By Jim Barber
There was a moment, captured on video, when the brilliantly inimitable, multi-award-winning vocalist/songwriter Emily Fennell, aka Miss Emily, broke down in joyful tears upon hearing the final mixes of her new album, The Medicine for the first time. The emotion gushed forth like a wellspring from the veteran musical artist, who has demonstrated not only remarkable talent, epic showmanship and powerfully compelling songwriting chops over the past two decades, but who has also endured, overcome, persevered, and stuck to her guns during a sometimes-rocky career where it seemed like the end of the ceaseless tunnel of small bar gigs one after the other was just a broken headlight on her touring van.
So the tears were as much for what The Medicine represents as it does for the epic emotional investment that Fennell put into lovingly crafting it. They represent gratitude, for the good times, for the tough times, and for the exciting times ahead.
“It absolutely is not always like that, no, and you know, I’m very careful. I really like to feel like I’m being authentic and honest in how I present myself online, you know, within reason. But then, you know, sometimes that opens you up; it’s a pretty vulnerable place to be in, in those moments, I think, as an artist and I didn’t really anticipate that reaction, let’s say, first and foremost, and on top of that, I didn’t anticipate having a reaction I wanted to film. But then I realized I have to capture this moment, number one for myself because, you know, I like many artists, I second-guess myself and this album really encapsulates where I’m at in my life and what I want to focus on and I think at this stage in my life, too, what legacy I want to leave. We all get to leave a legacy and as artists, sometimes our legacy is kind of unique that way, so really, I really was just so blown away by what we had captured and I say we because it really is a group effort, it’s like I’m just one piece of that puzzle. Yeah, well, it reminded me, that’s where the brilliance of [producer] Colin Linden comes in,” Fennell said on a drive through the winding back roads of New York State in an interview conducted just a couple of weeks after that very beautifully real video was issued on her social media channels.
“Ultimately, the overall feeling was gratitude that I had the opportunity to work with those people and make this album in my lifetime. And, you know, there were times over the last few years I wasn’t sure if my journey here was done or not. I believe that the album just has so much purpose behind it. And it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that you can collaborate with other people, when you’ve written all the music itself, and that they can feel it so passionately about it as well. It’s a reflection of the enormous amount of empathy and compassion and passion that the other people involved in the album had for the music, my music.”
The Medicine came out on Nov. 14 and as mentioned above, was produced by legendary Canadian roots/blues artist/songwriter/producer Colin Linden, and released on Fennell’s own Gypsy Soul label. Six of the nine songs on the record were solely written by Fennell, with ‘Maybe’ co-written with Rob Baker of The Tragically Hip, and Linden chipping in alongside Fennell to compose ‘Running Again.’
Fennell said she enjoyed the experience of working with someone as giving, as acclaimed and as collaboratively minded as Linden.
“Colin Linden played almost all of the guitars with the exception of one guitar part and, of course, produced everything. But the other really special thing that Colin does with his production is he curates, which is the best word I can use, curates a group of people to work live off the floor in studio together. And he brought in George Receli, who drove in from Arkansas and is originally from New Orleans. For 20 years, up until Covid, he was on the road drumming for Bob Dylan. And then post Covid, you know, he hasn’t done that. He chose not to do it. It was offered up to him. But Covid was kind of a reminder that he liked being home more and now he really picks and chooses what he does. And a lot of that is stuff at Colin’s place [Pinhead Recorders, in Nashville],” she said.
“When stuff comes down the pipeline through Colin to George, he kind of takes a look at it and chooses whether or not he wants to be a part of it. So he’s a huge piece of this as well. And I don’t know how many people say that about the drummer. But George and I really clicked on a real soul level. And he played a little bit of guitar on one of the songs as well, just rhythmically. He’s a real musician. He’s a multi-instrumentalist. He’s percussive in nature. When some people go into the studio to play, they play the same style of rhythms for every verse and every chorus. And, you know, there’s that consistency. But George really ebbs and flows, which is very different than what, you know, what I’m accustomed to in the studio. I remember we finished one track and it was just him, me and Colin tracking this very stripped down, mostly a cappella tune. But there’s a little bit of instrumentation behind it. When we finished tracking George was crying, you know, like we just we are so connected, so deeply connected. And I can’t thank Colin enough for that. George and I talk on a regular basis now. He’s become such a beautiful friend.
“And one of the things I wanted to do was make Colin as comfortable as possible and make the record in a place where he felt he could really shine his brightest and feel most comfortable and at home. He has a beautiful marriage with his wife, Janice [Powers], and they’re an incredible couple. And so, you know, he and Janice built this beautiful studio on the back of their property in Nashville. So that’s where I recorded it.”
The Medicine as a title, as an image or concept has so many meanings and permutations. For Fennell, one overriding message is that love, hope and positivity are not just attributes to strive for, but to actually, deliberately choose to manifest. The world is negative, divisive and harsh enough, why not contribute something good, something healing, something joyful, something inspirational to your own life, and to the lives of those you care about and even the folks you encounter on your daily journey.
“A lot of the songs were changed when we went into the studio because I had written music and then realized that it was really important to me that there be a positive message. I want to stay true to the art, but I also want to make sure I’m presenting art that leaves people feeling hopeful, you know. Life is hard enough right now. I really had a mission. So, I took some of the lyrical content that didn’t serve that mission, and I adjusted it. And by doing that, I really did some major healing myself. I very passionately started therapy in early 2022, and that has been a game changer for me on so many levels and helps me, you know, feel more gratitude and remind myself that the world is this amazing, beautiful place. It really is. I have this amazing opportunity to meet people all over the world and spread hope and love. And I say that in the least cheesiest way possible. I really, truly, truly mean it. For this album, the main themes are hope, gratitude, our togetherness, community, our love, there’s something there for the dreamers, you know, and the storytellers,” Fennell said.
“I always say to my daughter [Piper] since she was little, you’ve got to learn to be your own hero. And I truly, truly believe that because, you know, the world can eat you up and spit you out if you don’t kind of take the bull by the horns and find the joy in the dark times. My last record [Defined By Love, released in September 2022] was a self-soothing record. It was a record of survival. It was a record of lifting myself out of darkness and dusting myself off and putting myself back on my feet, wobbly legged and all. Those were the darkest times that I can ever truly remember, except there might’ve been some postpartum issues that were pretty significant. But certainly, in the last 10 years, it’s in the top two, let’s say, times where I’m like, ‘am I going to make it through this? I’m not so sure.’ So that was that record. And I love that record. I love the Defined By Love album. I just wish I were in a better headspace to have been able to see it through on a business level. I made this great piece of art with [another highly esteemed producer] Steve Mariner [MonkeyJunk, Harry Manx and Colin James], who really put his heart and soul into it as well. He called me the other day to tell me he thinks it’s the best record he’s ever made as a producer. That says something to me because that guy’s got a lot of credentials and is well loved and respected by our peer group on so many levels. So, you know, life left too, for that album. I don’t know what it is, but I wasn’t able to really focus in on some of the business side of it like I should have.
“The Medicine is a thriving album. This album is an album that comes with more maturity, with more reflection, with more grace, I would say. I hold myself to very high standards in all levels of my life, Jim, like all levels. It is nonstop. People who know me well know that about me. And of course, it doesn’t always make me easy to be around because of that too. But with this album, it has less of the trying too hard element, if that makes sense. The music was created, and we went in with this real natural feel. We worked very civilized hours in the studio, like noon to six for five days, I guess. And then Colin mixed it and then we had it mastered. It is a bit of a who’s who album, like there’s some really incredible people on it. The McCrary sisters [Ann and Regina] who are famous, famous Gospel singers sing the background vocals on this record. The guy who mastered it, Greg Calbi, is from New Jersey. And he mastered the [Bruce Springsteen] Born to Run album. He mastered a John Lennon album. He mastered Young Americans by Bowie. He mastered a Stevie Wonder record. But also, recently he mastered Casey Musgraves’ Deeper Well album, which is one of my most favorite albums released in the last 10 years. I mean, he’s top of the food chain with that. This is all just a continuation of the curated team that Colin put together. But yeah, I mean, there’s a level of maturity and wisdom on this record, and it’s focused less on a feeling of needing to be perfect and trying too hard and more of a feeling satisfaction and higher level of confidence.”
To borrow a musical term used by drummers to describe how it feels when they settle into an amazing groove within a song in the zone, Fennell got ‘in the pocket’ with The Medicine. It was the right collection of songs, performed by the right selection of musicians, under the guiding light of the right producer created at the right time not only for Fennell’s own sense of satisfaction, but for a world desperately grasping for something hopeful and optimistic.
“The last record, Defined by Love has so many production bells and whistles that I still to this day love – I think it is a masterpiece. And again, I don’t credit myself for that. I credit it to the team that I worked with, myself being a part of that. But, really, you’re only as good as the people you share the space with. I write this music because I have a taken on this mission over the last 10 years, which has become an even stronger pull recently, to encourage people to celebrate themselves. And to take time to, you know, reflect on the fact that they’re doing the best they can. I try to do that with everything I do, although I admit that I often need to follow my own advice,” she said.
Fennell’s life struggles and challenges were mirrored in the music she has been creating over the last five years, as she’s discussed above. There is a tangible, measurable and unavoidable evolutionary dynamic at work as an artist, which again is mirroring the dynamics in her own life. She’s remarried to acclaimed American drummer Van Romaine, splitting her time between her homes near Kingston, Ontario, Canada and New Jersey, as well as touring throughout North America and Europe. Her daughter is all grown up and moved out into her own place, with her own life and aspirations. So, Fennell’s now in a place and headspace to finally devote some time to herself – her growth as a human, and as an artist.
“It’s more that I’m finally learning how to prioritize what I need to do with my hopes and my dreams. I was pregnant with Piper at 23. I mean, I’ve been an adult for a hot minute. And then here I was responsible for another person. She just moved out in the fall [of 2024]. Like, I’m really at this new time of life. And she’s the one who’s saying to me, it’s time, like, go – she’s given me permission, essentially. And I think that’s been very valuable for me. And, you know, post divorce, in that really dark, terrible time, I don’t think I was the greatest parent, I was like, a shadow of myself just trying to hang on to whatever I could to survive it. She was always a strong kid, you know, she’s really helped raise me in so many ways. And I guess now it’s like; I know that she is good. She is good. She’s so exceptionally far past her years on this planet in this lifetime in terms of wisdom and experience, and so she’s always kind of been that way. But now she gets to put it into practice. She’s making her own decisions and stuff. And something about that feels like it’s given me space and permission to focus on me for a while. I don’t have a full-time spouse either because we’re both on the road a lot. For the first time in all these years, I’m my full-time person. I don’t even know what that is yet. It’s so crazy. All I know is this is my time to focus on myself,” she said.
“And there’s a new direction. Things have changed. There’s a shift and I’m not even totally sure I can put my finger on exactly what it is. I mean, I had Maple Blues Awards [three times as Female Vocalist of the Year, 2019, 2022 and 2023]. And then there was the Juno nomination [for Blues Album of the Year in 2021 for her Live at the Isabel album] which was great but that’s years ago now. I just feel that everything, my songwriting, my performing and my singing gets better every year. It’s interesting, in university, we learned that the vocal peak is actually around 30, because we have all these students taking, you know, their university studies at age 20. And my vocal professor would say really, truly, the best time to grow the instrument is at its vocal peak, which is age 30. And for my voice, it just gets better and better, I get more range, the tone gets deeper and richer, and the control is better. Like I’m just a better singer, year after year, it gets easier and better. Yeah, it’s the weirdest thing, you know, and I have no problem saying it because I feel very comfortable. And, you know, I’m a big celebrator of all the voices out there. I love music, and I love other people’s talents, I feel no need to put anybody else down who is talented in this industry, I really celebrate it all. And it’s not challenging for me to do that. And it’s like really easy to do that, especially with what women in our country are doing right now. Wow. My peer group, women who are like, late 30s, early 40s, like, they’re crushing it, crushing it. And that’s exciting.”
A couple of the songs from The Medicine were included in Miss Emily’s live set over the past year or so leading up to the album’s release, with the anthemic, foot-stomping singalong, ‘Stand Together, Band Together’ becoming a fan favourite and an emphatic calling card for Fennell’s mission of positivity and community.
“Well, ‘Hold Back the River’ [from her 2017 album In Between] brings me mega joy. I just did a tour in Germany last month, and I went to a new venue that I have never played in a new town I’ve never been to, totally new audience, and they sang ‘Hold Back the River.’ And most of them didn’t even speak English. And they sang it. They knew it. It was crazy. That song has legs. And I feel that is that’s kind of my calling card, like the acapella version. You know, you got to have a gimmick although it’s absolutely not gimmicky. It absolutely just comes from the very fibre of my being, stripping back all the instrumentation and just using a voice. So, I was ready to write another one of those. And that’s how ‘Stand Together, Band Together’ started. Then we ended up adding instrumentation, but it’s the vocals that carry it,” she explained.
“Rhythm is another thing. I had this really amazing conversation, it’s got to be at least 12 years ago now, with Colin MacDonald from The Trews, and we were talking about songwriting. It was at a Tragically Hip show at an event in Toronto and we were in the VIP area, just shooting the shit. And we had this conversation about songwriting, where he was saying, you know, think about one of the biggest genres in the world – hip hop. It really comes down to rhythms, you know, and then we ended up in this conversation about how rhythm is just a huge part of what carries us through music. You know, melodies are beautiful and stuff, but rhythm is like kind of the meat and potatoes of a song. The rhythm section of a band is the bass and the drums. It’s the driving element often of any song. So, you know, ‘Stand Together, Band Together’ is very rhythmic. It’s it has this feeling of almost like a sacred song, like a Gospel song and has that element of community because it’s a call and response. But it’s also really accessible. You know, it’s simple, simple language that has a strong meaning.”
The title track for The Medicine is an intensely compelling track, with a depth of meaning and emotional resonance that never fails to move audiences profoundly. ‘Powerful’ just doesn’t seem strong enough an epithet, but it will have to do.
“Two years ago, three years ago, whatever it was, maybe three years ago, it was released as a single. I put a little bit of money, some significant money behind it, actually, and it didn’t really catch. And that’s fine. You know, the people who loved it, loved it, because when I took it off the Internet, I had people reach out asking, ‘where’s ‘The Medicine?’ I can’t find ‘The Medicine’ anymore. And I was like, just wait. ‘The Medicine’ needed a bigger platform. It needed a stronger pedestal. That’s why it is the title track of this record. It needed to be reimagined and revisited with different production as well. It’s written about addiction and overdose, the overdose crisis specifically, and it was inspired by one specific family. A family member reached out to me and said they had recently lost their stepdaughter. She was on a wait list for treatment, and she overdosed while waiting for help, essentially. She was young, early 20s. She’s a mama. She has a son. I have since met almost all of the family now. And, you know, their story, the story of this young woman and her family was really moving. But I had said to the family member who reached out initially years ago I don’t know if you’ve got the right person. Like, I don’t know that I’m the person to write this song that you think needs to happen, though I couldn’t agree with them more that a song needed to be written. This is a real issue. You know, it’s like it’s not even mentioned half the time when people overdose because it happens multiple times a day in this country. It’s just so common now that we’ve let it slip from headlines. So that pressure is on our governments and on our support systems to, you know, keep fighting for a better way to help these people,” Fennell explained.
“The time from that initial conversation to when I actually wrote the song and when I actually released the song, I personally had lost two women I knew to overdose who were moms, who were good moms, who loved their children and had this struggle. It took their lives and robbed them of their time to be moms and functioning members of society and of their families. And it robbed their children of a mother, and it robbed their families of a loved one. It was, you know, important to see it from a different perspective, because these are women I knew who I felt very much were peers of mine. I felt there were very little differences between them and me. It really hit home in a different but powerful way. And then I realized I was chosen to produce this song. I was chosen to create this.
“You know, every single time I’ve performed it, which is limited, I’ve only performed it a handful of times. Every time I have performed it, I’ve had someone approach me after the show, if not more than one family and thank me for it and then tell me part of their story. And there’s always tears and there’s always hugs and it’s a real shared emotional space in that time. I’m a very emotional person and it’s tough for me to get through singing it. But it’s also very tough for me to get through ‘Smith’s Bay Drowning,’ you know, the poem by Miss Shannon. So, you know, better to feel than not feel, I like to say. I think there’s going to be space for that song so it can help more people, because I think it was written to help people and to make people feel acknowledged, and that reminder, you know, music heals. Sometimes a song like that just stating and reflecting on a topic that maybe isn’t specifically reflected on in music frequently in a hopeful and compassionate manner, you know, maybe there’s a bigger picture, maybe there’s a bigger purpose there for it. I really hope it grows legs. That’s the goal.”
‘Smith’s Bay Drowning’ is realized on The Medicine like a gothic, Victorian-era folk tune, one dripping with sorrowful imagery and grief, all captured magnificently through Fennell’s gracefully haunting interpretation of the enigmatic Miss Shannon’s words.
“That’s the only credit she has in an old Prince Edward County poetry book that [longtime family friend and mentor, as well as a noted Prince Edward County-based artist] Suzanne Pasternak found in the 1980s and adapted it to music by adjusting some of the lyrical content to make it work as a song. And so the music is by Suzanne, the melody and lyrical adaptation. And it’s about the history of where I’m from and tells a true story of something that happened in the 1860s, you know, not far from where I grew up and where all my family lived, because I’m eighth generation Prince Edward County.”
Another stand-out track on The Medicine is ‘Solid Ground’ which is actually a deep cut from Fennell’s back catalogue, initially recorded for her alt-country release Miss Twisted which came out in 2009 under the Sugar Plum banner.
“Luther Wright [noted Kingston area musician/producer] produced that album and we made that little old country Americana album in 2009. So it’s 16 years old. And again, you know, I printed a thousand copies, sold them pretty quickly and that was it. You know what else is kind of neat about that album? My sister [Hilary] was my backup singer when we did live shows but then she had her son Hamish in the summer of 2011. So another young artist was my backup singer for a handful of shows. And that was Bria Salmena [later the frontwoman for post-punk band The Frigs]. And Bria Salmena just released a solo album [Big Dog] on Sub Pop Records. She’s had a huge career in the last 10 years as like a sideman with Orval Peck touring all over the world and now has a pretty amazing solo career. But she was, she was just my childhood friend at the time and they were living in Kingston for the summer. So I hired her. I got her a job at [popular Kingston live music venue/bar] The Merchant. And then I hired her to sing backup with me for a couple of shows or whatever. ‘Solid Ground’ is another one of those songs that I just knew had more life. And the other cool thing is Colin Linden was able to look at it, you know, from a great perspective and be like, ‘we should adjust this. These lyrics, maybe we could adjust them. Can you double the length of the bridge?’ And by doubling the length of the bridge from the original version, I was able to kind of revisit the lyrics and add to them to kind of encompass more of what that song means to me now, because it was written about my daughter,” Fennell said.
“And, you know, the bridge lyrics say, ‘in the eye of the beholder, it’s a castle, it’s a field, or it’s a state of mind.’ Now the new section that’s tagged onto that is ‘like the sun, you just shine brighter, ever growing with the changes and the passing time.’ I wrote that right at the microphone, right in the studio, while we tracked it. So it feels like now the song’s actually complete, you know, because it takes her from birth to adulthood.”
What is not complete, by any stretch of the imagination, is Fennell’s journey as a songwriter, as a performer, as an artist, and especially as a human. The Medicine is a check-in along this unpredictable, yet energizing experience we call life, and for Fennell, her voracious appetite to create music that inspires, that hits listeners deep in ‘the feels’ that helps people navigate life, to mourn, to celebrate, to identify and to feel connected seems absolutely unwavering – which is good for her, good for her fans, and good for the world!
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at bigjim1428@hotmail.com.
