Ferron

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This article is about Canadian artist. For other uses, see Ferron, Utah.

Ferron (born Debby Foisy on June 2, 1952) is a Canadian folk singer/songwriter and poet. In addition to being one of Canada's most famous folk musicians, she is one of the most influential writers and performers of women's music, and an important influence on later musicians such as Ani DiFranco and the Indigo Girls.

Ferron's rough-hewn voicing, chewy phrasing, and poetic songwriting has brought many favorable comparisons, including Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen (cf. Stephen Holden 1994). One wit aptly summed up Ferron's legendary status by calling her "the Johnny Cash of lesbian folksinging" (Bett Williams 2000).

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[edit] Early life

She learned to play guitar at age 11,[1] and left home at 15. Ferron attended Total Ed, an alternative high school in Vancouver, graduating in 1973 (Thomas 2002). Of her earliest musical memories, she wrote, "my mother’s French Canadian family played music. I heard guitars and banjo and accordion and scrub board and my grandfather clogging. I put it together...music meant fun, meant love and laughter. I started writing songs when I was 10, never saved them after some kids at school found them and teased me about it. I wrote songs and remembered them and when I forgot them I felt they were not important anymore. The next time I saved a song I was 18. It was 1970." It was with that first saved song that she made her professional debut in 1975, playing the song "Who Loses" at a benefit for the Women's Press Gang, a feminist publishing house.

[edit] 1970's and 1980's

Ferron subsequently established her own record label, Lucy Records, and released her debut album, Ferron in 1977. The album was recorded in a video studio on two-track equipment, and, as she stated, "the production quality was pretty poor". Nonetheless, all one thousand copies printed sold quickly.[2]

1980's Testimony was her first professionally produced album, and brought her much interest in the United States, particularly in the women's music community.[3]

Her 1984 album Shadows on a Dime received a four-star review (highest rating) from Rolling Stone magazine, calling Ferron "a culture hero" and the album "cowgirl meets Yeats...a thing of beauty."

[edit] 1990's and Beyond

Awarded a Canada Arts Council grant in 1985 to further develop her musicianship, she took several years off from touring, returning in 1990 with Phantom Center. The album featured backing vocals by a then unheard of Tori Amos, and consequently is highly sought after by collectors. It was re-released with a duet with The Indigo Girls on the first track.

Between 1992 and 1994, Ferron released three albums on her own Cherrywood Station label. Driver was then picked up by Earthbeat! Records, and was highly acclaimed by critics as a masterwork and nominated for a Juno Award in 1995. Warner Bros. Records signed Ferron which gave her great freedom in the studio to produce Still Riot with db Benedictson. She received an Outmusic Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Gay & Lesbian American Music Awards in 1996.

As a benefit for the Institute for Musical Arts (IMA), Ferron released Inside Out (1999), covering well-known tunes from the 1950s-1970s. She published a handmade book, THe (h)UNGeR POeMs, while she was teaching classes at IMA. She gathered some of her earlier, then out-of-print recordings to create Impressionistic (2000), a retrospective double album with a 24-page, autobiographical booklet.

Ferron is featured in the documentary on women's music, Radical Harmonies 2002.

In 2004 she returned to the very island where some of her earliest recorded songs were written to create Turning Into Beautiful produced by db Benedictson. In 2007 she began re-releasing a series of CDs as her Collected Works, and a new CD, titled Boulder is being produced by indie out-musician Bitch for release on the Short Story Records label in 2008.

Ferron continues to tour and teach master classes in writing, and opened an artist retreat for women in Three Rivers, Michigan, called "The Fen Peace and Poetry Camp for Women." For Ferron, "artistic expression is not only essential, it’s revolutionary." "Art is really the expression of the soul," Ferron says. "I'm asking women to remember that if we remember our soul, we keep our soul, and we can do it through artistic connections. Art is connected to the soul, and the soul is connected to God, and God is connected to humility, so if you want to take control of a person's soul, don't let them have art. To me it's a revolutionary act to continue keeping your artist soul alive" (Esters 2007).

[edit] Discography

  • Ferron (1977)
  • Ferron Backed Up (1978)
  • Testimony (1980)
  • Shadows on a Dime (1984)
  • Phantom Center (1990)
  • Not a Still Life (1992, live)
  • Resting With the Question (1992)
  • Driver (1994)
  • Still Riot (1996)
  • Inside Out (1999)
  • Impressionistic (2002)
  • Turning Into Beautiful (2005)
  • The Complete Works, Vol. 1 (2007)
  • Boulder (2008)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Schwartz, Ellen. Born a Woman, Polestar Press 1988 ISBN 0919591256 p43
  2. ^ Schwartz, Ellen. Born a Woman, Polestar Press 1988 ISBN 0919591256 p44
  3. ^ Schwartz, Ellen. Born a Woman, Polestar Press 1988 ISBN 0919591256 p45

[edit] Citations

  • Ferron 2004 "Biography."
  • Scott Alarik 2003 Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground, pp. 207-208. Black Wolf Press: Cambridge, MA.
  • Ed Bell 2001 "A Provincetown Writing Workshop with Ferron" Provincetown Magazine 24 (27): 36, 38-39.
  • Roddy Campbell 2004 "Too Long In Exile." Penguin Eggs 24: 30-32.
  • Mina Carson, Tisa Lewis, and Susan M.Shaw 2004 Girls Rock! Fifty Years of Women Making Music. University of Kentucky Press: Lexington.
  • Stephanie Esters 2007 "Ferron to open women's retreat near Three Rivers." Kalamazoo Gazette (March 18, 2007 via Mlive.com).
  • Stephen Holden 1994 "Dylan’s Children, Without the Sanctimony." The New York Times (November 20) Section II: 1, 34.
  • Mark Miller 2001 Ferron. Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. Electronic Version. National Library of Canada: Ottawa.
  • Dee Mosbacher (Director) 2002 Radical Harmonies. Motion Picture. Woman Vision, San Francisco.
  • Laura Post 1997 "Ferron: Taking a New Step in an Old Direction." Backstage Pass: Interviews with Women in Music, pp. 52-59. New Victoria Publishers, Norwich, Vermont.
  • Sandra Thomas 2002 "Totally Cool School." Vancouver Courier (21 May).
  • Bett Williams 2000 "Dancer in the Dark." Surfin' Bett (October 27). Posted on the Lesbianation website. Accessed August 29, 2002.

[edit] External links