Silenced singer turns his hand to painting
What happens when you’re a singer-songwriter who can’t sing for a while?
That’s the fate David Francey was faced with about one year ago.
“I was scoped by the best (doctors) in Canada, three times actually,” Francey laughs.
That’s when doctors told the award-winning artist he had to take a rest. He hadn’t lost his voice, but the muscles in his throat had become steadily worn down from 20 years of performing. He would lose his ability to project if he didn’t rest and do specific exercises to get stronger.
“My voice just gave out and there was nothing I could do about it.”
He misses performing a lot, and continues to write new songs, but last June he was forced to cancel intensive tours of the U.S., U.K. and Australia completely.
“I’m pretty prone to worrying so I did what I could to not worry, which was paint. When I’m painting I don’t think about anything, so I bought the biggest canvases I could find and started painting large instead of small. From last June until about March I just painted steadily, enjoying myself and losing myself in it.”
A good friend and documentary filmmaker named Tony Girardin suggested they should go on a tour together, which is how Francey came to take a cross-country promotional tour for his painting and his music in April and May. The good news is that he managed to record another album before his break, The Broken Heart Of Everything, and that he has plans to get back to performing next year.
In the meantime you can enjoy his new songs on record and his new visions on canvas.
The Scottish-born singer-painter has been based in Canada since age 12 when his parents moved here. One of the lasting impressions of his school years in Scarborough, Ont., was a set of Group of Seven paintings that hung on the school walls.
“I realized as a kid that they’re just a cut above. I’ve never failed to be inspired by them since and they kept that alive for me.”
About 25 years ago, his wife Beth Girdler, a gifted watercolour painter, tried to get him interested in painting. In the end he tried acrylic “and ended up loving it.” He’s been an occasional painter ever since, all this despite the fact that he has red-green colour blindness.
“I don’t see why that should be an impediment. I can still tell what looks good together so I stick with what I know, and what moves me.”
He does a lot of landscapes including prairie scenes and has gradually come to add human figures, but “playing around with it until I get it right is the most fun.”
This shouldn’t be a surprise to fans of his music. Francey has been penning great image-laden songs for much of his career. Many of his images have taken shape from what he encounters on the road.
“When I’m not touring I like to paint when I get home. I’ve taken a ton of photographs, though I don’t like painting from a picture, but when you’re taking a picture you’re composing a picture too. I like to spend time on it, to cut out what’s needed and make it beautiful. I call them road canvasses. For a long time I painted them just for myself, like my songs at first, but here we are on the road.”
In fact, Francey’s canvas tour was so successful in painting and print sales that he had to arrange for more canvasses to be shipped out. It was also a way to connect with old friends.
“I have a terrific network of people who have been very supportive. I really miss them, so it’s been great to see them all again.”
The Broken Heart of Everything is the 12th album since Francey left a construction career behind him, making his 1999 debut with Torn Screen Door. Some songs date back as far as the year 2000, some written just weeks before recording. The album sports the same backup band that has been with him for three records now — guitarist Mark Westberg, Darren McMullen on bouzouki and mandolin, and Chris Coole on banjo. Recorded at Coole’s cabin over eight days in May 2017, it adds two guest fiddlers on certain tracks.
“We all get along so well. I’m very lucky to have those boys behind me.”
The tunes are vintage Francey, often inspired by simple stories. But somehow they make you think about the elemental forces that shape our lives underneath those everyday experiences.
One number came from a visit to Nanton, where he saw a Second World War-era Lancaster bomber that was being restored. The family of a long-dead Air Force navigator who never came home examined the plane and saw where their loved one would have sat, inspiring the title Where Harry Sat.
Hockey crops up again in a tune called Come Sunday, written for a late friend who Francey used to play the game with. Blue Sorrow And Then Some pays tribute to an early songwriting inspiration — Hank Williams (“so beyond good he was amazing ”).
Several songs take off from the singer’s love-hate relationship with the road, like I Know It Won’t about an artist who has been out there too long.
“It’s mostly love, but I did realize I don’t really know anyone at home except the guys I play soccer with because I’ve been gone up to 200 days out of the year. It’s funny, when you’re out on the road you want to get home, and I miss my wife, Beth, but when you’re at home you start itching to get back to work. I’m not afraid of travelling and it has always given me an awful lot back.”
Francey’s home is still in the small town of Elphin, Ont., (pop. 38), about an hour from Ottawa.
Sometimes his touring activities include workshops dedicated to the craft of songwriting.
“I like to help people but for me it’s a pretty instinctual thing, a bit of a joy to tell you the truth. The first thing I tell people is, write for yourself because you might be the only person who hears it, but I try not to analyze anything overly. I can’t turn off the tap and I’ll keep writing forever. If I can’t do that I’ll be painting.”
Does his creative energy have a common source?
“It’s the same well we’re drawing from, the music that makes you write and the muse that makes you paint. I’m convinced. They ’re both individual efforts but the sense of completion and contentment when you’re finished is identical, in my world anyway.”
It’s the same well we’re drawing from, the music that makes you write and the muse that makes you paint. I’m convinced.