Colleen Brown is a Canadian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city anc ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

History

Brown spent her childhood in

Lloydminster Lloydminster is a city in Canada which has the unusual geographic distinction of straddling the provincial border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. The city is incorporated by both provinces as a single city with a single municipal administrat ...

, on the border of Saskatchewan and Alberta, where she studied ballet, visual art, classical piano, voice and musical theatre. Upon moving to Edmonton, she studied music at

Grant MacEwan College , mottoeng = , type = Public university, Public University , established = , closed = , founder = , parent = , academic_affiliations = A ...

in the Vocal Performance Program. Upon graduating she sang and danced in the now defunct

Kit Kat Club The Kit-Cat Club (sometimes Kit Kat Club) was an early 18th-century English club in London with strong political and literary associations. Members of the club were committed Whigs. They met at the Trumpet tavern in London and at Water Oakley i ...

a large show-band that covered music of the 60's 70's and 80's, and began playing bass and singing in the all female rock band

The Secretaries The Secretaries is a play written and performed by the performing troupe The Five Lesbian Brothers. It opened on September 20, 1994 at the New York Theatre Workshop.Evans, Greg. " Legit Reviews: The Secretaries.'' Variety'', vol. 356, no. 12, Oct ...

Music

In 2004, she released her first full-length album A Peculiar Thing. The album was funded by Brown and contained all new music. Her second album Foot In Heart was released in 2008. It became the number 2 Folk/Roots/Blues album in Canada on

!earshot ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...

(the Canadian national college/community radio chart) and spent 6 weeks in the top 10. It was later re-released on Emm Gryner's label Dead Daisy Records in 2010. There were two singles from the album that were played in heavy rotation on CBC Radio, 'Boyfriend' and 'Love You Baby'. The latter was used in a CBC Radio 2 Television commercial alongside

K'naan Keinan Abdi Warsame (born 1 February 1978) ( so, Keynaan Cabdi Warsame, ar, كَينَان عَبدِ وَرسَمَ ''Kaynān ʿAbdi Warsama''), better known by his stage name K'naan (), is a Somali-Canadian musician. He rose to prominence ...

's '

Wavin' Flag "Wavin' Flag" is a song by Somali-Canadian artist K'naan from his album ''Troubadour''. The song was originally written for Somalia and aspirations of its people for freedom. The original single was a hit in Canada and reached number two on the ...

'. As well as a skilled pianist, Brown has branched out to embrace other instruments in her performances, notably electric guitar and bass. She credits this and working with her backing band as helping her to develop and refine her songwriting abilities. Brown has toured extensively across Canada in support of her releases, sharing stages with some big names like

Frank Black Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV (born April 6, 1965) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He is best known as the frontman of the alternative rock band Pixies, with whom he performs under the stage name Black Francis. F ...

Jakob Dylan Jakob Luke Dylan (born December 9, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter. He rose to fame as the lead singer and primary songwriter for the rock band the Wallflowers. Born in New York City to musician Bob Dylan and model Sara Lownds, Dylan b ...

Don McLean Donald McLean III (born October 2, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for his 1971 hit song " American Pie", an eight-and-a-half-minute folk rock "cultural touchstone" about the loss of innocence of the early ...

and

Randy Newman Randall Stuart Newman (born November 28, 1943) is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, composer, and pianist known for his Southern-accented singing style, early Americana-influenced songs (often with mordant or satirical lyrics), and vari ...

- after whom she named a track on the album Direction. Other releases include Colleen Brown's DIRT (2012), Direction 1: Major Love EP (2014) - for which she created elaborate home-demo recordings, Direction (2015) - which includes her first home-recorded release 'I Asked In The Night', and 2016's Seasons Are Circling which features a slew of collaborations and some home recordings with Canadian artists Jesse Northey, Mitchmatic,

Be-bop Cortez Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrume ...

Slow Leaves In everyday use and in kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a scalar quantity ...

aka

Grant Davidson This article lists the official squads for the 1987 Rugby World Cup that took place in New Zealand and Australia from 22 May until 20 June 1987. The 1987 Rugby World Cup was the inaugural Rugby World Cup; the world championship for rugby union. Si ...

Ido Vanderlaan Ido () is a constructed language derived from Reformed Esperanto, and similarly designed with the goal of being a universal second language for people of diverse backgrounds. To function as an effective ''international auxiliary language'', ...

Scenic Route To Alaska Scenic may refer to: * Scenic design * Scenic painting * Scenic overlook * Scenic railroad (disambiguation) * Scenic route * Scenic, South Dakota, United States * Scenic (horse), a Thoroughbred racehorse Aviation *Airwave Scenic, an Austrian pa ...

, and David Celia. Comparisons to Joni Mitchell are commonplace, referencing Brown's similar vocal agility, phrasing and timbre. (Brown attributes this similarity to their shared Saskatchewan upbringing and background in classical and jazz studies). In 2016, Brown joined a cast of top Alberta-based musicians for "Up On Cripple Creek", a touring production of the music of

The Last Waltz ''The Last Waltz'' was a concert by the Canadian-American rock group The Band, held on American Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. ''The Last Waltz'' was advertised as The Band's "farewell concer ...

produced by

CKUA Radio The CKUA Radio Network is a Canadian donor-funded community radio network based in Edmonton, Alberta. Originally located on the campus of the University of Alberta in Edmonton (hence the UA of the call letters), it was the first public broadcaste ...

's Peter North, during which she sang and played three Mitchell compositions, plus other pieces from

Emmylou Harris Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter and musician. She has released dozens of albums and singles over the course of her career and has won 14 Grammys, the Polar Music Prize, and numerous other honors, includin ...

and The Band. Brown has also taken part in tributes to

Laura Nyro Laura Nyro ( ; born Laura Nigro; October 18, 1947 – April 8, 1997) was an American songwriter, singer, and pianist. She achieved critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums '' Eli and the Thirteenth Confession'' (196 ...

Gordon Lightfoot Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. (born November 17, 1938) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He is credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 19 ...

The Pretenders Pretenders are an English–American rock band formed in March 1978. The original band consisted of founder and main songwriter Chrissie Hynde (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), James Honeyman-Scott (lead guitar, backing vocals, keyboards), Pete Fa ...

, and

Heart (band) Heart is an American rock music, rock band formed in 1967 in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, as The Army. Two years later they changed their name to Hocus Pocus. The year following they changed their name to White Heart, and eventually ...

. On August 24, 2018, Brown released a full length album collaboration with Edmonton based artists Scenic Route To Alaska and Jesse and the Dandelions, with appearances by frequent collaborator Elijah Abrams (

Oh Susanna "Oh! Susanna" is a minstrel song by Stephen Foster (1826–1864), first published in 1848. It is among the most popular American songs ever written. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all tim ...

The Abrams Brothers The Abrams (formerly The Abrams Brothers) are a Canadian country band composed of fourth-generation musicians John Abrams and James Abrams. They have performed with acts such as John Hammond, Feist, Dean Brody, The Dixie Chicks, Nitty Gritty ...

, B&Steve). The album was recorded by Jesse Northey and Aaron Goldstein (

Daniel Romano Daniel Tavis Romano (born 1985) is a Canadian musician, poet and visual artist based out of his hometown of Welland, Ontario. He is primarily known as a solo artist, though he is also a member of Attack in Black and has collaborated with Julie Do ...

) with Kenny Meehan,

Gus van Go Gus van Go is a music producer, mixer, and musician. He is best known for his work with the Montreal band The Stills, with credits for production, mixing, writing and arranging three albums and one EP with the band. He has also produced and mixed ...

and

Werner F Werner may refer to: People * Werner (name), origin of the name and people with this name as surname and given name Fictional characters * Werner (comics), a German comic book character * Werner Von Croy, a fictional character in the ''Tomb Ra ...

and released on Cowboy Junkies' imprint Latent Recordings. Two singles from the album - Tear It Down and So Good - charted in the Top 20 on CBC Radio 2. The album spent 13 weeks in the earshot! Top 50.

Discography

Studio albums

*2004: A Peculiar Thing *2008: Foot In Heart (Dead Daisy Records) *2009: The Secretaries (featuring The Brassholes *2012: Dirt *2014: Direction 1: Major Love EP *2015: Direction *2016: Seasons Are Circling EP *2018: Major Love: Major Love (Latent Recordings/Warner) *2020: Isolation Songs *2021: Home (Christmas EP)

References

http://music.cbc.ca/#!/blogs/2015/3/First-Play-Colleen-Brown-Direction http://exclaim.ca/Music/article/colleen_brown-direction https://web.archive.org/web/20150910074952/http://www.newcanadianmusic.ca/releases/d/direction/colleen-brown/2015-03-17 http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/2015/03/16/album-review-colleen-browns-direction/

External links

Bandcamp pageOfficial site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Colleen Musicians from Edmonton Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Canadian women singers