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National Library News |
Cheryl Gillard,
Research and Information Services
This small exhibition celebrates internationally acclaimed Canadian women in popular music. It consists of books, sound recordings and promotional material taken from the collections of the Music Division.
Why celebrate? At the close of the 20th century, Canadian women in the popular music field enjoyed greater international commercial success than ever before. Four women led the way: Sarah McLachlan, Céline Dion, Alanis Morissette and Shania Twain.
Nova Scotia born singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan changed the attitude of the music industry towards women performers. She explains how it began:
"As my career grew, so did my knowledge of the inner workings of the music industry. I began to see a different set of rules being applied to women than those that existed for men. In radio, programmers often said, ‘we can’t play two women back to back’ ...certain promoters insisted, ‘You can’t put two women on the same bill – people won’t come!’
"The summer festivals out there were completely male dominated even though there was a wealth of great and diverse music being made by women. This made no sense to me .... Why weren’t we all regarded as unique and talented human beings?" 1
In the summer of 1997, these realities prompted McLachlan to launch Lilith Fair – a seven-week music festival that toured North America in celebration of women in music. The sold-out festival grossed more than any other concert tour that summer. Lilith was successfully revived in 1998 and 1999. After 1997, the overwhelming success of Lilith Fair convinced radio programmers to play successive recordings by women musicians. 2
In 1981, Quebec’s Céline Dion collaborated with Eddy Marney, the renowned French songwriter who had written lyrics for Edith Piaf, Yves Montand and Barbra Streisand. Marney was so impressed with the young Céline that he was inspired to write the song "La Voix du bon Dieu" ("The Voice of Heaven"). By 1999, Céline Dion was known as one of the world’s most popular singers. Her albums had sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, and she had won numerous music industry awards throughout Europe and North America. Her interpretation of the song "My Heart Will Go On" from the motion picture Titanic achieved the status of the "most-heard song in the history of American radio". 3
In 1992, Ottawa singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette won the Juno Award for Most Promising Female Vocalist. Four years later, her recording Jagged Little Pill swept the Grammys and garnered four of the most coveted awards: Album of the Year, Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, Best Rock Song and Best Rock Album. In 1998, Alanis Morissette’s song "Uninvited", from the film City of Angels, earned her an additional two Grammys: Best Female Rock Vocal Performance and Best Rock Song.
During 1995-96, Shania Twain’s album The Woman in Me sold more than eight million copies, becoming the top-selling album by a female artist in the history of country music. In 1999, her next release, Come On Over, sold more than 14 million copies, and the Country Music Association gave the singer-songwriter from Timmins, Ontario, their most prestigious award – Entertainer of the Year.
This exhibition also showcases the work of many other Canadian women musicians who have achieved international success in the highly competitive world of popular music. These include Joni Mitchell, Ginette Reno, k.d. lang, Diane Dufresne, Diana Krall, Loreena McKennitt, Renée Claude, Amanda Marshall, Linda Lemay, Anne Murray, Monique Leyrac, Holly Cole, Diane Tell, Jann Arden, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Terri Clarke and Chantal Kreviazuk.
Publicists from the following recording companies provided assistance with this exhibition: Maverick/MCA, Sony Music Canada, Quinlan Road, Nettwerk and Mercury Records/Universal.
Canadian Women Who Rock the World is scheduled to open on March 8, International Women’s Day, 4 and will continue until the end of March.
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3 Georges-Hébert Germain, Céline (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1998), p. 419.