Aberdeen audience as welcoming as my home town, Huntsville musician says

(The following Trumpeter column originally appeared in The Huntsville Forester on June 27, 2007.)

By Linda McLean

My recent solo tour of the UK and Scotland didn’t actually begin in Aberdeen, but it was there that my schedule offered me time and space to breathe in the magical-mystery quality of my journey.

I was taking my songs to places as far from Huntsville, my home base, as you can get and still speak English as a first language.

A few days before, I’d been in the southern coast city of Portsmouth, home of tall ships and pirate mythology; then I was standing in northeast Scotland, on her magnificent purple-hued hills, framed by the ocean, reflecting ancient settlements nestled into the windswept, wave-wracked coastline. How strange, I thought, and miraculous, that I was being invited to share my songs in this historic region.

Years ago, my first time in Scotland, I was inspired to write this poem:
Come with me, we’ll carry our fine selves into those hills,
Far from here, when I tell you of my love you’ll want to stay,
Hidden with me there all the day
Ah those eyes, those eyes on me,
as gentle as these highlands that hold me to the sea.

The feeling behind those words returned while I considered the magic of it all, and the bigger miracle that I had arrived safely, driving alone from gig to gig, left hand shifting gears, up and down the crowded little island, wending my way through cities, towns and villages, circumventing industrial parks on graying stone streets, losing my way, finding it again, along ever more remote roads.

For my Scottish audience, I sang songs of my journey, the roads of the songwriter I travel, that inevitably distill my choices to my most essential one – to write songs that recount this journey we call life. In Aberdeen, as I sang for this audience of native northern Scots and watched them respond to my music with the same honest intensity of my audiences at our local music venues, I experienced a moment of recognition: I felt as at home there as in my hometown of Huntsville.

The magical mystery of my journey didn’t end when I got home; I still look in awe at the view from my house in the woods, still swell with happiness to be welcomed back to my supportive artist-rich community of Muskoka.

The Huntsville Festival of the Arts folks have always been great supporters of my music, and I am so happy to be helping them to kick off a new initiative at the Hideaway on July 28. I’m really excited because I will be performing all the new songs from my upcoming CD, as well as old favourites, and I know I am going to want to try out a couple of brand new songs – only ever played in my studio here by Mary Lake. I also know that the Hideaway is a fun venue to play and, with the incredible musicians in my band, All the Hanks, we are going to have the time of our lives.

A stylish performer, Linda McLean has been earning raves around the world. CBC places her, with Kathleen Edwards and Sarah Harmer, in a “holy trinity” of female Canadian singer-songwriters. The Port Sydney resident has played twice for the Huntsville Festival of the Arts and hosted a CD launch at the Hideaway.

Linda McLean to take the stage at The Hideaway

(The following article originally appeared in The Huntsville Forester on June 20, 2007.)

By Laura MacLean

For the first time ever, the Huntsville Festival of the Arts has teamed up with The Hideaway Pub for a show featuring local singing sensation Linda McLean.

On Thursday, June 28, McLean, backed by her three-piece band, All the Hanks, will take the stage at The Hideaway. Showcasing some of her newest tunes from her CD due to be released this fall, the event is one not to miss.

SHE’S GOT TUNES: Port Sydney resident Linda McLean is set to take the stage at The Hideaway Pub on Thursday, June 28. The show is a must-see, as McLean will be playing new tunes from her CD to be released this fall.

“She’s just an amazing performer,” said Jenny Cressman, a board member for the festival. “She just returned from a solo tour in the United Kingdom, where she got rave reviews. It will be a very exciting show because she’ll be playing some of her newest songs from her CD.”

According to McLean’s website, she was the youngest of four children and grew up listening to her parents’ record collection of European folk music, American jazz and Hollywood musicals. She would beg her sisters to bring back their records when they returned home for holidays. Every Saturday, McLean would go with friends to Sam the Record Man and would agree on the 45s they were going to buy, go to someone’s home and listen to the songs over and over again. At age 12 she formed her first band, which consisted of four singers and two acoustic guitars and together, they played folk covers at schools and churches. When she was 14 years old, she started going solo. Although too young for the bars, she played wherever anyone would listen. She also grew interested in the theatre, since performing came naturally to her.

When McLean was in her 20s, she turned off popular music and tuned in to classical works, listening to everything from JS Bach to Mahler. Music lived deeply in McLean, but it didn’t become clear until she was in her 30s that she was ready, and willing, to write her own songs.

In 2003, she released her debut album Betty’s Room, with songs that were comparable to Joni Mitchell’s work in the 1970s. In 2005, No Language was released and her tunes and overall sound showed that McLean had become a committed and focused musician.

Building a solid following of fans around the world, she tours solo or with her band in Canada and the U.K., often showcasing at international festivals. She has opened for Chris Whitely, Tim Booth, Ron Sexsmith and Stephen Fearing, among others, and shared songs, stories and stages with Stacey Earle, Jenny Whitely, Bob Egan, Katherine Wheatley, David Celia, Jian Ghomeshi and many others.

Cressman indicated that McLean held her first CD launch party at The Hideaway over three years ago. Prior to recording and releasing her material, she was somewhat of a closet musician. Her husband, Andy, had been an avid musician for many years and, perhaps influenced by his talents, McLean started to secretly write her own songs.

“We’re hoping that in the future, we’ll have more fringe festival shows at The Hideaway,” stated Cressman, adding that in the past festival shows have been held at the Algonquin Theatre. “We think this is just wonderful because sometimes we need an alternative venue.”

The show begins at 8 p.m. and tickets are $10 at the door.

[Please note: Doors open at 7 p.m. on June 28 but, if you wish to pay for admission in advance, stop by The Hideaway to do so; your name will be put on the pre-paid list, assuring you of prompt entry on the night of the show.]

Hitting the Heights with Huntsville’s Linda McLean

(The following article is courtesy of The Muskokan.)

Local musician riding high on breakthrough album, No Language

By Tina Novotny

Singer-songwriter Linda McLean has a fabulous perspective, in more ways than one. First, in the literal sense, there’s the gorgeous view from her Mary Lake Highlands home, looking out on some of the most captivating landscape in Canada, just outside of Huntsville. Then there’s her outlook as one of this country’s rising independent recording artists, a talent, along with Sarah Harmer and Kathleen Edwards, that CBC christened “the holy trinity of great new Canadian singer/songwriters”. The fact that she decided to pick up Joni Mitchell’s torch and become a songstress in her fourth decade is an aspect she’s happy to discuss.

“I feel stronger and more unlimited, I have a lot more to say now,” she says of giving herself over full time to her music career. “I can challenge myself in an authentic way.” This spring sees McLean embarking on a tour of the U.K., then it’s back to her home in the forest to continue work on two new albums. McLean pre-records in her own studio, “The Rock”, an outbuilding she calls “my sanctuary” which blends perfectly into her surroundings. McLean takes her creative inspiration from her environment, which includes wandering wolves and her truer totems, the circling goshawks. “Maybe some would interpret that I’m drawn to them because I’m a good predator,” she laughs.

McLean did have to sharpen her claws in learning a thing or two about the music business before setting out on her own path. “When I finally started engaging in my music and the songwriting, I realized there was a really good reason for me not to have been pursuing it in my 20s, because I know what happened to a lot of people who were, and it’s not all good. The business itself is a real grind. It stole people’s souls over and over again. I wasn’t the kind of person who would have survived that very well. I needed more time to become stronger and to have more to write about.”

McLean certainly comes across as a woman who runs with the wolves, dances in the firelight and even throws herself into a freezing cold lake in a Muskokan May to capture the eclectic image on the cover of her 2005 second release, No Language. “Now that’s suffering for your art!” she says. Then again, handling the cold is in her blood. Of Norwegian extraction, McLean’s maiden name, Snefjella, is an archaic form of the word river, along which her ancestors staked their claim at the foot of a snowy mountain. “They were nomadic people like the Inuit, reindeer herders, but sometimes they settled down,” she explains.

It’s a good parallel to Linda’s life on the beautiful hilltop home she built with her husband Andy, beginning in 1994, and her constant travels to promote her work. Back from the road, she can relax in her eerie and consider her past days in the theatre, her work as a teacher and mother of three, through her transformation into her current incarnation, an artist with a vociferous following, counting many established artists among the faithful. Music critics can’t say enough, offering accolades such as the U.K.’s Maverick Magazine: “Once in a great while, out of the blue, comes an indie masterpiece. Such is the case of Linda McLean.”

McLean acknowledges that many people believe her life in Mary Lake Highlands imbues her work. “I feel really filled here,” she explains. “I love snippets of the city, but my living here, people say that filters into the songs. As an artist, it helps me in being strong and serene, so that I can walk that road and speak about what I witness. You don’t have to provide people with what they’re used to hearing. I’m not interested in making songs that will trigger people’s ears.”
But catch people’s ears they most certainly do, along with their hearts. McLean has won fans around the world that are spreading the word through the internet and on her YouTube site featuring a video for her hit “All Around”. Her songwriting resonates with men and women, young and old. Her lyrics are wise and wondering, haunting and hard won, fueling songs that can either celebrate or condemn. Linda McLean has decided to speak her truth, and maybe it’s also her Masters in Arts Education talking, but she encourages everyone else to do the same, turning away from what she calls our empty calorie culture.

“Every human being has something that they should be doing, instead of living some kind of half life,” she says. “Instead we get wars, violence, this patriarchal, controlling society that keeps recreating itself. We can’t get knocked off track. You have to walk with your head up and set an example. People have a right to be true to what will make them happy.”

It was her circle of women friends who kept pushing Linda to present her songs to her husband Andy McLean, a professional musician and founder of the North by Northeast festival. Her biggest encouragement came from her neighbour Betty Munsie, who provided the cover art for McLean’s first CD, 2002’s Betty’s Room. Betty sadly lost her life to cancer before she was able to show her paintings to the world, but the same wouldn’t happen to McLean. She picked up her guitar, sat down her husband, and never looked back, despite hitting the usual roadblocks. “When I first went into record companies with my debut CD they said, ‘Oh, we’ve already got our female singer/songwriter for the year’, meanwhile they were taking on 23 young guy bands. That was just normal. As a female you get pigeonholed.”

The way around that was to steer her own course and set her own flight path. One of McLean’s two new projects is an acoustic CD, “in answer to a lot of people who’ve seen me perform solo.” She’s also working on an album that will feature 11 new songs of some 20 she has ready to go. “I’m not sure what the cover art will be,’ she muses, “but it will be about the inner versus the outer journey, the long road you take as an artist.” She’ll also be experimenting with the web to integrate her music on more sites for more listeners to experience. Fans closer to home can see Linda at the NXNE festival (June 7-10th in Toronto), or check her website for upcoming venues and play lists (www.lindamclean.com).

Busy times for a performer who’s been called “a dame in her prime”. “Yes I am!” she agrees. “I am a dame in my prime. It makes me feel like everything matters and nothing matters. It’s all or nothing at the same time, living that paradox. I welcome the not knowing. I welcome just focusing on the songwriting.” And there are many, many people the world over who are very glad that Linda McLean is doing just that.

HFA sponsors concert for young musicians

(This photo appeared in The Huntsville Forester on June 20, 2007.)

HEARTFELT: Niki Malone, a Grade 11 student at Huntsville High School, belts out the song Live This Life during June 15 concert for elementary school pupils held at the Algonquin Theatre. The young singer was accompanied vocally and on the piano by fellow HHS student Ashley Hill. The education outreach initiative was sponsored by the Huntsville Festival of the Arts.

HFA and the Hideaway to present Linda McLean on June 28, 8 p.m. – $10 at the door

On her website, Linda McLean has listed highlights of her budding musical career, and among them is a note about hosting two songwriters’ events for Huntsville Festival of the Arts.

Those were noteworthy evenings from the audience’s perspective, too. The first, dubbed “Songwriters’ Circle,” featured Linda on stage with Stephen Fearing and Katherine Wheatley. The following year, she shared “Songs and Stories” at the Algonquin Theatre with Jian Ghomeshi and Valdy.

Whether harmonizing with other musicians, performing solo or leading her own band, singer-songwriter Linda earns fans at every venue. The reviews of her two CDs, Betty’s Room and No Language, and her shows in Canada and abroad would certainly prove that.


The Port Sydney resident has just returned from a solo tour of the UK and is eager to hit the local stage. Likewise, the Huntsville Festival of the Arts and the Hideaway nightclub are happy to host a performance for her friends and neighbors on Thursday, June 28. She’ll light up the Hideaway stage at 8 p.m., backed by her band All the Hanks – the current line-up features her hubby Andy McLean (The Tenants, Doubledare, NXNE Managing Director) on electric guitar, John Switzer (Jane Siberry, Nathan, Brothers Cosmoline) on bass and Gary Craig (Bruce Cockburn, Anne Murray, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings) on drums.

She’ll showcase songs from her forthcoming CD, scheduled for release later this year, as well as selections from her previous discs. Linda says her biggest hits are, from Betty's Room, “Mandolin” – which earned her a “Best Songwriter” award at the Northern Ontario Music and Film Awards in 2003 – and “Almost Alien,” from No Language. They are also among her personal favorites, along with “Who Will Say” (from Betty's Room), “Calling” and “Amsterdam Canals” (both from No Language). As well, she counts all her new songs among her favorites, since she’s very excited about them!


In the short time since she’s “come out” as a singer-songwriter, she’s quickly earned the respect of her musical peers and the acclaim of critics far and wide. She has been referred to, on CBC Radio, as part of the “holy trinity” of female Canadian singer-songwriters, along with Sarah Harmer and Kathleen Edwards, and she has been ranked among the best of her North American contemporaries.

Her clear, resonant voice is perfectly in tune with her soulful lyrics and finely crafted tunes. And, when combined with her strong sense of presence on stage, it’s easy to understand why Linda McLean creates memorable performances every time she appears. This show, at the Hideaway on June 28, is an opportunity you should not miss.

See you there!
Jenny