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Rhaye has fresh "Stories"
Saint John songwriter debuts new CD at Ginger's Halifax Herold October 26, 2006 By Stephern Cooke Jessica Rhaye has been honing her craft. It’s been five years since the Saint John singer-songwriter released her self-titled debut, and in the years since she’s kept writing and showcasing her songs, with the results of her experience blooming on Short Stories, the awaited follow-up which she launches tonight at Ginger’s Tavern in Halifax. Rhaye’s growth as a performer is evident right off the bat on Short Stories, with the blissful tone poem Wild Flowers, inspired by a sunny day in her home town of Hampton, with it’s mature pop vocal and deftly layered production by Cape Breton’s Ed Woodsworth. "I’d taken my pastels and paints, I like to do that kind of thing as well," says Rhaye, who also spent part of the last five years setting up her own graphic design business. "It’s not all computer graphics. My friend was out in the field while I was painting and picked me a bouquet of wild flowers. That’s how that whole song came about." "It’s something so simple, a simple inspiration. I’m not the kind of songwriter who sits down and tries to write something every day, but when something comes along, I do try to take advantage of it and try and write a song in one sitting." One of the benefits of releasing her self-titled debut was how it grabbed the attention of other East Coast talent, resulting in a higher level of collaboration on Short Stories. For Rhaye, working with others allowed her to expand her talents, and find new ways of reviving material that only existed in fragments. "I hate tucking a song away; it’s hard to get back into that mindframe of when I first started them," she explains. "So a lot of the co-writes on the record are actually songs that I did tuck away and just couldn’t get back into them. You can forget the mood you were in and the words don’t flow as easily." "On the first record they were all my own songs, but this time around I had the awesome opportunity to work with Ken Tobias, who’s actually from Saint John, and Jamie Robinson, who’s from Halifax, and Ed Woodsworth, my producer, of course." Tobias is a familiar name that comes with a lot of history attached, from his days on Singalong Jubilee to a solo career with charting hits like I Just Want to Make Music. Rhaye found it an eye-opening experience to craft Holding Out with someone from such a strong commercial music background. "He’s very much about having a strong hook or a strong chorus, and I tried to focus on that in my songwriting. A song should have something that draws people into it, whether it’s the chorus, or even just a sound, like the pretty piano part that Gordie Sampson plays on Wild Flowers. You just have to hear it and it pulls you into the song." |