Bio

Phoenix Wolf-Ray

When I was a little girl, I was a star at my parents' parties. My dad was a musician, and all his friends were musicians; then after my parents split up, my mom got together with another musican who happened to be my dad's cousin, so the parties continued with a lot of the same players. When I was nine or ten I started to sing at the parties and I was a hit. From the inside, I sounded amazing. Boy, did all that attention go to my head.

This went on for a few years, with me singing my little heart out, feeling like hot stuff and fantasizing about being the next Tanya Tucker. Then when I was thirteen I was introduced to home cassette tapes. Oh, the shame! The humiliation! "I sound like that? They've been lying to me all this time, leading me on, letting me think I was good, all the while laughing at me, saying look at that kid, thinks she's hot..." I refused to sing where anyone but family could hear me. (cue violins)

I couldn't stop singing, so the next year when we moved to a big city down south (Kamloops BC, which if you check it on a map shows you how far out in the bush we were) I signed up for choir class. It happened that the choir teacher was a competitive sort of guy, and he entered the class in the BC Choral competitions that year.

He insisted the girls all sing soprano--this before I discovered I had an upper range; it gave me a terrible sore throat and took the joy from singing. The end result was, the class placed last in the competition, he raged, sulked, called us incompetent twits and crushed our tiny egos into the dirt.

I tried to learn the guitar around this time, but my stepdad was a terrible teacher--he'd taught himself to play when he was eight, and couldn't understand why it wasn't obvious, just listen, dammit, what's wrong with you? But I was anything but a natural; I needed detailed instruction and patient supervision.

So I quit music, I'm sad to say. Gave it up cold. Oh, I couldn't stop singing, but I had to be alone now to do it. My thankfully by-now ex-husband got a charge out of such jokes as, "Can't you sing solo? So low I can't hear you..." and "Can't you sing tenor? Ten or fifteen miles from here... Haw haw"! (end violins)

I've learned some things (like how to make better choices in men), and got my self-confidence back around singing. It was the songs, they made do it. Once I started writing, they compelled me to sing them for people.

I started writing songs back in '86, when I was nearly thirty. I'd never written anything more than a poem--just one, for English class, for which I won an award. I was ridiculously shy about it and I suppose I held back the muse. Then I happened to be talking a boyfriend about an issue I was having with somebody, and he said (since he liked to write songs himself), "Why don't you write him a song?"

"A song? A song... what a strange idea. I wonder if I could do that?" I sat down and struggled over a couple of lines, and a wonderful thing happened. This perfect song poured out of me, complete with its own melody. I couldn't believe it. It was like giving birth without knowing I was pregnant. I showed the song to the boyfriend, who seemed slightly offended when he said, "This is... good..."

After that, it was crazy. It was as though all these dammed up songs had been banging at my brain for years but I'd been deaf to them. I wrote a song or two a week for months before the intensity of the flow slowed to a steady trickle, where it has remained since. Songwriting is still a peak experience, better than drugs. Better than sex. Better than... well, you get the idea.

I took an intensive two-weekend workshop to open my voice so I could be a better vehicle for the songs, as though they were children I was trying to learn how to parent. Since then my life has revolved around the songs more than my actual children, to their detriment, I fear. I hope they will forgive me that.

I began to sing the songs a cappella at first at poetry readings, poetry festivals and open mikes. I did that for a few years, did a tour once, went to Galiano Island and even to Vancouver where I was interviewed on Co-op Radio and did a show at La Quena Coffeehouse.

Then I met Peter, a long tale of its own, and he said, "Why don't you learn to play guitar? You have one sitting around... you could arrange your songs on guitar, and mine too."

He was a drummer; we needed a melody instrument; we were both writing songs, together and separately. It seemed like a great idea (why do I need men to come up with these ideas for me?). So I did. I still consider myself a guitar newbie, and it's sometimes a struggle because what I most want to do is sing. But I love playing more and more, and I'm getting better at scratching my head and rubbing my belly at the same time, which is what it felt like at first to try to play and sing.

I've waited a long time for my music to come home. It feels good. My country music upbringing shows; there's no escaping your roots! Though many of my songs are definitely not country (Indigo, Sleeping With Your Enemy and In the Dark of the Moon are examples), some certainly are (e.g. Texas Is Tiny, a song I wrote for my Dad, who thought country was the only kind of music). I work hard to expand my vocal and stylistic range, and I continue to grow and change as a musician and as a person.

My music and songwriting progress parallels and reflects my personal growth. I could not have written most of these songs when I was young, I had to live them first. That's why it's taken so long. I'm not in any hurry. Things are coming together slowly, and that feels right to me. I know this music is special and real, and while it won't appeal to everybody, I hope that those it does appeal to will want more.