SINGER-SONGWRITER HONOURS HER HERO
So you’re a singer-songwriter getting ready to record your first album. Where do you draw the line between paying homage to your biggest influence and expressing your inner self ?
Kate Blechinger came up with an elegant solution for her debut disc Under A Dancing Sky. Half the tracks are new interpretations of her biggest inspiration, Joni Mitchell, while the other half are the Edmonton singer’s originals that sometimes take off from or tie into the covers.
The result offers intriguing hints at where the singer comes from and where she’s going, with an implicit acknowledgment that, like Mitchell, she enjoys crossing over many song styles.
“At first, I really made the album about Joni Mitchell,” Blechinger said, “and I wanted it to come out this year. With her 75th birthday (this past Nov. 7), it felt like the perfect time. But everything I was hearing from others was to not forget about myself in the process. It’s my debut album so that was definitely part of the challenge. It’s really about overcoming and transcending.”
It can’t be an easy thing to interpret one of the greatest, most original songwriters of modern times, but Blechinger does a hip balancing act in her unique, thoughtful and entertaining debut. This hybrid work of creative sources and motives goes beyond simple admiration for a wise musical idol to addressing issues about being an artist and a woman. Blechinger’s originals gel with the covers as
they delve into her own experience, using Mitchell as a de facto mentor through the lessons of the songs themselves and background research.
Under A Dancing Sky also features some of the city’s top jazz players, including pianist Chris Andrew and bassist Rubim de Toledo, Blechinger’s longtime guitarist Brett Hansen and drummer Joel Jeschke, with guests Mallory Chipman, Christine Hanson, Audrey Ochoa and others. Painter Jill Chipman created a beautiful cover graphic of a cloudy sky that’s both figurative and abstract.
Blechinger calls herself a feminist, admitting that figures like Mitchell have pointed the way for artists like herself by offering an example of how far an innovative female singer-musician could go.
Mitchell fans will find two of her most famous tunes in fresh interpretations, Both Sides Now, and Blue, with the latter a particular triumph in the way Blechinger captures both the spare essence of the original and something new in an intimate duet with clarinetist Joseph Semple. Night In The City, All I Want, a stirring take on Black Crow, and a lovely Ladies Of The Canyon are also included.
“The plan was always to do at least a quarter of my own material but in the process I wrote more new songs inspired by Joni that fit the vision of the album. Songwriting can be so cathartic. Some of the cover arrangements date back a few years, but there are new songs from as recently as last winter.”