Suzie Ungerleider’s gloriously emotive, crystalline voice and her bewitching performances have captivated audiences for over 25 years. A wordsmith with a keen mind for detail and a wicked sense of humour, Suzie’s songs and voice pierce the heart, inspire a knowing laugh or a welling of the eye.
Born in the USA and raised in Vancouver, Canada, this award-winning singer-songwriter began performing under the name Oh Susanna in the mid-1990s, winning instant praise for her striking voice and poetic songcraft. Her musical path has criss-crossed the mountains and valleys of Americana, folk, and roots, yet throughout her journey she has remained true to her own artistic vision.
Suzie has received many accolades for her artistry. She is the recipient of a Genie Award for Best Original Song and a Canadian Folk Music Award for English Songwriter of the Year. She has also been nominated for three JUNO Awards and four Canadian Folk Music Awards.
After being a long-time member of the Toronto roots music scene, Suzie currently lives in her hometown of Vancouver with her husband, her daughter and their dog Willow.
QUOTES:
A superlative scene-setter and storyteller. – Uncut magazine
Her voice remains a thing of beauty. Powerful yet restrained, it conveys melancholy and joy with equal grace. – Exclaim Magazine
The pretty, catchy melodies that adorn her lyrics are addictive. – Penny Black Music
[Suzie] gently pull[s] you into her personal private little galaxy. – Great Dark Wonder
Two-time Canadian Juno Award nominee Suzie Ungerleider officially opens a new chapter of her already distinguished and highly successful career with the August 13 release of her new album entitled ‘My Name is Suzie Ungerleider’. It’s her first since the artist formerly known as Oh Susanna announced that she would now record and perform under her birth name.
Bursting with trademark evocative melodies and trenchant lyrics, it’s the tenth solo studio album by the American-born, Canadian-raised artist revered for such landmark records as ‘Johnstown‘, ‘Sleepy Little Sailor‘ and ‘A Girl in Teen City‘. The decision to say “so long” to her long-time moniker Oh Susanna represents her recognition that the “exciting, dark, funny, charming” character that she thought was Oh Susanna was actually Suzie Ungerleider all along. “So here I am, leaving behind the trappings of a persona that gave me the courage to climb up onstage and reveal what is in my heart,” she reflects. “It once protected me, but I need to take it off so I can be all of who I am.”
The name change is both a personal and political decision, fuelled by her realization that ‘Oh Susanna,’ the Stephen Foster song of 1848, contained racist imagery and a belief system that she wanted no part of. She came to understand its historic associations to Minstrelsy, a tradition both demeaning and dehumanising to black people. Leaving Oh Susanna behind, she’s become her true self with a wonderful record that marks a fresh beginning, a collection of new compositions that refresh and redefine who Suzie Ungerleider is.
The new album is introduced by the characteristically searing ‘Baby Blues,’ a song about how the traumatic events we witness when we’re young can haunt and indeed shape our older selves. It’s a deep subject with an upbeat punchline. “Like ghosts,” she says, “sometimes you just need to just sit with them, feel their power, and, because they feel seen, they release their hold on you for a little while.” Elsewhere, the album depicts an older and wiser artist and mother sometimes writing for her daughter, both at the time of her dramatically premature birth and miraculous survival on the achingly pretty ‘Summerbaby’ and, now a teenager herself, courageously dealing with her own identity on the intimate ‘Hearts,’ on which mountains of blue watch over her.
Now based again in her home town of Vancouver, she made ‘My Name is Suzie Ungerleider’ with producer Jim Bryson (Kathleen Edwards), whose assured touch amplifies the atmospheric dreamscapes contained in Suzie’s reflective, intimate songbook.
A superlative scene-setter and storyteller. – Uncut magazine
Her voice remains a thing of beauty. Powerful yet restrained, it conveys melancholy and joy with equal grace. – Exclaim Magazine
The pretty, catchy melodies that adorn her lyrics are addictive. – Penny Black Music
[Suzie] gently pull[s] you into her personal private little galaxy. – Great Dark Wonder
The name has changed but – thankfully – little else has.
Vancouver songwriter Suzie Ungerleider traded for nearly 25 years under the name Oh Susanna, in which guise she released an impressive catalogue of smart, waspish Americana. Her ditching of her previous identity seems a combination of desire to at once completely embrace her songs and dissociate herself from the less savoury heritage of the Stephen Foster song whose title she’d borrowed. It is no slight against My Name Is… to suggest that it hasn’t made much difference. On tracks such as “Ships” and “Mount Royal”, in particular, Ungerleider remains a superlative scene-setter and storyteller, with a voice managing the rare combination of being at once delicate and careworn.
‘My Name Is Suzie Ungerleider’ Showcases the Singer-Songwriter as Her Truest Self
By Kerry Doole
8/10
After more than two decades as roots singer-songwriter Oh Susanna, Suzie Ungerleider disavowed that moniker due to its namesake song’s association with racist imagery and a dehumanizing belief system. That change is reflected on the title of this album, a work that confirms Ungerleider’s talent no matter what name she goes under.
All 10 songs here are Ungerleider originals, with Blue Rodeo’s Bazil Donovan contributing to the one co-write here, “Sweet Little Sparrow.” Inspired by Donovan’s young daughter, the tune is an album highlight, with Ungerleider’s voice taking on a softer timbre that works beautifully. Ungerleider’s own daughter is the focus of two other tracks, “Summerbaby” and “Hearts.” The former is another gem, a lovely ode to a newborn (“You had my heart wrapped up in your tiny little fingers”) with a lullabye feel thanks to judiciously employed strings.
Opening track “Mount Royal” continues the memoir approach of Ungerleider’s previous album, the acclaimed 2017 release A Girl In Teen City, but moves the setting from Vancouver to Montreal (“She was always shooting pool down on St. Laurent”). “North Star Sneakers” has a similar autobiographical feel: “After the prom, you rode the coast on your motorcycle / Barely stopping for a chat with the customs man, / You never mentioned all the hash sewn inside your collar.”
Ungerleider’s long-established skill as a poetic lyricist is showcased vividly throughout. The sparse piano ballad “Disappear” depicts domestic violence (“I put my hands over my face / So he will disappear / Into the dark, into the dark”), while the imagery of “Pumpkins” captures the feel of autumn perfectly — “The smell of smashed pumpkins still fresh in the air / And all the fall colours were streaks in your hair.”
Her voice remains a thing of beauty. Powerful yet restrained, it conveys melancholy and joy with equal grace. This is not an instrument requiring much embellishment, so some of the production touches here (the backing vocals on “Pumpkins,” and the swelling strings on “Baby Blues”) seem a mite superfluous.
Returning as producer and multi-instrumentalist here is Ungerleider’s longtime collaborator, Jim Bryson, while the peer respect she has long enjoyed is reflected in an elite guest list of players and harmony vocalists, including Samantha Parton, Keri Latimer, Donovan, Peter Von Althen, Kevin Fox and Cam Giroux.
My Name Is Suzie Ungerleider stands as another compelling chapter in a now double-figure discography with few equals in Canadian roots music. (Stella/MVKA)
by Billy Rough
4 Stars
My Name Is Suzie Ungerleider is a sweet, wistful album. It tells a beautifully painted set of tales; rich in genuine and moving narratives. The album flirts with the sounds of Americana, including blues, country, and bluegrass but with a close eye on some nifty pop sensibilities and alt-folk. At its centre, though, My Name Is Suzie Ungerleider is an album focusing on emotion and the heart. Its serene confidence takes us on a journey through a thoroughly effective, potent, halcyon dreamscape. Each track presents a very personal world, but one which is recognisable to us all. Ungerleider has a particular talent for open-heartedly embracing us into her world. There are difficult subjects explored here, but always with the confident and mellow touch of a songwriter who knows exactly what they are doing. With her new release, we may have to bid farewell to Oh Susanna, but it is a very warm and pleasant welcome to Suzie Ungerleider.
Full Review – https://bit.ly/3w1lAqU
A gifted songwriter and performer, Suzie never fails to impress, and the raw, heartfelt nature of this track [‘Mount Royal’] made it an instant favorite here at GDW HQ
Suzie Ungerleider captivates on her new single ‘Baby Blues’.
‘Baby Blues’ showcases her trademark vocal style, one possessing real purity laced with a tinge of melancholy.
‘Sweet Little Sparrow’ is a more poppy, hopeful song, which sees Ungerleider explore themes of hope, dreams, and optimism in a bright, sprightly track with a rousing chorus.
…an exquisite song cycle set in 1980s Vancouver, represents a second coming for the rootsy Toronto-based songstress. She’s singing about herself, Vancouver and maybe you, too. …her thoughtful and tuneful coming-of-age is universal. After years of Oh Susanna’s acquaintance, it’s pleasure to find out we’re still getting to know Ungerleider.
A Girl In Teen City is totally charming.
9/10
Simply beautiful.
4 Stars
This album is Suzie’s finest and most accomplished musical statement to date. It’s an absolute gem of an album.
http://www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk/MagSitePages/Review/10717/R/
‘A Girl In Teen City’ is a triumph.
9/10
Oh Susanna “A Girl in Teen City” (Continental Song City, 2017)
Writing about growing pains and bringing what is essentially a teenage diary to life was an ambitious thing to do. On “A Girl In Teen City”, Oh Susanna does it with passion, skill and a universal touch that makes this a thing of beauty.
8.5/10
http://www.maximumvolumemusic.com/review-oh-susannah-girl-teen-city-2017/
A Girl in Teen City” is a gorgeous piece of work. There’s something here for anyone who appreciates the art of songwriting and great musicianship. I haven’t heard a better, or more complete, album this year so far.
5 Stars
2017-04-12
OH SUSANNA
Oh Susanna has come up trumps with a superb piece of work that transcends both the gender in its title and location in its theme. …tap into her mindset and fire up all the trials and tribulations of your heartfelt nostalgia.
http://www.threechordsandthetruthuk.co.uk/2017/04/oh-susanna-girl-in-teen-city.html
Exclaim! (Canada)
2017-03-28
OH SUSANNA
2014-11-14
OH SUSANNA
NAMEDROPPER
****
Canadian singer-songwriter Suzie Ungerleider’s latest album is a little left-field diversion. Namedropper sees her asking her famous Canadian friends to write songs for her to record. Of course, when the artists involved include the likes of Ron Sexsmith, Royal Wood and Blue Rodeo’s Jim CUddy, you’re going to get some high-quality material. Slow, country-folk is her specialist subject, and Cuddy’s bluesy “Dying Light” sees her shine, but here there are also poppy numbers (Sexsmith’s “Wait Until The Sun comes Up”, the Byrdsian jangle of “Into My Arms” and the angular new wave of “1955”.
2014-11-12
OH SUSANNA
NAMEDROPPER
Originally due for release in 2013, but delayed due to her being diagnosed with breast cancer, something that she has now fortunately been given the all clear on, Suzie Ungerleider’s latest album is a covers set. The hook for the album is that none of the songs have previously been released.
Ungerleider has picked songs from well known (Ron Sexsmith, Royal Wood) and less well known (Jay Harris, Reuben DeGroot) Canadian writers, several of whom guest on their tracks. There’s also a song from producer Jim Bryson who appears to have acted as eminence grise for the album with notably good results. Ungerleider’s expressive vocals are foregrounded, frequently hanging on the edge of pain, but also capable of righteous anger as on “Mozart For The Cat” or more suppressed rage on DeGroot’s Randy Newman-esque “Savings & Loan”. Bryson has broadened the musical palette that she uses to excellent effect, so rather than just basic instrumentation there’s a richer and layered sound, which never overwhelms but enhances. While it’s a pity that there are no originals here, hopefully there will be next time around, and in the meantime this is a rara avis, a covers album that’s actually worth your time and money.
2014-11-08
Canadian artist Oh Susanna beats cancer, then drops some names with new album
By Mike Bell
Try as you might, there are a few names that Suzie Ungerleider won’t drop.
Sure, the Canadian singer, who performs under the moniker Oh Susanna, will enthuse over the Canadian artists who, when asked, lent a song to her latest album Namedropper — folks such as Jim Cuddy, Joel Plaskett and Amelia Curran, to, er, drop just a few.
But nudge, needle and pester her, she simply won’t give up any names or throw anyone under the bus who failed to make the cut, who may have mailed in a musical stinker.
She laughs. “No. I can’t say that. That would be so bad,” the T.O.-based Ungerleider says, before noting some songs were rejected because they ran out of time and they had to make decisions based on who they asked first.
“No one gave us anything terrible. Some things felt a little unfinished, that’s what I would say.” Fair enough. You can understand why Ungerleider might be somewhat reticent to be goaded into souring something that is pretty special on a number of levels.
There’s the album, itself, which will stand as, perhaps her finest moment: a lush, gorgeously alive and vibrant showcase for her sweet, clean, pure, country pipes. There’s also the reason that it features, again, material supplied by some of this country’s finest songsmiths, people she calls her friends and peers, those whom her producer Jim Bryson approached with the request for something new, something for Suzie. You can also add onto that the album was recorded using funds from a Kickstarter campaign, fans and believers who gave generously so that she could create this something special.
Oh. And also there’s the little fact that Namedropper is getting released now, finally, a year-and-a-half after it was completed, following her diagnosis with breast cancer and her subsequent successful fight to beat the bastard back. That, obviously, has made the album that much more special.
“It was like a big bomb dropping,” Ungerleider says of the news that came after they’d finished mixing the 14-track blessing. “But, yes, it did take on more resonance simply because … when you’re in the middle of something and people are expecting it or they’re working on you with it … it felt like I had to tell everybody. And that wasn’t my first instinct.”
When she did, though, she was met with an “outpouring of love” and support from all of those involved in Namedropper, reassurance and humanity that she took with her into her treatments, and has now further enhanced the joy she’s taken in the album’s late October release.
“It made it a lot deeper and a lot more emotional and more meaningful, I think. It was already pretty special and this added something else to it,” she says.
“I’ve been sitting on this thing, for, gosh, a year a half, knowing how fun it is and how much pleasure I got from making the record and now it’s great that I really get to share it with people.”
She’ll also do that in a live setting, as Ungerleider, backed by Bryson, has now hit the road for a tour that will bring her to the Ambassador Hotel in Nanton on Sunday night and the Ironwood in Calgary on Monday.
But. Wait. What. Fun? Now there’s a word that’s rarely been associated with Ungerleider throughout her almost two-decade-long career that has been defined by songs of heartbreak, heartache, heartsick and every other affliction associated with love’s most important organ.
She laughs. “I can be fun, but I know my music is not always fun,” she says.
“That’s probably why I wanted to do this, and that’s why it was really exciting because I got to do some fun music that wasn’t — how do I say this? — it wasn’t so intense. It was just kind of freeing and pleasurable … to step into someone else’s landscape or script or emotional journey and I could channel it and put it out there.”
And she does so with an infectious joy, with the highlights many and much wonderful, including: a sweet remembrance of campsite love on Old Man Luedecke’s Provincial Park; a coy, cool understanding of Jay Harris’s contribution 1955; a hopeful spin on Sexsmith’s melancholic Wait Until the Sun Comes Up; the happy, urgent beckoning of Plaskett’s popsterpiece Into My Arms; and, yeah, the uber-fun Mozart for the Cat, which was written by Melissa McClelland and inspired by Ungerleider’s young son.
So, as you can see, it’s easy to understand why the artist would prefer to focus on all of that, all of this, and remain in a positive space, keep the good thoughts present and the negativity at bay. Well. For the most part.
“Of course my pessimist brain goes, ‘What’s going to happen when I put out my own record?’ “ she says and laughs. “I don’t think I want to anything ever again because this has been so much fun.”
2014-11-06
Oh Susanna – Namedropper
Seven albums into her career, Suzue Ungerleider — better known by her stage name of Oh Susanna — is a well-travelled and well-loved veteran of the Canadian music scene. Over the years she’s played with just about everybody from Blue Rodeo to Justin Rutledge, and lived on both sides of the country.
Namedropper sees Oh Susanna capitalizing on those connections with a unique concept for an album: every song on the album was written by another artist, specially for this album. None of the material has been released before. The songwriters in question make up a “Who’s Who” of the Canadian music scene: there are tunes penned by Joel Plaskett, Luke Doucet, Ron Sexsmith, Jim Cuddy and more — 14 in all. (You can get a bit more detail on the album’s Kickstarter page.)
The result is an album that, had it been released just slightly earlier and before the deadline for such lists, would have easily made my Top 10 of 2014. This is no small feat in a year where I agonized over which album to push out of the top ten either.
The album’s stunningly understated opener “Oregon” was written by Jim Bryson, who also produced the album. The song opens with the line, “She says days like these / are mostly built for coffee and for dreaming,” before unfolding into just about the most perfect song about the Pacific Northwest you can imagine. With just a hint of piano layered underneath Oh Susanna’s beautiful voice, it invites repeat listens and serves as a fantastic opener.
Namedropper isn’t a covers album: there’s no “original” to compare the renditions here too. The album invites a fun game of “guess the Canadian songwriter” and it’s true that the songs retain the characteristics of their composers: Ron Sexsmith’s and Melissa McLelland’s contributions in particular stand out in this respect.
Bryson’s production work is a significant contribution to the album’s success: an album like this could have easily sounded disjointed but Bryson has deftly avoided that. If you’re not familar with Bryson’s solo work — he may be better know for his role as sideman to Kathleen Edwards (though that word doesn’t even begin to describe the significance of that relationship — you owe it to yourself to check it out. He’s one of Canada’s hidden talents.
Namedropper is a collection of 14 interpretations of new songs collected into a single coherent whole that makes for a near perfect listening experience and and album that shows that mixing two great things together can produce something wholly different and often stunningly beautiful. This may be the must have album of the fall.
2014-10-23
Oh Susanna
Namedropper (Sonic Unyon)
SUZIE (Oh Susanna) Ungerleider is an American-born, Toronto-based singer-songwriter who fully identifies as a dyed-in-the-wool Canuck. Since 1999 she has carved out a sizable fan base; her ability to write charming and uniquely easygoing music has put her in the upper echelon of folk artists and her latest album is a captivating set of solid tracks written by some of her musical contemporaries.
Ungerleider’s calling card is her lovely, unaffected voice and it is a testament to her faultless vocal abilities that she can easily deliver other people’s musical visions so impeccably. Producer Jim Bryson (the Weakerthans) stays mostly out of the way here, enveloping Ungerleider’s voice with only minimal musical affectation.
Local songwriter Keri Latimer’s Cottonseed is a perfect example of how a less-is-more production technique can draw the listener into a kind of beautiful quietude, allowing the singer to float airily above the sparse arrangement. Melissa McClelland’s rocking Mozart for the Cat and the Jay Harris-penned 1955 ratchet up the energy, proving that this gal can even rock if she wants to.
***1/2
2014-10-16
Oh Susanna
Namedropper (Sonic Unyon)
By SARAH GREENE
NNNN
On her sixth album, Toronto’s Oh Susanna (Suzie Ungerleider) sounds immensely comfortable breaking out of her comfort zone. As the title implies, Namedropper is an album of covers by Ungerleider’s friends and colleagues, produced by Jim Bryson, who also wrote the first song, Oregon.
Gone are the slow, sad alt-country numbers; in their stead is an Oh Susanna record you can actually dance to (at least to Melissa McClelland-penned pop/rock earworm Mozart For The Cat).
Ron Sexsmith’s signature sound is identifiable from the first whiff of guitar melody on Wait Until The Sun Comes Up, while it takes the second bridge to identify the charming Into My Arms as a Joel Plaskett song.
Ungerleider has a lot of big names to drop (she covers Jim Cuddy, Old Man Luedecke and the Good Lovelies), but two of the standout tracks come from lesser-known, Kingston-based artists: Rueben deGroot’s Randy Newman-style bank robber song Savings & Loan and Jay Harris’s 1955, which nods to Elvis Costello.
Top track: Mozart For The Cat
2014-10-16
ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Oh Susanna’s Namedropper
Oh Susanna
Namedropper (Sonic Unyon)
4 stars
Oh Susanna’s Namedropper is charmingly disarming, a collection of earnest, impeccably delivered storytelling from Vancouver’s Suzie Ungerleider. Going in without knowing that every song on the album is a cover, you would think those were all Ungerleider-penned gems. And that’s a great thing because, although the project conceived by Ungerleider and longtime collaborator/songwriter/producer Jim Bryson is exactly that, Namedropper never feels like a gimmick.
Instead, Ungerleider makes the most of words and melodies provided to her by musical pals like Luke Doucet, Melissa McLelland, Royal Wood, Amelia Curran, The Good Lovelies, Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy, and more.
Namedropper offers a few perfect nuggets: Ron Sexsmith’s Wait Until The Sun Comes Up shimmers with golden country greatness, Ungerleider delivering the tune with a Dolly Parton-esque twang, while Joel Plaskett’s Into My Arms features the East Coast rocker’s signature pop snap.
The jaunty Mozart For The Cat, by McLelland, is a humorous treat that will undoubtedly make you crack a smile.
Cuddy’s smouldering, organ-heavy Dying Light is especially touching considering Ungerleider was diagnosed with breast cancer as the album was nearing completion in 2013. “Maybe I’m clear now, ’cause I know it’s the end/Of ending up lost, with no money or friends/Always thought it’d be greener if I went one more mile/All that I needed was to stay close to your smile.”
Namedropper is a sweet, affecting listening experience by one of Canada’s most criminally underrated voices.
2014-08-21
Oh Susanna Details Star-studded ‘Namedropper,’ Opens Up About Breast Cancer Treatment
By Alex Hudson
It’s been nearly two years since Suzie Ungerleider began raising funds for Oh Susanna’s next record, Namedropper, which was to feature brand new songs written by various Canadian artists. Now, the album has finally been announced, with the due date set for October 21 through Sonic Unyon Records/Sony.
None of these 14 songs was written by Ungerleider. Rather, they were penned especially for this project by contributors like Joel Plaskett, Ron Sexsmith, Jim Cuddy, Luke Doucet, Melissa McClelland, Jim Bryson, Royal Wood, Old Man Luedecke, Amelia Curran, the Good Lovelies and more.
Ungerleider began the project in 2012 and she was nearly done by the spring of 2013, but it was delayed for an extremely serious reason: the singer was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she spent the next year getting treated and recovering.
Bryson produced the record. Ungerleider initially suggested a covers record, but Bryson upped the ante by suggesting they commission original songs.
See the tracklist below; the composer for each song is listed in parentheses. Scroll past that to stream the McClelland-penned “Mozart for the Cat,” which juxtaposes a low-key pop-rock groove with powerfully belted vocals.
Namedropper:
1. Oregon (Jim Bryson)
2. Into My Arms (Joel Plaskett)
3. Goodnight (Royal Wood)
4. Cottonseed (Keri Latimer)
5. Wait Until the Sun Comes Up (Ron Sexsmith)
6. Mozart for the Cat (Melissa McClelland)
7. Provincial Parks (Old Man Luedecke)
8. Letterbomb (Luke Doucet)
9. Loved You More (Amelia Curran)
10. 1955 (Jay Harris)
11. Savings And Loan (Rueben deGroot)
12. This Guy (The Good Lovelies)
13. Dying Light (Jim Cuddy)
14. I Love The Way She Dresses (Ron Sexsmith / Angaleena Presley)
AMERICANA UK
Jonathan Aird
Saturday, 09 July 2011
Oh Susanna “Soon the Birds”
Reviewers Rating: 8
Oh Susanna, you know your way around the human heart.
“Don’t get taken in by that Suzie Ungerleider” they might say shaking their head judgementally. “Oh, she looks as sweet as pie in that lacy top and with those flowers ‘n’ all. But let me tell you something about her….”. It’s scandalous, what they say, and I won’t repeat it, but I can see their point. A sweet heart of a voice, and beautiful country-folk arrangements might mislead you, but this girl has been around, and she knows what’s going on.
From the off she tells you she’s no angel – “I’m drunk as a sailor again” she coos as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. And in places she cusses like a trooper, but only when it’s really necessary – she’s not going to skirt around things with euphemisms to protect your sensibilities.
It also works really well to prick the beautiful romanticism of a song like “See What Promises Can Bring” where a line like “so he swept you off your feet / got you rolling in the sheets / and your belly full and round” can be suddenly grounded by “and you’re carrying his baby / but you don’t give a shit what they say”. It’s the songs of small town life and the impossibility of avoiding ridicule or tittle-tattle for an indiscretion that gets Suzie Ungerleider fired up, but there’s more going on than small town tales.
What she’s produced here is an album of one under the dozen story songs, three minute novels. Some veer to the dramatic – the banjo and mandolin driven “By Rope” is a full western tale of a young man forced by starvation to turn to a life of crime robbing stagecoaches and trains. In a few fleeting words a whole cinematic world is vividly presented – from the decision to leave home, the robbing of a train, the capture by a pair of bounty hunters and the final act “See my brothers, see my sisters / See my mother’s face / They’ve come much too late for by rope I am hanged”. It’s perfectly done and could sit happily alongside “Jesse James”.
Then, a song will come along that’s a snap shot of an emotional state – the ironically titled “Lucky Ones” describes the pain of love stretched out so thin it’s become invisible and there’s nothing let of it but a brave face to show the world. In short, extended phrases, a whole world of hopeless drifting and lifelong agony is exposed to the light – “People can say / We’re the lucky ones / But they can’t believe / that together we don’t belong / So we make believe / But together we don’t belong”. Even here though there is an inner strength through an acceptance of fate, and this inner strength is a common trait of the women who are sung about. Whether it’s the large canvas or the tiniest but oh so important fragment of a life, every word is carefully chosen and delicately placed. The singing – it is like an angel when it needs to be, and sobs with pain when that is what the song requires. The playing throughout is uniformly excellent – whether it be all acoustic, or featuring some restrained electric guitar and drums.
It’s a joy of an album.
http://www.americana-uk.com/reviews-cd-live/latest-cd-reviews/item/oh-susanna-soon-the-birds
canadianinterviews.com/interview/index.php
Soon the Birds Oh Susanna (Outside)
Rating 3 1/2
Canada might not have enough trustworthy, or even inspiring, politicians, but we suffer from a glut of talented female singersongwriters.
Lost in the deluge is Oh Susanna, a folk-roots musician now based in Toronto. With the release of Soon the Birds, the Vancouver native has five full-length albums to her name -and the support of respected musicians such as Jim Cuddy, Bazil Donovan and Van Dyke Parks -but she has yet to receive the same veneration as Sarah Harmer, Kathleen Edwards or even newcomer Hannah Georgas. On her latest, Oh Susanna’s voice doesn’t possess quite the same ache as some of her counterparts -she only gets close on Long Black Train, a young widow’s lament; and the title track, lightly sprinkled with a gentle haze of pedal steel guitar and rootsy organs. What the artist also known as Suzie Ungerleider lacks in dejection she more than makes up with frankness as she sings about cold-hearted girls, cruel boys, small towns and murder in Canada’s wild west, often with a joyous, bright voice and backed by rumbly guitars, sprightly banjos and mandolins. Most memorable line: “You flipped the bird and mooned your meat to the town.” How can you not love a girl who writes such, er, vivid lyrics?
Oh Susanna will perform Wednesday, June 8 with Matthew Barber at The Pawn Shop. Tickets are available at yeglive.ca. Barber will release his sixth and self-titled album on May 31.
Sandra Sperounes, Edmonton Journal
www.edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/Quick+Hits+misses/4673488/story.html
www.chartattack.com/reviews/2011/apr/21/oh-susanna-%E2%80%94-soon-the-birds
Only Suzie Ungerleider could write a song called “Drunk As A Sailor” and make it sound beautiful.
You can expect the usual gentle, rootsy folk from Oh Susanna’s fifth full-length, and as always, there’s a chiefly caustic album hiding under Soon The Birds’ serene surface. Ungerleider has no qualms about dropping lines like “get fucked on alcohol” and “You flipped the bird and mooned your meat” (both from standout ditty, “Your Town”).
The misery is relentless: engagement rings are hocked, families are abandoned, stagecoaches are robbed, people are murdered and the album ends with a widowing. Ungerleider mentions a “wheel of misfortune” in “Pretty Blue Eyes,” and that’s a decent way to describe this disc as a whole.
Despite all its despair, Soon The Birds is never a depressing album. Ungerleider and her pack of veteran musicians (Blue Rodeo’s Bazil Donovan, Kathleen Edwards guitarist Gord Tough and Weeping Tile drummer Cam Giroux) are working with too soothing a palette to ever create something somber. It’s almost tender enough to make you feel sorry for the robber/murderer in “By Rope” who gets caught and hanged.
It’s interesting that Oh Susanna’s self-titled 2003 album can now be viewed as her most atypical work. It veered into rock terrain, but on the subsequent Short Stories and now Soon the Birds, Suzie Ungerleider returned to her more familiar country-folk path. For that we can be grateful, as few explore the genre this well. Her signature strong, haunting voice is in top shape, as are her poetic, narrative-based songs. Both are framed expertly by producer/engineer David Travers-Smith and the A-list musical cast. Many songs feature eight to ten players and backing singers, but things never sound cluttered. Jim Cuddy is featured on classic-sounding country duet “Lucky Ones,” while harmony vocalists Ruth Moody and Brenley MacEachern are used judiciously (as on “By Rope”). The album’s vivid cast of characters include the jilted young lad of “Your Town” (“you mooned your meat to your town”), the battered wife bidding her abuser “So Long,” the doomed outlaw of the aforementioned “By Rope” and the single mom of “See What Promises Can Bring.” Their stories are told with compassion and aural beauty.
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It has been four years since the release of the Juno-nominated Short Stories, the 2007 album by acclaimed roots music songstress Oh Susanna (aka Suzie Ungerleider). She now returns to the fray with the April 19 release of her fifth album, Soon the Birds, via Outside Music. Ungerleider acknowledges the gap between albums is long, but that’s par for the course with Oh Susanna.
“It usually takes me a while to get back into writing after I’ve recorded something. I get lazy, then I panic and start writing, and then it usually takes about a year to get the songs,” Ungerleider tells Exclaim!
Also, becoming a mother led to some delays, as well as necessitated a change in her songwriting approach. “I joke around that I have my kindergarten block of time, with two hours to start a song,” says Ungerleider. “I can begin something in that little window, then work on it in my mind throughout the rest of the day.”
She enlisted noted Toronto producer David Travers-Smith (Wailin’ Jennys, Harry Manx and Kevin Breit) to produce, engineer and mix Soon the Birds with sessions taking place at Travers-Smith’s own studio Found Sound, Escarpment Sound and Blue Rodeo’s Woodshed studio.
Duetting with Oh Susanna on “Lucky Ones” is Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy, and the pair are no strangers to singing together. “That was fun. We’ve been singing together for the last few years on different things, on his records and live,” says Ungerleider. “When I wrote that song I completely thought of him. I love pretending we are in a relationship together that is going bad. That is what that song is about.”
Soon the Birds is released in Europe today (April 18) on the Netherlands-based label Continental Record Services, with a fall tour in Europe being a possibility. “We’re trying to figure out distribution in the U.S., but you can get it on iTunes there,” says Ungerleider.
The album on iTunes also includes a bonus track, “1941,” arranged by the legendary Van Dyke Parks (Beach Boys, Harry Nilsson, Rufus Wainwright). Longtime friends, Ungerleider and Parks first collaborated on the recent Mississippi Sheiks tribute album. “He sent us the arrangement and then David recorded it all here. It was very brilliant, unusual and very much him,” she says.
Oh Susanna is now getting set for summer dates with Hawksley Workman, Justin Rutledge and Matthew Barber. “It has been a while since I’ve done a tour where I’ve had to play every day, and I’m scared about it [laughs]. I do a lot of stuff on my own. I’m going to do the Hawksley gigs with Burke Carroll, who’ll play pedal steel. I’ll try to get him to do our June Western Canada tour with Matt, and maybe one other instrument. It won’t be a full band, but I quite like doing different things. I like to change it and not have it exactly how it is on the record.”
Oh Susanna will celebrate the release of Soon the Birds with a show at Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern on Tuesday (April 19).
It opens with a sweet, joyous love song, beautifully sung, folky, with judicious use of strings – a warm, full mood that the Canadian singer-songwriter returns to a few more times on her fine fourth album. For fans of her darker side there’s Three Shots and Greyhound Bus, plus a fine slow cowboy/border song, Filled With Gold.
MOJO
Fourth from Vancouver songbird
Fitting between spectral folk and downbeat blues, 2003’s eponymous last LP earned Oh Susanna several rave notices over here. This time around, Suzie Ungerleider’s intention was to make more of a “band” record. But the pianos, steel and strings are so artfully understated that she still sounds as lost and wind-bitten as before. There’s a Southern soul feel to much of this lovely music, particularly “Schoolyard” and clear standout “Greyhound Bus”. And while there are hints of Appalachia, the other gilded moment is “Holy Roller”, a spare, folksy beauty set to equally lonesome piano.
UNCUT magazine
Oh Susanna has become a musician to be reckoned with…. The strength and intensity of her voice has an edge that conveys the evil of country blues.
No Depression
That voice really is a marvel, a haunting, expressive instrument that can proudly stand alongside those of Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch in the roots elite. This album [Short Stories] stresses mood and narrative over melody to stunning effect.
Exclaim!
Her narrative force, incisive and amazingly detailed lyrics, and simple musical approach mark her as an artist to watch.
Billboard
On Oh Susanna’s aptly titled Short Stories, the singer (whose real name is Suzie Ungerleider) uses her clear and lonesome country voice to tell sweetly poignant tales about people who are damaged by love or bullies, take off on a Greyhound bus to look for their long-lost daughter or fall in a heap on the floor, shot dead.
Elle
Suddenly, the stark acoustic blues of her debut EP, the dreamy pop, and the band-driven rock that followed all seem to have been heading toward this point: a lightly burnished naturalness that perfectly reflects the material rather than underplaying it or tugging too hard at its corners.
The Toronto Star
Her tales of love, loss and yearning are utterly engrossing and sung with a delivery that gives them weight beyond the words. Like those in a good book, Ungerleider’s characters linger long after the last notes of each song fade, putting her in a class above your typical troubadour. This woman is a writer – she just happens to sing her stories rather than type them out.
FFWD
“Oh Susanna” – Critics’ Top Albums of 2003 – Rolling Stone.com
“Sleepy Little Sailor” – Critics’ Top Albums of 2001 – Rolling Stone.com
On Oh Susanna’s aptly titled Short Stories (Outside Music), the singer (whose real name is Suzie Ungerleider) uses her clear and lonesome country voice – sparsely accompanied by members of Blue Rodeo – to tell sweetly poignant tales about people who are damaged by love or bullies, take off on a Greyhound bus to look for their long-lost daughter or fall in a heap on the floor, shot dead.
MARY DICKIE
On her 2003 self-titled disc, Suzie Ungerleider added decidedly rock elements to her troubadour template to oft-bracing effect. She returns to her roots here by emphasizing her voice and lyrics, and rises to the challenge with graceful ease. That voice really is a marvel, a haunting, expressive instrument that can proudly stand alongside those of Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch in the roots elite. Sparse and subtle accompaniment comes from her A-list players, including Luke Doucet, David Baxter, Blue Rodeo’s Bazil Donovan and Bob Packwood, Justin Rutledge (who harmonies beautifully on “Pretty Penny”) and drummer/hubby Cam Giroux. Strings are used judiciously and effectively on “Miss Liberty” and powerful closer “Filled With Gold.” Lyrically, Suzie presents a rich, colourful cast of characters, telling their stories with real empathy. There’s the “beauty queen strapped to a Coke machine” and the teenager who gave up her baby then ran off to “hang my heart on a hitching post where they got clean air to breathe” on “Greyhound Bus.” Even Billy The Kid makes an appearance, via her fine cover of Dylan’s “Billy 4.” This album stresses mood and narrative over melody to stunning effect.
With the last record, you said you felt like a singer in a band. This one seems more like a singer/songwriter record. Agree?
Completely. It was just the nature of the songs I wrote this time, where I had a quiet thing going on. With Oh Susanna, I thought it’d be fun to make more of a rock’n’roll record. Here, it was like, “I’m sick of those boys. I just want to be by myself,” and I was happy to do it that way.
Does the album title reflect the way you approach the songs?
I’m always attempting to make the songs like short stories. These ones in particular emphasise that, though I probably could’ve called every record I’ve made Short Stories. The title is a simple way of having someone pick it up and listen to it in that context.
This is clearly not a confessional style singer/songwriter record. I feel like what I do has a confessional aspect to it, though it’s not necessarily me that is confessing. I find pretending I’m someone else that much more intriguing. I don’t think my life is all that worthy of writing into songs in a literal sense. If I were to write about my life, I’d still be manipulating it in such a way as to fictionalise it.
By Kerry Doole
(Stella/Outside)
The Anti-Hit List for April 21
1. OH SUSANNA
Like the rest of her fourth full-length, this moving lead-off [“Pretty Face”] track serves the larger function of bringing the stylistic wanderings of her previous releases sharply into focus. Suddenly, the stark acoustic blues of her debut EP, the dreamy pop, and the band-driven rock that followed all seem to have been heading toward this point: a lightly burnished naturalness that perfectly reflects the material rather than underplaying it or tugging too hard at its corners. Part of that can be chalked up to the co-production by Blue Rodeo’s Bazil Donovan. A bigger part is Suzie Ungerleider’s willingness to have taken the winding journey to get from there to here.
(From Short Stories, out May 1, info only: outside-music.ca)
JOHN SAKAMOTO
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Starfish Entertainment
Susan de Cartier / Judith Coombe
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Danelle Schiele
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Suzie Ungerleider photo by Stephen Drover
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Suzie Ungerleider photo by Stephen Drover
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Suzie Ungerleider photo by Cam Giroux
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Suzie Ungerleider photo by Cam Giroux
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Suzie Ungerleider photo by Stephen Drover
Click enlargement (right) for hi-rez version to download
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Belle Starr 
Blue Rodeo 
Jim Cuddy 
Elliott BROOD 
Greg Keelor 
The Sadies 
Skydiggers 
Suzie Ungerleider 
Belle Starr 
Blue Rodeo 
Jim Cuddy 
Elliott BROOD 
Greg Keelor 
The Sadies 
Skydiggers 
Suzie Ungerleider