ArtsFest Waterdown weekend preview
Look for a strong lineup of performers on stage Saturday and Sunday
Catherine MacLellan couldn’t be comfortable singing the songs of her father until she had established her own career as an artist.
Her father was Gene MacLellan, Junowinning composer of chart-topping hits like “Snowbird” (by Anne Murray) and “Put Your Hand in the Hand” (recorded by group Ocean).
He is a legend in his home province of Prince Edward Island and one of the most respected songwriters Canada has produced. His music has been covered by Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby and Joan Baez.
So when Catherine started out as a singersongwriter, she downplayed the connection. She didn’t want to be known as “Gene’s daughter.”
She recorded her first album in 2004 and signed to True North Records in 2006 and extensively toured North America and Europe. At the 2015 Juno Awards in Hamilton, MacLellan won roots and traditional album of the year for her fifth release “The Raven’s Sun.”
It was then that Catherine began to feel comfortable about looking back at the work of her father. This year she released “If It’s Alright With You,” a collection of 13 songs written by Gene MacLellan, sung by Catherine MacLellan.
She’ll be singing them Saturday when she performs at the two-day ArtsFest Waterdown as part of a strong lineup that includes Lunch at Allen’s, Natalie MacMaster, The Good Brothers, Canadian Brass, Valdy, The Shuffle Demons, Tomi Swick, the Canada 150 All-Star Jazz Blues Band and the Order of Canada Jazz Ensemble.
“If It’s Alright With You” doesn’t just represent a tribute to a great artist, it also part of a long grieving process.
Catherine was 14 when her father died by suicide after a long struggle with mental illness. He took his life in the family home in Summerside, P.E.I. Catherine found his body when she was asked to her fetch her father for dinner.
Now Catherine talks freely about her own depression, therapy and her father’s death.
“I can go back to that time and I don’t go into trauma mode anymore,” she says on the phone from her home in P.E.I. where she lives with her 12-year-old daughter, Isabel.
“I’ve learned so much about myself and my father from that journey, the whole mental health thing is so important to talk about. In a way it is a gift to have the spotlight on me and to be able to talk about such serious things.”
Oddly enough, MacLellan says that as a young girl she was “embarrassed” by her father’s songs. During the ’80s, after all, “Snowbird” wasn’t exactly considered hip. She didn’t realize how good the songs were until after Gene’s death when some of her friends were listening to a compilation album and commented on how “cool” the songs were.
“I guess that gave me an outsider perspective on it,” she says. “Now learning the songs so in-depth, I have a much greater appreciation for him as a songwriter and as a poet for sure.
“He never missed a beat. There’s not a line that’s out of place or feels weird in your mouth. It all comes out so naturally. He was a perfectionist when it comes to lyrics and I admire that so much.”
As well as the album, MacLellan has been performing “The Life and Music of My Father” three times a week this summer at a venue in Charlottetown, a live show in which she tells the stories behind the songs.
One of her favourite stories concerns her father’s eye patch. For the first few years of his career, he wore a black velvet patch over his left eye, like a pirate. It was almost as recognizable a part of Gene MacLellan as “Snowbird.” People naturally assumed he had no vision in that eye. They were wrong.
The eye patch came about as a result of his first appearance on the popular Don Messer TV show in the late ’60s. MacLellan was an unknown at the time and Messer was a Canadian icon. Messer liked MacLellan’s songs, but wasn’t impressed by a droop in MacLellan’s eye, a result of childhood polio.
“So they cut out a piece of velvet and gave him an eye patch,” laughs Catherine. “He would tour with that eye patch until his second album. He would even attend events with it on. He absolutely hated it.”
MacLellan, 37, has spent most of her life in P.E.I., but her performance Saturday at ArtsFest Waterdown marks a bit of a return home. MacLellan was born in Joseph Brant Hospital and spent her early childhood in Waterdown, which is also the home of her record label, True North.
“The first house I lived in was in Waterdown and then, until I was 10, in Burlington,” she says.
“My parents were both kind of restless so we never stayed in one house very long. Those were some pretty good years.
“I loved Burlington. We always lived close to a park.
“They were my glory days as a child. I was in Grade 6 when we made the move to the island.”