Remembering Kate McGarrigle

In remembering Kate McGarrigle who died January 18th

I first met Kate Mcgarrigle when I was opening for them in Saskatoon. Needless to say I was thrilled to be on the bill. I was a huge fan of the McGarrigles and as a songwriter starting out, this was a big break. Both her and Anna were personable and charming and seemed to be bewildered by the attention. That tour had a terrible sound man that at the Winnipeg show turned up with the gear five minutes before the show began. There was a suggestion by Kate to do the show acoustically and just ask the audience up on stage. Sadly the band would not go for it. I was voting for Kate’s plan because the greatest magic of those shows was when most or all of the band disappeared and we were left with the pure sounds of great songs well sung. I loved opening for them because I got to hear them for five nights running and sit around and talk.
So it was with sadness that I heard of her passing. All of us thought that with a spirit that large cancer would never be able to hold sway for any length of time. Her death made me take stock in the debt all female musicians in this country owe a woman like Kate McGarrigle. There have been a few matriarchs of the scene. Women who were successful in a time where most musicians were male and women were often relegated to the pretty one in front while all the band wrote the songs and made the big decisions. But that was not them, they were there writing their own songs, singing in French and English, raising children, living where they pleased, and defining their own way. She dealt with all the things that women deal with, divorce, parenthood, and finding love when you are so very talented.
I was at her funeral at Basilique Notre Dame in Montreal this morning, which was everything you would wish for her. It was poignant, musical, filled with incense, tradition and music from every age, old friends and famous friends and a genuine sense that there was a community of people that cherished her. Her children sang and spoke with all the talent needed to make us feel the depth of their love for her.
But I was struck by how rarely we get to honour the women like her, who were Canadian trailblazers in this music life. The McGarrigles, Buffy St Marie, Sylvia Tyson, Joni Mitchell or Marie Michelle Desrosiers. There is a need to recognise what they did for other female songwriters and musicians that came after them. They let us all know that as a woman you can keep your own vision, that you can sing of things that women know, that you can , no matter how difficult, choose how you integrate your family and career and how to write music that matters. They opened the good doors. They changed how women in this industry were perceived. Her spirit, her great songs, the partnership that she had with her sister Anna that endured all those years, the children she raised to be artists in their own right and the wealth of the wonderful music that inspired us all are worthy of our acknowledgement. And as the crowd stood shivering on the steps of the basilica most of us felt the need for a wake, not wanting to let the thoughts of her disappear so quickly. So on the way home from old Montréal, I bought a bottle of the best margaux I could find, ironically by a female vintner. Just like her it starts out good and gets better with age. I will toast her brilliance and the good luck I had to cross paths with her, and I will sit down at the piano and learn Mendecino by heart.
Connie Kaldor

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February is here!!

February is here.  I’ve finished my touring for the time being.  My promo tour for the CD Postcards from the Road has taken me on the Road from Vancouver Island to Montreal from November 7, 2009 to January 26, 2010.  I’ve met some great people along the way.  Hopefully we’ll see you out and about in 2010.  

Connie

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January 2010

Connie Kaldor releases Postcards from the Road

Connie Kaldor tours Canada

Postcards from the Road , the latest album from Connie Kaldor
is available for sale and download.

This is the fourteenth album from Connie Kaldor. She went into the studio with a great collection of new songs and some of the best musicians in Quebec. Like classic Connie Kaldor you will have to have a long line for the genre section. She is a writer with few limits. Her strength has always been her live show that demands a wide-open range of songwriting. These “postcards from the road” are vignettes as varied as the Canadian places she has played over the years. There’s songs with mountains, prairies, mining towns, cowboys, winning, losing and the unpredictable road of romance from “ all I ever needed in the world was someone like you coming on to me” to “ Welcome to Heartacheville”. If our country were a musical this would be the soundtrack. Read more

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Touring January 2010

Postcards from the Road will be continuing to take Connie on the road starting in Ontario on the 7^th of January and continuing to Montréal.

Photography by ?

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Here are her tour dates

January 26 Montreal
CBC Radio Routes Montreal
The Segal Center For the Performing Arts
5170 Chemin de la Côte-Ste-Catherine

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