‘Knocked out by the voices’
The Ennis Sisters bring their harmony to Indian River Festival Aug. 17
It was a chilly winter’s night in 1997, possibly ’98.
It was my first ECMA event outside of P.E.I. and I found myself parked at a table near the front of a showcase stage with Kerri Wynne Macleod.
We were trying to figure out where we should go next when a trio from St. John’s we had never heard of before took the stage and broke into “Out From St. Leonards,” a powerful and emotionally moving song about the controversial resettlement of people from remote Newfoundland and Labrador communities to larger centres.
As powerful as the song was we were really knocked out by the voices behind it. Those voices belonged to the Ennis Sisters, Maureen, Karen and Teresa.
Their traditional Newfoundland folk-based material and the big three-part harmonies they generated made a huge impression on me.
In the years that followed I watched as they experimented with pop and country music, earning for themselves a Juno Award, a SOCAN Award, multiple ECMA awards and several nominations for Canadian Country Music Awards.
But with Stages in 2015 they returned to the music that first brought them to national attention, contemporary folk songs with a traditional Irish Newfoundland
twist.
And they’ve stayed the course with their latest project, “Keeping Time,” released just last month.
Produced by Great Big Sea’s Alan Doyle, who also played on the set, “Keeping Time” is being billed as a concept album, one that honours and preserves what they view as life’s most precious gift, time, and what we do with it.
“It’s about the passing of time, the loss of traditions, the things we do to hold on to what matters most,” Maureen Ennis says of the record. “At the end of our lives, when the edges of our memories are fraying, and we are falling in and out of time, hopefully, looking back we’ll feel we lived our lives to the fullest with little regret.”
And they should have absolutely no regrets about making this record.
“Keeping Time” is a beautiful piece of work, one which may make you think about some of the choices you’ve made in your own life and hopefully make you feel good about having made them.
The record, they say, was inspired by the unravelling and tethering of memory. They describe it as being part homage, part celebration of life.
Keeping Time honours their father John, a talented button accordion player who served as their first manager. Sadly, they lost John to dementia. The album’s title track, “Keeping Time,” was written by Maureen Ennis and Perry Chafe for her sister Karen’s wedding, as her first dance with her father.
Maureen, long the principal songwriter, wrote or co-wrote 10 of the record’s 11 songs. She paired with Mark Murphy for three and with Perry Chafe for three others. Two were co-writes with Alan Doyle, including “Wheels,” a great song about life on the road and how musicians find home on the stage in front of an audience. The only track she didn’t write is a cover of Graham Nash’s “Wasted On The Way,” which their three-part harmonies are just perfect for.
Other songs on the record address the pain of watching a loved one lose the battle with dementia, the enjoyment of life in simpler times, dealing with the hardships we often encounter on our journey through life and the importance of living life to the fullest.
The corker for me is “Daughters of Newfoundland,” which honours several generations of strong, resilient Newfoundland and Labrador women.
“We are proud of where we came from. We are the product of the women who came before us and we’re helping to carve the way and be an inspiration for the generations of women to come.”
And it is most certainly inspiring.
With gorgeous melody lines, wonderful arrangements, and soaring vocals, “Keeping Time” has become one of my favourite records of 2018 so far.
In addition to Doyle, other players on the record include Cory Tetford, Kris McFarlane, Ron Hynes, Matthew Byrne, Emilia Bartellas, Aaron Collis, Joel Hunt, Kendel Carson and Mark Murphy.
(Rating 4 out of 5 stars)
Doug Gallant is a freelance writer and well-known connoisseur of a wide variety of music. His On Track column will appear in The Guardian every second Saturday. To comment on what he has to say or to offer suggestions for future reviews, email him at dpagallant@gmail.com.