St. Albert jazz singer-songwriter Barbara Leah Meyers has been an off-and-on again performer during the last decade while raising children as a single mum.
But the kids are grown up and Meyers is letting the world know she’s stepping back in the game. Together with former St. Albert pianist Jan Randall and maritime folk guitarist Bill Werthmann, the trio is debuting Canadian ConTENT – a Celebration of Canadian Singer-Songwriters at Endeavour Brewing on Friday, May 16.
“I was living in Germany from 1997 to 2010, and I was a Canadian singer-songwriter at the time,” said Meyers. “It was special to be a Canadian and I wrote Canadian ConTENT about Canadian singer-songwriters. It was a novelty act. It went over well, and I performed it a few times and then shelved it.”
The show peels back time with 25 time-honoured Canadian hits from icons such as Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Jan Arden, Sarah McLachlan, Crash Test Dummies, and k.d. lang, to name a few.
The material embraces genres from folk to rock to pop. Expect to hear familiars such as Both Sides Now, Sundown, After the Gold Rush, Ain’t No Cure for Love, Insensitive, Angel, Superman and Constant Craving.
The trio also delivers 12 original songs from the Meyers, Randall and Werthmann playbook. Randall, who now lives in Victoria, BC, contributes I’ll Be Seeing You, a bluesy piece with at Tom Waits vibe that celebrates friendship and relationships.
Meyers, who once landed a three-month gig in Japan, was inspired to write Ueno.
“Ueno is a train station in Tokyo. One day while walking, I saw a group of men barbecuing in a park. I talked to them and learned they were Iranian. They came to Tokyo to work and send money back home to their families. They lived in flop houses and every day they'd go to the Ueno train station and try to get work for a day. Those who don’t get work, go to the park,” Meyers said.
The start of the Canadian ConTENT collaboration happened when Randall joined Meyers on her annual yoga retreat to the Bahamas. The duo wrote Oh Lucky Me, a folksy upbeat two-step. Meyers had previously met Werthmann at a 50th-anniversary party where she played piano and he accompanied on percussion. The duo formed an immediate connection and he was a natural to record Oh Lucky Me’s tracks.
“I’m grateful to Endeavour for giving us a shot. And it’s an honour to celebrate these songwriters. We’ve all been impacted by them and it’s an honour to bring them back to life.”
