Jill Barber has won several music awards, filmed two videos for MuchMusic, recorded a duet with Blue Rodeo's Jim Cuddy, and receives performance requests from all over North America. She has been swept off her feet by the CBC, recently released a second full-length album, and will embark on a European tour this fall. Yet the 27-year-old singer songwriter still gets a little nervous in front of her home-town crowd in Toronto.
She is the rare sort of artist to whom the industry, as much as the music, seems to come naturally. Soon after moving to Halifax at the age of 22, with little more than an undergraduate degree, summer romance, and passion for music, Jill's career took off. The day of this interview finds her running between an appointment with her stylist, an interview with CBC's Jian Ghomeshi, and several live performances. Yet she is relaxed and low-key, ready for a small drink and a long chat on a Queen West patio.
On the walk toward refreshment, we pass Victor Syperek, a well known club-owner from Halifax, and some others from the Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent on Records (FACTOR), which, along with MuchMoreMusic, are responsible for funding her latest music video. The FACTOR group is welcoming and familiar. Though Halifax has clearly been a career catalyst and spiritual home for the artist, for Jill it was like starting over.
"I started playing at open mic shows and coffee houses when I was 16," she explains, "As a student in Kingston I played sold-out shows and people knew who I was." The small town loved Jill's unique blend of lyricism and folksy, jazz-influenced vocals. While earning her BA in philosophy at Queen's University, she was playing and promoting sold-out gigs. The summer after graduation, she embarked on the all-Canadian 20-something journey and went tree planting. There, she met the man who lured her to the East Coast.
"It had a happy ending, though" she says ruefully, on stage at a recent Toronto concert, "Well, it ended and I'm happy."
Although the romance that brought her to Halifax was short-lived, it was the first of many risky-but-calculated decisions which ultimately paid off. Upon moving, Jill began an unpaid internship with a local indie newspaper, The Coast. Known as the hipster-cum-activist rag around town, it was the perfect place to connect with the local music and entertainment scene. The internship quickly became a paid position, granting her instant access to every event in the city.
"When I moved to Halifax, I was following my boyfriend, not my career. I didn't know anyone. But I found an amazing community of artists and felt at home immediately. Ontario is the home I was given, but Halifax is the home that I chose."
It is the best sort of irony that, while at work in the depths of the accounting department for The Coast, a major source of entertainment information, Jill Barber was quietly recording an album that would earn her a place on the national stage. A few years after working at the newspaper, she would be featured on the cover. Twice, she was voted by Coast readers as Best Local Female Artist – quite the honour for one born in Port Credit, Ontario.
Although she left her fans, friends, and family in Ontario, she did bring a little piece of Kingston to Halifax, in the form of an EP that she had recorded in her dorm room. While working at The Coast, she dusted it off, cleaned it up a bit, and sent it into Atlantic Airwaves, a local CBC Radio show. Fate, it seemed, conspired to put it in the hands of a producer. She was soon performing as a guest on the show, and soon enough – "like a bit of a Cinderella" – her first full length album, Oh, Heart, was recorded in 2004 with the help of CBC studios, funding, and talent.
For a few years after, she played repeated shows around the Maritimes, teaming up with other young Canadian talent like Ron Sexsmith and Jim Bryson. She feels more at home on stage than anywhere else, so it should be no surprise that the logistics of managing a music career came just as naturally.
"I don't think people realize that the music industry is very entrepreneurial," she says. "The same skills you need to run a business are required in this industry, especially if you are the primary player. You need to have solid leadership skills and the ability, especially when on tour with friends and colleagues, to separate work time from play time. You also need to bring a good team to play."
Her second album, For All Time, has a distinctly different sound than the first. The album is a little more country-influenced, with slower melodies and more secretive lyrics. Her most personal expressions, the weight of all her savings, and a bank loan are riding on this most recent album. But the girl who believes that "one should always have a good book on the go" is not bothered. Early 2006 granted her two East Coast Music Awards and a schedule of back-to-back tours. This summer alone she played in the Yukon, Nova Scotia, and all parts in between. Her dusky, wise, and sentimental song style will also be featured on a series of CBC recordings called East Coast Sessions.
Her music resonates with many – musicians, writers, lovers, students, well-heeled professionals, hippies to hipsters. Self-taught, seemingly immune from the acclaim, and ever-grateful for the support, she stands in her flowered dress and cowboy boots under a single spotlight. Watching her perform, you can feel that Jill Barber is playing it by heart.
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