Photo by Norman Wong

Charlotte Cardin: Feeling Everything to the Fullest

Story by Dominic Tardif | Thursday April 22nd, 2021

Charlotte Cardin, PhoenixIn March 2020, when the whole world ground to a halt, Charlotte Cardin had to show as much restraint as she’s capable of to avoid asking her team to re-open the sound files and do another round of fine-tuning on the songs for her first album.

“When the pandemic hit, I did everything I humanly could to avoid re-opening the album, which was by then going through mastering,” she admits with a laugh. Perfectionist much? Obviously. But is it a quality or a fault in this case? “I believe it’s a quality,” she says. “It’s important. The trick is to avoid being obsessive about it.”

With 117 million streams and counting, Charlotte Cardin is the most popular Québec artist who has yet to release a full-length album – you know, that dozen or so songs, sharing somewhat of a common theme, that we used to encode on vinyl, or a compact disc. In light of the phenomenal, and enviable, success of her two EPs, Big Boy (2016) and Main Girl (2017), why not stick with that strategy? In other words, what’s the use of a full album in the era of the playlist?

“Releasing my first album is a symbolic milestone that’s quite thrilling to me,” says Cardin. “I thought it was important to make a debut album, if only ’cause I felt like making one. I still listen to full albums,” the musician says, speaking from the heart, before moving on to more pragmatic considerations. “An album allows me access certain things that wouldn’t have been possible with EPs. The industry is evolving, sure, but we’re still just in the middle of a shift. People don’t consume music as they used to, but the media still expects albums. Take the example of France: before I announced I was coming out with an album, I was barely invited on TV anymore.”

Embarrassing Things

The choice was obvious from a media standpoint, but it’s also very wise from a strictly musical point of view, as Phoenix allows us to really get to know the 25-year-old singer, all her facets, all her vulnerabilities, her anger, her hopes, her fears – whether she’s singing about the incommunicability of love (“Phoenix”), the feeling of lightness following the end of a lame relationship (“Passive Aggressive”), the fear of seeing a friend sink into darkness (“Sun Goes Down (Buddy)”) or her furious desire to free herself from the need to please, with which women are too often plagued (“Anyone Who Loves Me”).

“I’ve shared embarrassing things,” she writes in the “booklet” for the album (released by Cult Nation in Québec, Atlantic Records in the U.S., and Parlophone in France). How embarrassing, exactly? “I share super -personal and raw things, that I haven’t romanticized to make them more polished or relatable,” says Cardin. “I needed to touch some wounds that had been there for a long time, but that I didn’t dare to face. That’s when I was confronted with lots of little moments of shame and sadness that I never took the time to heal. Stuff I never thought I’d share… and ended up sharing!” she bursts out laughing, as if appalled by her own shamelessness. Then a brief moment of silence. She seems hesitant to go into this in more detail.

“The songs speak for themselves, but obviously, a song like “Good Girl” [about emotional dependency] doesn’t paint a pretty picture, even though I’m aware that a lot of people, a lot of women, will feel like that at some point in their life.”

For the singer-songwriter, it would have been inconceivable to write these heady songs without actually delving deep into the innermost recesses of her heart. If his album took so long to be released, it’s largely because learning to let go of all the masks takes some getting used to. “We live in a fast-paced society fraught with superficiality and I wanted to explore emotions that tear me apart,” says Cardin. “And when things go too fast, we don’t allow ourselves to fully feel them.” Feeling things to the fullest; there’s the non-negotiable condition she requires to write choruses that ring true.

Outside of any other consideration, whether she talks about casual sex (on “Sex to Me”), or she indulges in suave tongue-twister lines like “A fistful of kisses / For a list full of bitches” (on “XOXO”), Cardin definitely breaks with her girlish image on more than one occasion on Phoenix. This journalist hesitated to use the word “girlish,” and Cardin herself suggested “sweet.” “I love singing those lines!” she exclaims. “I derive a lot of pleasure from them because in my daily life, sadly, I guess, I swear a lot. I feel truer to myself when I express myself in my songs like I express myself in everyday life.”

Re-learning to Write

Born to an epidemiologist mother and a biotechnology patent agent father, who both love music, Cardin wrote her first song at the age of 13 or 14. “We were asked to write a poem in my English class and I took the project to the next level,” she says. This less than memorable attempt still cemented her modus operandi for the coming years: write as soon as the inspiration is there. This approach, however, is less than ideal when you’re expected to write a debut album in a reasonable amount of time.

“Having to write a whole album in a limited period of time, disciplining myself, being rigorous, serious – I’d never done any of that before,” she says. “I had to re-learn how to write music.” She threw out the first 10 months’ worth of drafts in the creative process that led to Phoenix (“Nothing I wrote gave me the butterflies [in my stomach]”) before turning to co-writing, with her manager Jason Brandon, who produced or co-produced most of the album with Marc-André Gilbert.

“The main reason it took so long is because I underestimated the time I would need,” says Cardin. “I thought I could write much faster than I actually can. I had to face my own limitations. I was writing while I managed expectations. What do people want to hear? And that wasn’t the right approach.”

Like one of her favourite bands, Radiohead (whom she quotes on “Romeo”), Cardin had to ignore expectations, put her own apprehensions in the closet, and “free herself” from the weight she had placed on her shoulders. (On the day of our interview, the expression “free myself” punctuated her sentences like a mantra.) This long gestation allowed her to explore the possibilities of her voice, which has never been as close to that of a soul singer as it is on “Anyone Who Loves Me,” and its chorus, which morphs into an unequivocal warning: “We’re not your fancy dolls / You better set us free / Or else we’ll fuck you up”.

“Because I toured so much, my voice developed a resilience that it didn’t have before,” she explains. “I realized I was able to go above and beyond with my vocal performance. I like singing in a relaxed, laid-back kind of way, but I also like to belt one out from time to time. The fact that “Anyone Who Loves Me” had more vocal and emotional involvement goes hand-in-hand with the theme of the song, which is directed at anyone who tries to tell women what they should do, or what they should be.”

In the end, Phoenix is the story of a woman who had to learn to be herself again, but also, like any work through which an artist truly reveals herself, it’s an invitation to empathy, a hand on the shoulder. “It’s hard to get in touch with our repressed feelings, but that’s what makes it possible for us to understand ourselves and others better,” says Cardin. “It’s by facing our own feelings that we manage to have compassion for others, and be true to ourselves.”

Decision-Makers: Jodie Ferneyhough, CCS Rights Management

Story by David McPherson | Monday April 26th, 2021

In 2010, Jodie Ferneyhough had an epiphany. Or was it a mid-life crisis? After three decades working as a music publisher (starting in the mid-1990s with peermusic Canada), the executive had a moment that afforded him some insight to imagine what came next.

“I was ready for a change,” Ferneyhough recalls, about his decision to leave Universal Music Publishing – and the music industry, briefly. “I was pissed off at the government and wanted something different in my life.”

Not sure what that something different was, he focused first on his health. After getting in shape and running an Ironman triathlon, Ferneyhough registered a company called CCS Rights Management (the letters are the initials of each of his children), just to have something on the books. “I didn’t expect it to take off,” he says. “Much to my chagrin, it did!”

The music publisher enjoyed that Summer spending extra time with his family, but as Fall rolled around, his wife told him it was time to get back in the game. Taking a modest loan from his mortgage, Ferneyhough invested in a tracking system to monitor royalties and provide artists with statements. Initially, he was the only employee. From the outset, the raison dêtre was to serve – and take care of – creators.

Today, CCS clients include Angry Mob Music in the U.S., Galileo MC in Germany, Alondra in Spain, and Spin Master, the Canadian children’s entertainment behemoth, best known for the hugely popular TV show PAW Patrol. Colin James has signed an exclusive administration and neighbouring rights deal with CCS for his entire catalogue, as well as future songs. CCS signed a deal with Kassner Music, which controls songs by The Kinks, Van Morrison, and KISS (more about that later).

“Artists and writers need good quality administration,” says Ferneyhough. “They need a hands-on touch, someone to work for them, and frankly, protect them. A lot of writers say, ‘I don’t need a publisher.’ Maybe, at one time, but the business now is so complex and so diluted… there are so many ways to get money, so many royalties and streams, that artists can easily miss collecting everything they’re owed.”

“A lot of writers say, ‘I don’t need a publisher,’ but the business now is so complex that they can miss collecting everything they’re owed”

CCS started with a focus on administration. Since then, the Toronto-based company has grown into a globally-minded organization that also specializes in music publishing and other creative services, for an ever-expanding roster of writers, artists, musicians, producers, and corporate clients. The company recently announced the launch of a new neighbouring rights division, and confirmed exclusive, worldwide deals with Tate McRae and Montréal-based record label Higher Reign Music Group.

Ferneyhough also remains active in the industry; he sits on the boards of  both Music Publishers Canada (MPC) and the International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP); he’s also on the advisory board for SXWorks, the music publisher services arm of SoundExchange. “The No.1 service of a publisher is advocacy, and making sure our writers are being fairly compensated,” he adds. “I take my role on these boards seriously, because we’re dealing with people’s livelihoods.”

In many ways, despite three decades in the industry, Ferneyhough says starting a publishing company was like starting his career anew. Sure, he’d built up an extensive list of contacts, but most were based in North America, and publishing today is a global game. Ferneyhough started building CCS Rights Management’s client-base, and reputation, first by networking – regularly attending Midem (the world’s leading music forum for the global music industry). “I stood at that first gathering of my peers, petrified,” he says. “After I got over my fear, I stuck my hand out and started talking to people.”

One of the first connections he made was London, U.K.-based Kassner Music, a leading independent global music publisher. Kassner’s vast portfolio includes the rights to many legendary songs, recorded by equally legendary artists. Three years and many conversations later, CCS signed a deal with Kassner. The company continued to grow, one conversation and one deal at a time. Ferneyhough travelled extensively throughout Europe, shaking more hands.

What Ferneyhough has learned the most, as CCS Rights Management celebrates more than a decade in business, is that variety is the key. “I always felt to be a successful publisher, especially in North America, you have to have as much diversity as possible,” he says. “A record label can be a punk label, a hip-hop label, jazz label, etc., but publishers need to be musically agnostic.

“Being a music publisher is a bigger challenge than ever before,” he adds. “When I started in the business nearly 30 years ago, publishers did three things: collected money from the record companies, collected money from SOCAN/ASCAP/BMI etc. and, once in a while, did synch. Now I collect income from… I can’t even count how many sources!”

Another way he takes care of artists: The Unison Benevolent Fund

Taking care of artists is Ferneyhough’s reason for getting out of bed in the morning. Apart from CCS Rights Management, and his family, the music man is most proud of seeing the growth of the Unison Benevolent Fund. A couple of years before founding his company, in 2009, Ferneyhough and his industry colleague Catharine Saxberg, SOCAN’s Vice President, International Relations, came up with the idea for this charitable organization over cocktails at the JUNOs in Vancouver, B.C.

In July 2011, The Unison Benevolent Fund received its initial commitments of $250,000 from Music Canada and Slaight Music, followed by a $100,000 commitment from a collective of music publishers in 2012. Since then, the non-profit has grown exponentially, providing financial relief, support, and resources to musicians in need. “It just grew and grew and grew,” Ferneyhough says. “It’s sad that it has to exist, but it does.”

Nowhere was this need more apparent than when COVID-19 hit Canada. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Unison has seen a 5500 percent increase in relief applications, with new applications coming in daily. A COVID-19 Relief Program fundraising campaign saw the public and industry respond, kicking in millions to help all the artists who saw their livelihoods threatened with the shuttering of the live music industry. Then, on March 12, 2021, Unison Fund’s Financial Assistance Program received a one-time grant of up to $2 million from the Government of Ontario to immediately support individual musicians and industry workers, many of whom have lost their sources of income during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“You are seeing these people’s livelihoods destroyed – not just musicians – riggers, truck drivers, roadies,” says Ferneyhough. “We’re a multi-billion-dollar sector, and supporting these people through Unison is more important than ever before.”

K-Anthony could make history at the 2021 JUNOs

Story by Errol Nazareth | Wednesday April 21st, 2021

Kevin Anthony Fowler could make history at the JUNOs.

This year marks the first time he’s received a JUNO nomination, in the Contemporary Christian/Gospel Album of the Year category. It’s also the first time that a Jamaican native has been nominated in that category, and that two Black JUNO nominees hail from Saskatchewan. Dione Taylor, who’s up for Blues Album of the Year, is the other artist.

Taylor says she hopes the nominations challenges the “thinking that Black people and Black musicians coming from Saskatchewan is such a strange idea.” Fowler, whose stage name is K-Anthony, grew up in Falmouth, Jamaica, now calls Regina home, and agrees with Taylor.

“Although there are a lot of Black people and Black musicians in Saskatchewan, we are still a minority,” he says. “I hope these nominations give other Black musicians hope, and puts Saskatchewan in the spotlight.”

And perhaps they’ll bring attention to the challenges that Black artists in smaller Canadian cities face making music and getting heard.

The singer previously lived in Yorkton, Saskatchewan (population 19,643, as of 2017), where he says country and rock reigned, and finding a producer who understood Gospel and other Black music styles was hard. “I had to expand my search to Regina and Saskatoon which are more culturally diverse,” he says. “This meant driving between three to five hours, sometimes in harsh winter weather, to record at a studio.”

Fowler says his music slowly began “getting support in Yorkton and the surrounding communities because it was different, and I guess people found it to be intriguing. My songs began getting airplay, which lead to several TV interviews.”

“The words paint a picture, and bring your listeners on a journey with you”

Interestingly, Fowler had a hard time getting love in his native Jamaica, too. His biggest challenge, he says, was not getting airplay. “Reggae and dancehall are the two most popular genres there, and even our Christian and Gospel music is influenced by those sounds,” he says. “My style of music had a more Christian contemporary and R&B vibe, so maybe [the tastemakers felt] it wasn’t ‘Jamaican sounding enough.’” Fowler says a producer once suggested that he leave the country to find success because there wasn’t an audience for his sound in Jamaica.

His sound began to take shape while he attended the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Falmouth. He was a member of the youth choir and would often re-arrange old hymns that were sung in church. “The younger people wanted something they could identify with,” says Fowler, so he gave the hymns an R&B twist.

He says his songs are inspired by personal experiences, the Bible, and current events, and that the best songs come out of being “honest with yourself and trying to frame your pain and experiences into words. Sometimes the words are hard to find, but when you do find them, it captures what you want to say, paints a picture, and brings your listeners on a journey with you.”

We ask Fowler if the pandemic has strengthened his faith. “I see how God has been faithful to me and my family,” he says. “All of our needs are provided. It reminds me of an old hymn that says, ‘Now every morning is Thy Love.’

“I know these are sad times for everyone, and even more so for people who have lost loved ones,” Fowler adds. “I truly want to provide some hope through my music.”