As I mentioned in my last “life/music update” blog, I will be travelling to Memphis, TN is one week to attend the Folk Alliance International Conference thanks to FACTOR and their “songwriter support grant”. I will be in Memphis for 6 days. I am both really excited to attend the conference, but also a little nervous about going alone and flying solo for six whole days… (more…)

Hello friends! So I interrupt your not-so-regularly-scheduled song diary entries with just a plain ol’ updating blog. There’s been lots of exciting things going on for me these days and I wanted to share the news with all you fabulous blog reading folks.

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Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a blessed, restful and peace filled holiday!

So although I originally intended to write a song diary entry every week, it’s turned out to be more like every month… or so (I love how all inclusive “or so” can be!). After another whirlwind couple of weeks – my husband and I bought a new house and business, moved into our new house, catered during the crazy Christmas season, and my sister had her twins 3 months premature on Boxing Day – here I am ready to write another entry about the fourth song on my new album, the title track infact called “Prairie Belle”…

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Since my last song diary entry, I have had quite the whirlwind life! My brother in law Brent and I went on tour with Via Rail across Alberta, BC, Saskatchewan and Manitoba! We played two shows a day on the train, and got off the train in Edmonton, Vancouver and Winnipeg to play additional shows. It was definitely the most I’ve ever sung in my life. I felt like a real musician. I got to play to some big crowds off the train, but on the train it was mostly smaller intimate crowds of 15 or so. All performances on the train were unplugged, so it was just Brent and I and his guitar. This was a great opportunity to really tell people about my songs. Why I wrote them, who I wrote them for.  So here I am to share with YOU readers (if there are any out there of course) the inspiration behind the 3rd song on my album, titled “Clearer Day.”

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As mentioned in a previous post, I have been trying to take some time lately to sit down and write in my song diary about each song on the new album “Prairie Belle”, in order of the tracks.

Track two is called “Heavy Heart”. Some songs I write a little fragment here, and then write a little fragment there and then although I can remember the initial inspiration, I can’t always remember where I was when I started the song, or where I was when I finished it. This song is an exception. I can remember the day I wrote this song very clearly. I can remember all the events of the day leading up to writing this song, and I can remember how I felt when I wrote this song… The majority of my songs are written for or about other people. This song was definitely written about, and for myself. As the title suggests, I had a very “Heavy Heart”. (more…)

Since I released my precious little Prairie Belle earlier this past month, I have been wanting to start a little song diary. So many of the songs on my record were written quite a while ago. I wanted to revisit them song by song and reflect on why I wrote them, where I was at the time and how I’ve grown and evolved as a singer/songwriter, friend, wife, sister… since. I decided I may as well just go in the order of the songs on the record. This week I want to reflect on “Too Easy” the very first track on the album.

I started writing “Too Easy” after I had met up with a friend with whom I had lost contact with for a number of years. (more…)