Emily Andrews finds her voice again
Local artist emerges from illness to play and paint at mental health fair
Niagara Falls singer Emily Andrews recalls the nights she was crying in frustration, desperate to feel normal again.
She had been sick for months with no answers from local doctors. It was like her throat and sinuses were in open revolt against her.
It meant she couldn’t sing any longer with longtime partner Nathanial Goold and their two bands, folk duo Electric Wildlife and country group The Handsome Devils. Her voice was failing her as a chronic cough got worse.
During a 10-day tour last year with Niagara band Minuscule, she tried everything for her throat: vitamins, tea, honey, two litres of water per day.
“And over the 10 days, my voice just kept getting worse and worse,” she says. “The last gig, I couldn’t sing. It was gone.”
In December, after eight months of misery, Andrews was referred to a throat specialist in Hamilton, who pinpointed a polyp on her vocal chords. She opted for surgery right away. It meant she couldn’t use her voice at all over the holidays. No talking, no singing, not even any laughing. It also meant a stressful few weeks when she wondered if her voice would ever be the same.
“That was weighing on me mentally,” she says. “That was the only thing I was nervous about.
“I was trying to mentally prepare that things would go well. Positively think my way through it, because, yeah, the idea of not being able to sing would be very devastating and depressing.”
Throughout her hiatus, Andrews kept busy with her other great love —painting. Over the winter she finished off another one of her surreal, retro-looking paintings titled "Woman with Cat," depicting a figure straight out of a 1950s catalogue with flowers for a face and, yes, a tiger sitting next to her.
“It was a good distraction from the fact that I was kind of on the injured bench.”
It’s the same style that earned her a solo exhibition at Niagara Artists Centre in St. Catharines in 2019 and can be seen at an upcoming show at The Cotton Factory arts centre in Hamilton. Andrews returned to singing in February when The Handsome Devils opened up for The Sadies. Her fears were laid to rest.
“All these songs I was really struggling through (before), I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I can sing them.’ It was a mind trip where I was like, ‘Am I getting worse at singing? I don’t remember having such a difficult time hitting these notes.’ It was totally because of (the polyp).”
The recovery continues this coming Sunday when Andrews and Goold, as Electric Wildlife, play the Niagara Mental Health and Wellness Fair at the Niagara Falls Exchange. They’ll play from 12:45 p.m. to 2:15 p.m., accompanied by live painting by Niagara Falls artist Heather Fraser.
After the gig, Andrews switches hats and will do a live painting while Niagara’s Nicole Cerminara of JIN performs from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
“It’ll just be nice to sing as I was singing before all of this happened,” she says. “Leading up to the surgery, I felt like my singing ability was just going down.
“I’m not nervous about performing because I’ve done it for so long. I just want to meet my own standards. I have the bar set for myself.”
The Niagara Mental Health and Wellness Fair runs 10:15 a.m. to 5 p.m. March 24. Other artists include Leona Skye, Evan Rotella, Sarah Carter and Falynn Shaw.