Ferron

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

Ferron's rough-hewn voicing, chewy phrasing, and poetic songwriting has brought many favorable comparisons, including Kitty Wells, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen.#redirect One wit aptly summed up Ferron's legendary status by calling her "the Johnny Cash of lesbian folksinging" #redirect

She learned to play guitar at age 11, and left home at 15. She made her professional debut in 1974, playing the song "Who Loses" at a benefit for the Women's Press Gang. She subsequently established her own record label, Lucy Records, and released her debut album in 1977. The album Testimony was her first professionally produced record, and brought her much interest in the United States, particularly in the women's music community.

Her 1984 album Shadows on a Dime received a four-star review (highest rating) from Rolling Stone magazine. Awarded a Canada Arts Council grant 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. Ironically it was re-released with Amos' vocals removed from certain tracks, making original copies even more valuable.

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.#redirect 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 continues to tour and teach master classes in writing, and 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.

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)

Citations

Ferron 2004 "Biography." * [Ferron]

Ed Bell 2001 "A Provincetown Writing Workshop with Ferron" Provincetown Magazine 24 (27): 36, 38-39.

Carson, Mina, Tisa Lewis, and Susan M.Shaw 2004 Girls Rock! Fifty Years of Women Making Music. University of Kentucky Press: Lexington.

Mark Miller 2001 Ferron. Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. Electronic Version. National Library of Canada, Ottawa. [link]

Dee Mosbacher (Director) 2002 Radical Harmonies. Motion Picture. Woman Vision, San Francisco. [link]

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.

Bett Williams 2000 "Dancer in the Dark." Surfin' Bett (October 27). Posted on the Lesbianation website [link]. Accessed August 29, 2002.

External link

[Ferron]

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