ALL IN THE FAMILY
Jodi Guthro latest songwriter from Guthro clan
Jodi Guthro latest songwriter from Guthro clan.
Singer songwriter Jodi Guthro says her father wasn’t exactly encouraging when he found out his daughter was planning to enter the family business.
“My father was always like ‘run’ if there’s anything else you’d rather do or are passionate about like go to school and I did go to school for a few years, but I think you can only run away from what you really want to do for so long,” she said during a phone interview from Halifax.
Fortunately, the 23-year-old daughter of former Runrig frontman Bruce Guthro had the good sense to ignore her father’s advice. These days, she’s making a name for herself as a pop-oriented singer-songwriter who has just racked up 330,000 streams on Spotify for her debut single “Heights” released in January of this year.
Those are impressive numbers for someone who’s been fully involved in the music business for about two years, even though she has sung for most of her life. But she and brother Dylan Guthro, 27, who produces most of her work, have both inherited the songwriting gene from their father, who’s well-known in Atlantic Canada for his songwriter events.
Overseas, the senior Guthro is better known as the lead singer for Scottish band RunRig and, recently, Jodi got to see her father perform in the band’s final show in Sterling, Scotland.
“There was about 30,000 people there — it was amazing.
Pretty inspiring.”
Many would be inspired by Guthro herself. Already she’s shared the stage with Dean Brody, Johnny Reid, Joel Plaskett, J.P. Cormier, Heather Rankin, Matt Minglewood and her father. Today, she’ll perform in Sydney at the Great Big Bash with Jimmy Rankin along with Ashley MacIsaac, Steve MacDougall, Carmen Townsend and Jordan Musycsyn.
“This will be my first solo show ever in Sydney, so I’m super-excited.”
Eventually, she says, family members would like to do a show together.
“We really want to do some sort of show with the three of us together sometime soon because whenever we perform together it’s usually at weddings or some sort of event but we want to put an actual show together with the three of us, because it’s pretty rare when three people in the immediate family are on the road.”
Her next goal is to finish working on what is expected to be a six-song EP to be released sometime in the fall. She expects to be recording in September. Longterm goals include more concerts and becoming better known as a writer.
Songwriting is her main passion. She has attended Gordie Sampson’s songwriting events in Ingonish over the years and she’s also collaborated with songwriters like Caitlyn Smith, Sampson, the members of Port Cities, Neon Dreams (co-writer of their new single “Find A Way”) and Quake Matthews.
“I would love to get out on tour and establish myself as an artist, but I think my end goal would be to be a songwriter.
“Whether it’s for me or other people, get to have a bit of a more low-key life — just write songs.”