Eliza Mary Doyle won the Saskatchewan Country Music Award for Rising Star of the Year in 2014, but it ain't what it seems. She has actually been pumping out albums and dotting the tour map for the past 15 years.
Eliza Mary Doyle won Saskatchewan's Next Big Thing contest by Bell Media, but it ain't what it seems. She isn't some Top 40 pop star on an ephemeral climb, but a musician steeped in acoustic bluegrass traditions.
Eliza Mary Doyle has just released a brand new album but it ain't what it seems.
Or actually it's precisely that. It Ain't What It Seems is the title of this all new package of neo-old-school prairie tunes from the mountains.
It sounds like a contradiction wrapped in a paradox. Here's how to follow this map: Doyle is from Saskatchewan - the Loon Lake area, originally, and lately the Saskatoon area - and grew up listening to that prairie blend of ultra modern and ultra rural music genres. She even got her primary instrument from that flatland attitude of making do and wasting little.
"I got a banjo from my dad who found it hanging on the wall in an old shop. He and his buddies cleaned it up," she said, but the group of them didn't initially know what to do with their musical treasure, "and eventually someone said 'hey why don't you give it to your daughter,' and wow will I never forget how that happened."
The Doyle conundrum continued, in the best Canadian way. In this land where Blue Rodeo is acceptably considered country and The Road Hammers are acceptably considered rock, she developed a clawhammer style of playing the banjo, and dove deeply into bluegrass music. Eight or nine albums later, marooned by chance in Nashville, she finally learned the truth: bluegrass music utilizes the three-finger picking style of playing. What's this clawhammer business?
She was in the land of Americana folk music purists, now, so she had to accept that even her Canadian banjo style had a slight accent to it.
"I honestly didn't know there was disconnect there, so I have some learning or unlearning to do," she said, although a conscious part of her also understands that music traditionalism is important but so is innovation.
"It's opened up this door. Now I want to know about that stuff, and it is overwhelming because there is just so much to it.
She is going to take some time down in Music City to strike a better balance.
She took a leave of absence from her high school teaching profession to focus at least a year just on music, and by accident, it happens to be in the place where music is the primary industry.
"I took some time off to go down to the States but my car broke down in Nashville and it was wonderful. I did not go there intending to stay. I was not feeling a draw to live in Nashville, but I met such wonderful people," she said.
"There is great music 24-7 so if you want to play music, there is a chance to play. So I thought I would give this a go, as a full-time business and spend some real time in Nashville where I can learn a lot."
She has been a part of many bands over the years that have gotten attention in Canada. Some of her biggest collaborations had names like The Midnight Roses, The Hard Ramblers, The Cracker Cats, Eliza Doyle & Her New Best Friends, but her brand new album is none of those. It's just Eliza Mary Doyle, straightforward and simple.
She said, "There are a million reasons bands disband. Finally, I was in a position of having to put together another group. It takes a lot of time end energy to build that brand up only to see it break up, but I thought I'm never going to break up with myself so I'm doing this, right now. I write all the material and sing all the material."
This latest album is full of songs she wrote while with those past bands, but these songs didn't ever fit with those past projects. She had more than two-dozen of them waiting for a home, and now they have an outlet.
Prince George gets one of the first tastes of It Ain't What It Seems thanks to another twist of fate. One of her longtime friends and creative collaborators, the one who designed the graphics for this new album, and the one who was in the passenger seat in the car that broke down in Nashville, recently moved to this territory.
"I can't wait to see her. Her name is Kiera Dall'Osto and she's got a singing voice so unique and powerful and amazing. She will be up singing with me and Prince George will get to see what a great new talent just moved to town," Doyle said.
Dall'Ostro and her husband Ian Gray (an instrumentation technologist for the City of Prince George) moved here in August and are already pleasantly surprised by the many upsides of the community, Doyle reported, and they urged her to come perform here if at all possible.
Doyle responded by saying she has relatives in Prince George was there not long ago for a family reunion. She's been by a few times, touring with her other bands, but this is the first time she'll perform a show for the public.
It was. Doyle and her two musical companions Paula McGuigan (upright bass) and Liza Holder (guitar and mandolin) will be at The Legion on Saturday night along with guest act C.R. Avery, one of Canada's best admired spoken-word performers.
Showtime is 9 p.m.
