Blues singer draws from lifetime of experience
Singer/activist Dalannah draws from her experience and our conflicted modern times on her latest album
At age 74, Afro-canadian/cherokee vocalist Dalannah Gail Bowen is hitting a career high with her fifth album.
Titled Looking Back, the 12-tune record captures the veteran Canadian blues artist channelling all the personal hardships and hard-won battles in her life into reflecting the times.
A longtime activist behind community building projects such as the Downtown Eastside Centre for the Arts and numerous other poverty and human rights initiatives, the singer doesn’t shy away from speaking her mind on the new album.
One of the key songs in the set is What the Hell Is That?
It sounds sweet and lowdown, but the song is a protest against the corporatization of the rebellious spirit of the ’60s.
“We’ve got Bob Dylan pushing perfume / We’ve got Rolling Stones selling me a car / The Beatles want me to try on some blue jeans / Man, they’ve gone too far” she sings while bemoaning having the hippie blues. It’s an ode to the past that had purpose being turned into one more way to move money through the capitalist machine.
Dalannah, as she likes to go by now, knows the blues first-hand. She’s been singing some variation of them since starting out in her 20s in the Feminine Touch, one of the first all-female rock groups to tour Canada.
Coming out of the vibrant Winnipeg music scene, the Feminine Touch opened for luminaries such as the Guess Who and the Monkees.
When the group retooled and no longer needed a keyboard player, Dalannah hit the road to Edmonton, becoming immersed in that city’s scene. Landing in Vancouver after that, she became a fixture in the West Coast hippie centre’s wildly diverse musical offerings, performing with celebrated acts such Hydroelectric Streetcar, Cement City Cowboys, Thunderbird Blues Band and many others.
“Vancouver was so good for live music at that time, nobody was really thinking about the next gig because there was always another one; it was wonderful,” said Dalannah.
“Everyone was doing a lot of pot, taking acid for spiritual development, and it was a big party. As a person of colour growing up, I was a victim of racism, although I didn’t really understand what to do with that at the time, but being supported for being who I am was never there for me.”
Eventually, the party ended and Dalannah doesn’t mince words about where it left off. While she had gone back to school to study non-profit management, she wasn’t singing as much, and things went bad.
“I fell — into addiction, into homelessness and then I had a major stroke in 2003, and was in a coma,” she said.
“But when I came out of it, I never did a drug, never drank another beer, never smoked another cigarette. It was my cosmic kick in the butt, and I was on the way to being healed.”
Working back from the stroke took a lot of work and Dalannah also started writing poetry, getting back into music and discovering her Indigenous heritage. Her given traditional name Wimbli Machpya Wia translates as Eagle Sky Woman.
With the coming awareness of who she was and where she came from came a renewed vigour to sing. Her first professional recording, Mamma’s Got the Blues, was released in 2008 on Vancouver label Quest Records. Them Menz followed; Dalannah had her groove back.
“My whole left side was paralyzed from the stroke and I had to work really hard and felt that art would be the tool to help me get there,” she said.
“But all of the art programs I sought out were conditional on you being something or having something, and that was when I decided to get behind the Downtown Eastside Centre for the Arts, where anyone could go to pursue art and use it as a tool for healing. We had great success with our exhibits and the Portland Hotel Society gave us a space to operate.”
Entering into a musical partnership with bassist Owen Veber produced 2015’s Been Around a While. The album’s positive reviews led the duo to enter the International Blues Challenge, and they travelled to Memphis as finalists. Downbeat magazine would name the recording one of the top blues recordings that year. Dalannah was working at Vancouver Food Bank at the time.
“I believe in the non-corporate, non-profit sector and getting the money to the people it’s intended for, and not paying massive executive salaries,” she said.
“I’ve got the reputation for speaking my mind, and I don’t hide behind things to make the point. It was when I realized that I wasn’t done saying things that I started writing Looking Back, and reflecting both the times and where I’m at.”
She says one of the big bonuses in her life is the support she has in her camp from Quest Records founder Paul Hovan, producer Michael Creber and many local musicians. Among those who appear on Looking Back are Juno Award-winner Jim Byrnes, the Sojourners, Tom Keenleyside, Andreas Schuld and many more.
Dalannah says it all came together well.
“That’s good, too, because very few labels are going to pick up on a 74 year-old blues singer and want them to make a record,” she said.
“I’m just grateful I lasted this long for the payoff.”
Looking Back debuted on the Indigenous Music Countdown when it was released in May. Dalannah is now working on a longer form video that she received a Creative B.C. grant to produce.
It was when I realized that I wasn’t done saying things that I started writing Looking Back, and reflecting both the times and where I’m at.