Jerusha White has been here for years working on her first full album. The Other Woman has finally arrived.
The local chanteuse has made a premier name for herself for live shows and singles released to national radio. It was well known that she was chipping away at a set of recording sessions in Edmonton and Victoria, but not rushing the process in favour of having the music come out right. She and her producers finally gave the entire package the green light and it arrived on store shelves this past Wednesday. It is called Other Woman and after hitting singles and doubles since she was a child star in the region, the 20-year-old singer-songwriter now has her first home run.
"Compared to what I thought it would be, when I first started this whole thing, it is totally different and far beyond my own expectations. I still catch myself off guard, sometimes, when I listen to what so many talented people did to help build this album for me," she said, after recording, re-recording, and sometimes re-re-recording to get the sound correct. It took two entire years, plus more if you consider the writing and preparing.
"I really appreciate everyone's patience. The people who know me and the people who were working with me from the start were probably wondering if it was ever going to happen," she said. "Well, it's here. We made it. And I am so grateful and thankful for all the support I got along the way. There was a lot of encouragement, especially from the musicians who came in to add their parts. So many musicians made contributions. It really was a community of people who made it happen, and you can feel that when you hear it."
Now, on top of the excitement, White is also nervous about what the reception will be, since she invested so much of her time and the production support of her backers and her family. White is also a big sports fan, and although this is squarely in the artistic realm, as time went by she started to see parallels between those two worlds.
"Sports is very team-orientated but in the arts we are solitary. We work alone for a lot of the creative process, and when you train it isn't like the hockey team working on set plays, it is all about you developing a skill for yourself. But when you come out of that shell, where you're writing or practicing the piano, or doing your violin lessons, it changes. I didn't notice it at first, but it eventually sunk in during the recording sessions in the studio that music had to be approached the same way as team sports. It is created by so many people doing their part, and together you make it all into something for the world to hear. Discovering that was part of me just growing up as a person."
In many ways, the region has watched White grow up. She has spent significant time living and working and learning in three communities: Fort St. James, Vanderhoof and Prince George, where she now lives. She started taking voice and violin lessons at six years old, then piano and dance at 13 years old. She was a member of the all-child singing group Ava Loon that performed around the area and produced an album in 2004. She was thrust into the solo spotlight at the age of about 12 when she sang for a Fort St. James crowd of a couple of thousand people for a Canada Day event. Scary as that was, it was also exciting for her, and she knew this was the life she wanted to pursue.
She has now been seen on many local stages - Nancy O's, the Festival of Trees, Coldsnap Festival, the Nechako Valley Exhibition - and some of the highest profile ones. She was the featured entertainer at the most recent Premier's Dinner in Prince George, at Canada Games Plaza during the 2015 Canada Winter Games music festival, then for a national television audience during that event's closing ceremonies, and she also ducked off to Vancouver to place in the top five at the PNE Star Showdown vocalist competition.
She was also writing and recording music like the holiday song Christmas (Crazy How It Is) that got heavy play on satellite radio across the continent. Eventually, when she and executive producer Don Rudland found themselves stuck on a couple of songs intended for the album, songs that needed help they couldn't put their fingers on, they were referred to Canadian super-producer Morry Stearns, a frequent collaborator with David Foster with producer and performer credits including names like Celine Dion, Michael Bolton, Bryan Adams and Kenny Loggins, among many others. Stearns agreed to consult a bit to break their creative impasse, but loved the tracks so much he asked to be included on the production team going forward.
It was then, said White, that making a good album was no longer the goal - making a great album was.
"Working with Morry was so much fun, but we got so much done," she said. "When it was over it felt like 'What? That's it? Couldn't we do something else?'"
Between Stearns and the army of musicians who came in to work on the songs, White said she got to be a fly on the wall of a musical master class. She learned when she sang, she learned when they played, she learned just sitting in the corner as the veterans all talked amongst themselves about the process.
The public is now able to hear what the years of effort have been about. Other Woman is available on iTunes for downloads and at Books & Company and the Studio 2880 gift shop for the physical CDs.
To see her in concert, White is holding a free community concert in Fort St. James on Dec. 18. Dates for other regional shows will soon be announced.
