TVO Studio 2 - Wed 5.Aug.98

[Steve Pakin] ...made her debut at the tender age of twelve, took Mariposa by storm at thirteen, was a guest on CBC’s popular Singalong Jubilee at fourteen. Since then she’s picked up a couple of Juno awards, and Bonnie Raitt snagged a Grammy singing one of her songs. Shirley Eikhard has definitely given us something to talk about. And tonight we welcome singer and songwriter Shirley Eikhard on stage in Studio 2.

[Shirley Eikhard] (singing)
If we had never met,
how different life would be.
I would not have a broken heart.
If we had never met,
I’d know the road to choose.
Now I don’t know where to start.
If we had never met,
I still would have my dreams
to see me through the day, and yet...
Who would make me laugh,
the way you made me laugh,
if we had never met.
...

[Pakin] Shirley Eikhard. Boy, has anybody ever told you that you have the most fabulous voice?

[SE] Oh! Thank you,...thank you.

[Pakin] You have a fantastic voice.

More on you in a second, but we first got to say hello to this very eclectic international gathering of artists we have with you today. Starting, let’s go clockwise, over there on the piano, originally from Winnipeg Manitoba, is Bob Erlinson. Hi Bob. Mark Kelso, originally from Ireland, now in the Big Smoke, is on the drums. There’s George Koller, who’s originally from Alberta, on the bass. And how about this? Does it better than this guy here?

[SE] Ooh, I don’t think so.

[Pakin] Originally from British Columbia, with his Order of Canada on, and the Boss Brass to boot, here’s Ed Bicker. Welcome Ed, it’s great to have you here. Thanks everybody for being here.

Everybody knows your song with Bonnie Raitt, which was so huge, Let’s Give ’Em Something to Talk About. Country song. You won two Junos for country. And now you are clearly in a jazz frame of mind. Are you home now?

[SE] Yeah. Oh, you know, it’s funny because when I was growing up, I grew up in a family that... we had everything. Everything from Led Zeppelin going on on the record player, to Merle Haggard, to Buck Owens, myself with Joni Mitchell, Ian and Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot. And then I started discovering jazz. Chet Atkins, Paul Desmond, which is when I first heard Ed play, and Cleo Lane, Carmen McCrae, and so I was kinda like this closet jazz lover. And even though through my teens, twenties, and thirties I was doing pop writing, singing and that kind of thing I was, you know, writing these songs, these jazz things, because that was my secret love. So now I’m finally, at 42, going "Yeah! I want to do this."

[Pakin] Listen, I missed the Zeppelin influence in that last song you did.

[SE]Well, the next one I’ll probably go for it.

[Pakin] There’s going to be a little bit more there?

[SE] The hair’s going to get bigger so... [laughs]

[Pakin] You mentioned Cleo Laine. I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but there’s the unmistakable influence. I mean you can’t help but hear Cleo Laine in your voice as well.

[SE] Oh, I take that as the ultimate compliment. This is a woman who personally and professionally was such an influence on me.

[Pakin] You’ve known her for a long time, haven’t you?

[SE] Yeah, since... I met her when she was doing a show here, oh, I was, um, 17 when she was here, doing a tv show, and I met her and John Dankworth, her husband, and they kind of took me under their wing. Like every time they’d come from England, they’d say, "Shirley, you know, we’re in town. Come and have dinner with us" or whatever. And Cleo would give me like tips on doing yoga for vocals. And just...she was just wonderful.

[Pakin] I saw you thank her in your last album, The Jazz Sessions. You’ve got a special thank you to the two of them in there as well.

[SE] Definitely. Yeah.

[Pakin] Does she hear echoes of herself in you do you suppose?

[SE] I don’t know. It’s funny. She’s heard this album. And she was so complimentary. She has a Quarter Notes quarterly that comes out, this newsletter that her and John put out. She was just lovely to have made a mention of it and everything. And I think she does because I remember her even saying that I look like her daughter.

[Pakin] You look like her daughter?

[SE] Yeah, when we first met. And she said, "John, doesn’t she look like, she looks like our daughter." [smiles] So I was really flattered.

[Pakin] And does she still... you’re still under her wing? I guess probably not, still anymore.

[SE] I guess I always will. She is somebody that will, um, she’s one of those, you know in life there’s like beacons that happen in your life. And she definitely is somebody that I don’t know if I would be where I am now if I had not met that woman and her husband.

[Pakin] Well, speaking of "would you be here had you not met that woman," let’s talk about your mother, because virtually every artist who comes through here tells us about a very musical parent from whom they learned so much.

[SE] A whole family. My mum is an amazing fiddle player. She plays country. She actually would improvise a lot. She had a real jazz essence to her playing which, within the structure of when she’d play country tunes, she would really jazz out and stuff and it was amazing. She could play, I don’t know, I think about ten instruments. She could pick up an instrument and know how to play it within a couple of days. She was like, you know, that kind of influence that, she just had that great gift. And then my brother’s a singer; my dad used to play bass. So, just surrounded by music, the whole time.

[Pakin] A very musical family.

[SE] And I think, just through osmosis, you start picking up, you know, it just becomes like the second nature thing to pick up an instrument, or sing, or write a song.

[Pakin] I read somewhere that you wrote your first piece when you were eleven!

[SE] Yes!

[Pakin] Do you remember what that song was?

[SE] Ohh, there’s blackmail material if I ever! [laughs] It was called Candlelight and Wine. It was completely a fantasy lyric. It was all about these two lovers meeting in this castle for candlelight and wine. And, um, it was medieval, so I don’t know where that came from.

[Pakin] Do you remember some of the lyric from that?

[SE] Oh, I don’t think I’d repeat it! [laughs]

[Pakin] You don’t want me to shame you into singing some of it right now? No?

[SE] No! [laughs] But it was quite serious. I was quite serious about the whole thing.

[Pakin] I see. A very serious eleven year old.

[SE] Yes.

[Pakin] Yeah. You have, I must say, there are very few people I know of who manage to combine all of the talents and skills that you do. Not just the writing of songs, but the arranging of songs, and obviously you sing them, and you write them for other people as well. Do you have any idea how you have managed to do so many different things well? Cause most artists, obviously, can only do one thing really well. You do a lot of different things really well.

[SE] I think it’s probably because I spend most of my time, Steve, just working behind the scenes. I sort of come out and do a whole bunch of work, you know, public work, and then I go back and then write and write, and work on... like right now I’m learning to play saxophone, alto sax, and my cats are ready to leave home. [laughs] It’s pretty pitiful.

[Pakin] It’s probably not that painful.

[SE] Wellll... yeah, they’re leaving--they’ve got their bags packed. But it’s like, I’m constantly trying to awaken the child all the time, to find something to keep challenging myself. I think it was just a natural thing when I would be doing demoes, in my twenties and stuff, I’d play bass on these little four track demoes, then I got a sixteen track, so all those things were out of necessity. I’d play the bass or whatever, or the guitar or the piano, and accompany myself on these demoes, so I think it was through necessity that I learned to play all these instruments.

[Pakin] Now we started talking about that song you wrote for Bonnie Raitt, Let’s Give ’Em Something to Talk About. People, of course, want to know whether or not you and Bonnie have any kind of relationship. I assume you’ve met her, and you’ve hung with her a bit over the years? Are you still in touch?

[SE] Actually, you know, it’s funny. Bonnie, she’s been so gracious to me. When the song hit in 1991 I think it was, she sent me flowers. Twice when she’s been to town she’s made mention from the stage. But, because she’s so busy, and both times she was like running off to a new town, you know, like getting in the bus and going, so I spent like five minutes both times with her, but she’s been very gracious.

[Pakin] Now you’re not much for touring, are you? Most artists like it, most jazz artists we have here love to tour, particularly in the Far East, where they get a lot of attention. But you hate it, don’t you?

[SE] Well, you know it’s funny because I did do a lot of touring. I’ve done armed forces tours. I’ve gone to some pretty, umm, interesting places. I’ve been to the North Pole four times. I’ve been to Cyprus, Syria, Israel, Germany, France, ...

[Pakin] No wonder you hate to tour. There’s a war that breaks out everywhere you go!

[SE] [laughs] Well, you know it was pretty scary a couple of times in Cyprus, because along the Green Line, like we would play in Nicosia. There was one year when I went over actually with Tommy Hunter, in 1973, and we were actually allowed to go into the Turkish side of the island then and, oh, it was gorgeous over there. And then the next time I went back was ’81 and the UN actually got us through again, and to see the devastation of before and after, of I think it was the war of ’76 or whatever, it was heartbreaking because it was so beautiful, when I remember it from ’73. So those kind of kinds of things are like once in a lifetime opportunity tours. And you’ve got great memories too, like when I think of the singers that I went over with, and the musicians, and... [softly] yeah.

[Pakin] Awesome, awesome.

We can’t thank you enough for coming here tonight.

[SE] I love the show, so I’m glad to be here.

[Pakin] Aren’t you sweet? That’s the other thing that’s so different. You’re so nice. You’re so nice and polite, and what...and anyway...

[SE] [laughs] Okay.

[Pakin] That’s just my, uh, yeah...

Let’s take a look, Shirley, before you do one more piece for us. Here’s your new CD coming out soon, Going Home, and jazz for you sure is going home. So once again here is Shirley Eikhard, on stage, in Studio 2.

[SE] [singing]

You can tell by the eyes,
the hungry stare,
searching for something that lasts
beyond the midnight air.
She needs to know she exists,
she needs to know she is missed,
desperately.
...

[Pakin] Umm, Shirley Eikhard. I think Bonnie Raitt should send her flowers every year.

-30-

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