(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.
