Ferron | |
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![]() Ferron, 2005 |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Debby Foisy |
Born | Canada |
June 1, 1952
Occupations | Singer-songwriter, musician |
Years active | 1975-present |
Ferron, born Debby Foisy on Canadian folk singer/songwriter and poet. In addition to being one of Canada's most famous folk musicians, she is one of the most influential writers and performers of women's music, and an important influence on later musicians such as Ani DiFranco, Mary Gauthier and the Indigo Girls.[citation needed]
June 1, 1952 , is a
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She learned to play guitar at age 11,[1] and left home at 15. Ferron attended Total Ed, an alternative high school in Vancouver, graduating in 1973 (Thomas 2002). Of her earliest musical memories, she wrote, "my mother’s French Canadian family played music. I heard guitars and banjo and accordion and scrub board and my grandfather clogging. I put it together...music meant fun, meant love and laughter. I started writing songs when I was 10, never saved them after some kids at school found them and teased me about it. I wrote songs and remembered them and when I forgot them I felt they were not important anymore. The next time I saved a song I was 18. It was 1970." It was with that first saved song that she made her professional debut in 1975, playing the song "Who Loses" at a benefit for the Women's Press Gang, a feminist publishing house.
In 1971, Foisy changed her name to Ferron when one of her friends had a dream in which she was called Ferron. [2] She is openly lesbian. [3]
Ferron subsequently established her own record label, Lucy Records, and released her debut album, Ferron in 1977. The album was recorded in a video studio on two-track equipment, and, as she stated, "the production quality was pretty poor". Nonetheless, all one thousand copies printed sold quickly.[4]
1980's Testimony was her first professionally produced album, and brought her much interest in the United States, particularly in the women's music community.[5]
Her 1984 album Shadows on a Dime received a rating of four stars (out of five) from Rolling Stone magazine, which called Ferron "a culture hero" and the album "cowgirl meets Yeats...a thing of beauty."
Awarded a Canada Arts Council grant in 1985 to further develop her musicianship, she took several years off from touring, returning in 1990 with Phantom Center. The album featured backing vocals by a then unheard of Tori Amos, and consequently is highly sought after by collectors. It was re-released with a duet with The Indigo Girls on the first track.
Between 1992 and 1994, Ferron released three albums on her own Cherrywood Station label. Driver was then picked up by Earthbeat Records, and was highly acclaimed by critics as a masterwork and nominated for a Juno Award in 1995. Warner Bros. Records signed Ferron which gave her great freedom in the studio to produce Still Riot with db Benedictson. She received an Outmusic Award for Lifetime Achievement at the Gay & Lesbian American Music Awards in 1996.
As a benefit for the Institute for Musical Arts (IMA), Ferron released Inside Out (1999), covering well-known tunes from the 1950s-1970s. She published a handmade book, THe (h)UNGeR POeMs, while she was teaching classes at IMA. She gathered some of her earlier, then out-of-print recordings to create Impressionistic (2000), a retrospective double album with a 24-page, autobiographical booklet. Her 57-page book, Catching Holy, Poems 2006-2008 is offered by Nemesis Publishing (2008) through www.lulu.com.
Ferron was featured in the documentary on women's music, Radical Harmonies 2002, and a filmography on the musician directed by Gerry Rogers, Ferron: Girl on a Road was released in 2009 at film festivals and in television broadcast.
In 2004 she returned to the very island where some of her earliest recorded songs were written to create Turning Into Beautiful produced by db Benedictson. In 2007 she began re-releasing a series of CDs as her Collected Works, and so far Testimony, Driver, Shadows on a Dime, and Turning Into Beautiful have appeared completely rejacketed with previously unreleased photographs. Ferron's CD, Boulder was produced by Bitch (with JD Samson for one song) on the Short Story Records label and released in 2008. Boulder includes guest appearances by Ani Difranco, Amy Ray and Emily Sailers (Indigo Girls), JD Samson (Le Tigre), Sam Parton (Be Good Tanyas), Tina G (God-des) and Julie Wolf. In 2009 to 2010, Ferron created commissioned textile art—wall hangings, quilts, and pillows—that features her lyrics and poetry. A new CD with live performances, Girl on a Road was released in 2011.
Ferron teaches master classes in writing (Bell 2001, Camlin 2010), and has opened an artist retreat for women in Three Rivers, Michigan, called "The Fen Peace and Poetry Camp for Women." For Ferron, "artistic expression is not only essential, it’s revolutionary." "Art is really the expression of the soul," Ferron says. "I'm asking women to remember that if we remember our soul, we keep our soul, and we can do it through artistic connections. Art is connected to the soul, and the soul is connected to God, and God is connected to humility, so if you want to take control of a person's soul, don't let them have art. To me it's a revolutionary act to continue keeping your artist soul alive" (Esters 2007).
Ferron may refer to:
First comes the kiss
then comes the hands too hot to touch
feeling like this
i want to be with you so much
driving to work in the morning
everyone's house looks warm inside
i can't believe what i'm thinking
i've got to be out of my mind
when you give me a cactus flower
i figure you're telling me how it is
we make love, it's a cosmic shower
and i ask you, are we friends too
i talk to my sister about it all
to see what she did when she was here
she tells me don't give up your freedom
which goes to show freedom is not so clear
i'm alive in my center
and true to the core is (in) how i feel
(and) i don't believe i have entered
the place she says where (when) nothing's real
you give me a heart shaped box
i give you a crackerjack ring
you say here i come ready or not
and i say i'd do anything for you
i call up my old friends to tell them
any excuse to say your name
finally i'm touched and i'm open
fear and elation now feel the same
more and more often
i wave off friends to stay alone
the life of the party is nothing
compared to the mystery that waits at home
when you give me a brown care bear
i give you a miniature moving van
when you tell me that brown bear cares
i say yes we can, yes we can
(every move you never made
every word you could not say
every cry you cried alone
can remain with us instead.
there's a bird for every sky
and a fish for every sea
and everything that's in between
is where it is