Meet Liona Boyd, the singer

Classical guitar icon transforms her career

Canadian music icon Liona Boyd has made her mark as one of the most successful and acclaimed classical guitarists ever. Her virtuosity has brought Boyd multiple gold and platinum records, five Juno awards, the Order of Canada, and induction into Guitar Player magazine’s Hall of Fame Gallery of Greats. She has a large and loyal international audience, one she is about to surprise with her new album, Liona Boyd Sings Songs Of Love.
That’s right, sings. The record marks Boyd's coming out as a vocalist, a major career detour brought on by a medical reason. As has only recently been revealed publicly, Boyd suffers from a condition called Task Specific Focal Dystonia. In an interview with Tandem, Boyd describes this as “a neurological condition where you basically wear out the neuro-receptors in the brain. The brain maps become smudged, and the neuro-receptors don’t give the right message to the fingers. I must have done billions of the same notes, especially as I was famous for doing tremolo. This happens to a certain percentage of musicians especially as we do all these repetitive things. There’s no physical pain, just total emotional anguish as every day for years I’d sit around trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with my hands.”
Upon receiving the correct diagnosis in 2003, Boyd left the international concert stage, as she was unable to perform at her customary level. Her passion for music remained, but, as she recalls, “I was desperately wondering what in the world I was going to do with my life if I couldn’t play the guitar. Guitar had always been my big passion. Then I thought, ‘Well, I’ve always loved writing lyrics. Maybe I’ll learn how to sing.’ I’m not a great talented singer but I think I’m a good songwriter.”
Her new album and role as singer/songwriter confirm this. LBSSOL is a collaboration with a Croatian guitarist, Srdjan Givoge, and his voice and guitar playing blend sweetly with Boyd’s on this charming record. Boyd wrote most of the music and lyrics. She also covers the Ewan McColl classic, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, while for “Why Must You Leave Me Now” she wrote English lyrics to Lucio Dalla’s big hit.
A key collaborator on this record is co-producer Joanne Perica, a friend from Boyd’s Toronto days now living in New Canaan, Connecticut, a town Boyd now also calls home. “Joanne was very instrumental in helping me get settled here and in helping me produce,” says Boyd. Perica recalls their 18 months of work on the album as “an amazing, creative and painstaking process.”
Featured on the track “Let’s Go To The Mountains” is famed fiddler Oliver Schroer, a childhood friend who recorded his part just weeks before succumbing to leukemia. “Oliver is such an example of someone living life with such passion,” she says. “Right up to the end he was making music.”
Making the transition to singing was a real challenge for Boyd, given a longtime lack of confidence in her own vocal ability. ”I tried for choir at eight years old and was told I couldn’t sing, that I was growling,” says Boyd. “I was traumatized. I remember I dedicated my first Juno Award to my singing teacher for telling me that. In life sometimes people tell you negative things and I never believed I could sing. I lip-sync ‘Happy Birthday’ at family gatherings!”
One supportive fan of her songwriting early on was Pierre Trudeau, with whom Boyd had a long and well-publicized love affair. “He just loved my songs. He said, ‘Why can’t you make these hits?’ and I said, ‘Because I can’t sing.' Plus I was a classical guitarist and classical guitarists don’t sing.”
Boyd will soon release another new album, Seven Journeys - Music for the Soul and the Imagination, one strikingly different from LBSSOL. Jointly credited to Boyd and fellow guitarist/composer Peter Bond, it is an imaginatively atmospheric and primarily instrumental record. It incorporates new age, ambient, world and film music elements, with Ennio Morricone being one of Boyd’s inspirations.
After a protracted absence from the spotlight, Liona Boyd is definitely back.
Liona Boyd Sings Songs Of Love is now out on Moston/Universal Music Canada.

Publication Date: 2009-10-18
Story Location: http://www.tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=9510