Muskoka Magazine
July 2003

by Carol Pollack

Linda McLean began her life as a songwriter and singer in the theatre, where developing a sensibility to voice made her realize hers was good....and marketable.

“In theatre,” she says of her experience on stage, “singing is a big part of what you do.” Betty's Room, her first commercial release, showcases her considerable musicianship and marks her coming-out – what she calls “the beginning of my journey as a songwriter.”

A native of Belleville, where her Norwegian parents had settled in the 1950's, McLean moved to Toronto as a young woman, studying theatre and acting while raising Lindsay and Erik, the children of her first marriage. Over the years, she worked in small fringe plays and picked up commercial or television work when possible, so she could be home at night - “trying to strike a balance between being a mom and being an artist.”

After teaching children's theatre and participating in such programs as Artists in the Schools, McLean thought about becoming a drama therapist or researcher, after completing a Masters in Arts Education. However, during her contemplation of the future, she had a revelation: she wanted to write songs.

“I (had) resisted the music a lot,” she says, “even though there were opportunities all along the way. I used to say it was fear but, now, I think it was just logical. I probably would have burned out quickly. I wouldn't have the wisdom I have now.

“What really intrigues me about songwriting,” she continues, “is having a story that's really worth delving into for myself but, then, becomes more universal, something that inspires people. And, honestly, that is one of the constant responses to my music, that it is inspiring.”

Fifteen years ago, McLean met husband Andy, a singer-songwriter from England, through a vocal teacher who was singing backup in his last band, Doubledare. Andy went on to found the highly successful North by Northeast music conference, an annual event in Toronto that brings together artists and industry types, and McLean, while helping her husband in his work with the conference, was able to meet many insiders in the business in Canada and beyond. Still, she kept her talent under her hat.

“Seeing him in his world, I could see the good and the bad (of the music business). I really didn't want to step up to the plate until I was absolutely ready. I didn't want to take a risk and not be good....I wanted to be a real player.

In the early '90's, the McLeans visited some friends in the Mary Lake Highlands area of Huntsville. “I went for a walk up to the top of the hill,” she says, referring to the massive outcropping of bedrock where the couple eventually built their home. “I was sitting and meditating and I just felt something. I turned around and there was a wolf standing about a hundred feet away from me....I turned back again and the wolf was gone. I took it as a kind of sign. I decided right then and there that I wanted to live up here.”

The couple bought the lot that year and camped out on it for a few summers but a desire to leave the city and enjoy the space offered in Muskoka prompted them to start building in 1994, just after daughter Alice was born and the same year North by Northeast was starting up.

McLean was still writing songs privately on her guitar and had been taking piano lessons, along with voice, composition and theory....”developing this background,” she says. By the time she moved to Muskoka, she had half a dozen songs under her belt and lots of ideas for others. Shecontinued to write in secret until about 5 years ago, when a friend advised her to sit her husband down and say, “I am a songwriter and I want you to listen to a couple of things I've written.”

Her startled husband, then out of the creative end of the business for over 10 years, “had no idea,” she recalls. “His first response was 'Are you out of your mind?!' and then he said, 'If you're going to do, then do it and do it well', she says. She carried on; he liked what he heard.

Andy helped produce Betty's Room last year, enlisting the talents of musicians such as bassist Colin Barratt from Doubledare, and Blackie and the Rodeo Kings drummer Gary Craig, who has also played for Anne Murray and Jann Arden. Andy played guitar. It took 8 days, with producer/engineer and family friend John Whynot at the board, to record all the bed tracks and overdubs at Canterbury Studio in Toronto.

“I had no idea my voice would sound as good as it does in a microphone,” says the then-aspiring songwriter, recalling her surprise. “As we started recording, it became really clear that I was great in recording and also had this background in performing, so it made sense that I would do exactly what I wanted – write the songs and perform them.”

McLean describes her songs and “melodic and easy to hear, but intense. She's talking about being able to 'bop around' to their solid rhythms, in spite of their being “thoughtful and meaningful' at the same time. “These pretty intensely private songs,” she says, “inspire people to follow their muse......to be creative and inspire peace and beauty in the world by encountering their own happiness.

“To me,” she states, “being creative ( ie having a relationship with your imagination) is a most revolutionary act. We'll have a lot less imbalance in the world if more people realize that paying attention to creative stirrings is as important as eating and sleeping.”

McLean herself likes music that is “innovative and intelligent” and, when she's writing, she tries to produce songs that artists she admires would be interested in covering. She has been inspired by musicians such as Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and, perhaps surprisingly, by Patti Smith. “She's a poet as well as a songwriter,” explains McLean. “And she's got this multi-dimensional personality that I find fascinating.” She also cites the melodies of classical composer Gustav Mahler for their “spiritual inspiration....on a cellular level.”

The title song of McLean's first CD is a tribute to her friend and neighbour Betty Munsie, to whom she had earlier revealed her music. “She loved it,” says McLean of the night she first played her music for a bunch of friends at one of Betty's then famed 'girls nights'. “About half an hour later she whispered in my ear and asked me to come down into her basement to see some paintings she had done.” Another well kept secret. Munsie's colourful musing nude was commissioned as a cover for the album, and the original now hangs in McLean's home.

With one album under her belt, material for the second album began to appear while the first was in production and it, in turn, has given birth to a third project in McLean's ongoing creative journey. “I'm writing all the time,” she says happily. She'd also like to put together a compilation CD that includes spoken word, “something a little more 'artsy' “ she explains, “ off the commercial track...”

McLean has played over a hundred shows in various venues to promote Betty's Room. The album has enjoyed airplay on CBC radio and recently took off in Holland and Norway. Althoughher connections to her family's homeland are still strong, the Norwegian exposure was the result of a meeting with a music programmer at a conference n the US. After receiving a promotional copy of the CD, he began playing it on his national radio program when he got back home. “It was a cousin (in Norway) who called my mother and let us know I was being played over there. She was excited and said, 'Oh, I heard Linda on the radio.'

McLean now has a record deal in Europe with Rounder Records and is looking forward to touring there, with Alice and Andy is tow, in the fall, from the UK to Bulgaria,” she says, “and all places in between. I'm ready to take it on,” she says, and she, no doubt, means it, having developed a fine sense of timing in her life. Although she has to deal with the “age thing” in Canada (in spite of her youthful appearance) and considers herself somewhat of a pioneer in that regard, Europe in 'wide open', she says, “There are no age barriers.”

Here in Canada, she says, her family and friends are her “biggest fans.” Her children are 100 percent behind her and sister Anne comes to all her shows, even flying to Seattle to catch McLean's first US gig at the Rockrgrl Music Festival. “I have a core group of friends who have been so incredibly supportive,” says the grateful artist. “They come to shows, bring friends...and keep on doing it.”

Last summer, McLean initiated a songwriter's circle as part of the Huntsville Festival of the Arts. This year, Songs and Stories will feature McLean and guests folk icon Valdy and Moxey Fruvous front man, “Play” host and self-styled Persian-Canadian Jian Ghomeshi. The three will play songs and exchange stories about songwriting and performing at the Grandview Resort on July 15^th.  “You don't have to be a songwriter,” she reassures. “Just come and enjoy the music.”

McLean is also involved in setting up a program at Seneca College to give budding independent musicians intensive training in home recording, business, songwriting, securing grants and “getting through all the complexities of the business......”but finding out who they are as artists, that is what I think is most fundamental.”

McLean sees her own creative process as twofold – being an artist and being a promoter. “I'm working really hard,” she says of the sometimes difficult mix, “and I'm loving every minute of it.”

As for her decision to move to Muskoka, the well-grounded performer says it was “a chance to have a relationship with the forest and the rocks.” She has even started a garden on her rocky eyrie.

This area is beautiful and profound and dramatic,” she says, “but it's also really tough. It's hard to live up here full-time. You have to be really strong. ...”

Just like in the music business.

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