Mountain City Girls – vignettes
Posted November 25th, 2015 by Anna
Jane reads “Saint-Sauveur Today,” a passage from Mountain City Girls, the first of the vignettes made by Lily, Sylvan and Kathleen.
2 Comments »Wade Hemsworth – CBC’s Rewind with Michael Enright
Posted October 28th, 2015 by Anna
Dane told me about this show on Wade that the CBC aired twice last week. Luckily it’s archived. SONGS OF WADE HEMSWORTH consists of old interviews with Wade, and some with Kate and me, intercut with live and recorded versions of Wade songs, many of them sung by the two of us along with Peter Weldon, Chaim Tannenbaum, Pat Donaldson and Dane Lanken. There’s a particularly nice version of The Wild Goose which follows Land of the Muskeag (which my daughter Lily reminds me is what the tarsands oil extraction is destroying) and yet another take on The Log Driver’s Waltz, these last three from 1977, and Ye Girls of Old Ontario, a very nice cut from Songs of the Canadian Northwoods, Wade’s Folkways recording made before Kate and I met him. His voice, rich and robust on this one. I don’t ever remember hearing any of these live studio versions. In Jane’s and my book, Mountain City Girls/Random House Canada, which appears Nov 10, I mention us meeting Wade and Shirley Singer, his folk-singing- girlfriend at the time, at the Finjan over the old Arena Bakery on Victoria Ave. in Snowdon.
P.S. Both Log Driver’s Waltz (different version than one heard in this radio show and the one in the NFB film) and My Mother Is the Ocean Sea are available on Odditties, vignette for it is at top right.
1 Comment »Mountain City Girls – available Nov 10 2015
Posted October 13th, 2015 by Anna
Try as I may to get this image centered it refuses to budge. I always did lean a little to the left but not this much..In the fall of 2012, after Jane added extra leaves to her dining table making room for me, the two of us began to write a family memoir. For two and a half years we conjured up the sad and happy past, warmed by the gas fireplace in my sister’s dark cosy living-room, missing one deadline because we couldn’t let go of the past. We wondered whether the book would ever see the light of day. Well, the day is upon us. We hope people will like it.
Mountain City Girls Facebook page. Open to all. You don’t have to join, though Facebook is a known cookie monster. There are reviews of the book there with links to radio and tv interviews, and old photographs.
For those who don’t do Facebook, attention: Campbell Hendery and Edward Snowden, here are a couple of nice reviews..’overflows with wit and warmth!!!!!’ So far, they’ve all been favorable! The book is an easy read. You can open MCG anywhere and start reading it, like the I Ching. But as the RBC teller once told Jane when she was changing US money to Canadian ‘we dont bodder wit coins.’
FIRST REVIEW OF MOUNTAIN CITY GIRLS BY JULIA KATER FOR THE MONTREAL REVIEW OF BOOKS.
MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE REVIEW OF MOUNTAIN CITY GIRLS
10 Comments »Jack Nissenson r.i.p.
Posted June 25th, 2015 by Anna
Very sad news about our old friend and musical colleague of many years. Jack was a founding member of the Mountain City Four (MC4) along with Peter Weldon and Kate and Anna McGarrigle.
The Mountain City Four 1964 by Brian Merrett, www.merrettimages.ca
Audrey Bean Knowles 1946-2015
Posted April 30th, 2015 by Anna
Audrey was a stunning girl with a beautiful voice, a good friend and a co-writer of mine, ‘Cool River’ and ‘Louis the Cat.’ She was also Sylvan’s godmother. Her husband John Knowles died a little over a year ago. Sail on!
Audrey Bean 1977, pic by Dane
Old pic of us
Posted January 19th, 2015 by Anna
The two of us in front of the building in Westmount, QC where at one time we had mirror-image apartments. Looks like the era of French Record. Rufus sent it last night from London where he’s recording his opera Prima Donna with the BBC orchestra. Rehearsals start today and it should be stunning. Charge your phone Rufus!
1 Comment »Some advice from Kate
Posted January 18th, 2015 by Anna
Here’s an email from Siobhan McCann sent this a.m.
Thinking of you today. This frigid cold feels like a prayer betimes…
Going through old emails I came upon Kate’s advice below, when I wrote to her in the winter of 2009 that we were coming back from Dubai…
“get out from behind that veil
put the trousers back on and behave like a male
but when the sun goes down and the evening’s fair
put on that mini and bare! bare! bare!
just some “western advice”.”
Made me smile. Perhaps it will you too. xoxo Siobhan
2 Comments »Gem Andrews covers Heart Like a Wheel
Posted November 26th, 2014 by Anna
Gem Andrews
On her latest recording entitled Vancouver. HLW is the 6th cut. Thanks Gem for the lovely interpretation.
9 Comments »
Coeur de pirate aka Beatrice Martin covers Heartbeats Accelerating
Posted January 14th, 2014 by Anna
Coeur de pirate aka Beatrice Martin has done the songs for this season’s Trauma series, Fabienne Larouche’s popular hospital drama on Radio-Canada. Here is the iTunes link to the 12 song recording. Heartbeats is the second cut. Chansons de la serie Trauma par Coeur de pirate
Link to show Trauma that begins this Wed night 9 p.m.
Heartbeats Accelerating Link for 2012 cover by Emmanuel Ethier. Merci Julien pour tes infos et le lien pour cette version.