this video. It's been a few years since I've been in front of a camera - I was an actor for many years as well as a musician, but music ended up paying the bills better, imagine that! - but it all came back to me easily. And Joel's editing has enriched the look and feel so much.

Hope you enjoy it!!