AFTER A RECENT HEALTH SCARE, the singer-songwriter is at peace with herself and – now that she's conquered her stage fright – at peace with live performance

Ferron living in a dream
BERNARD PERUSSE, THE GAZETTE

Ferron was quite sure something was wrong. After generally not feeling well for a week in January, the Toronto-born singersongwriter was on high alert.

Then came the spike in her blood pressure, accompanied by sweating and chest pain radiating into her neck and jaw. A rush trip to the emergency room at Borgess Hospital in Michigan revealed that one of her arteries was functioning at only 20 per cent. A stent was put in and a full-blown heart attack narrowly averted.

"It was one of those weird blessings in disguise," Ferron said during a recent telephone interview, explaining that she has cleaned up her act and dumped the smoking and drinking since her surgery. "I'm more dreamy now – as if I wasn't before," she said. "I can just sit in a chair and gaze off for hours. I feel really, really calm. And my skin is pink."

Back on the road after convalescing at the farm she shares with her girlfriend near Kalamazoo, Mich., Ferron said she's starting to deal with a question never answered by her late foster mother, Betty. (Ferron declined to give the woman's family name.)

"Betty said, 'You just don't get it.' I said, 'Get what?' She said, 'The being on Earth thing.' That stuck with me. When she died, I thought, 'How am I supposed to find out what it is?' " Ferron remembered. "Slowly – slowly! – it's becoming apparent to me that it's about being in a true cycle. We have a garden here, we've got chickens, I've put up a greenhouse so I can get closer to the seeds and see how that feels. Basically, nurture and nourish is about all that's going on."

The self-redefining seems part of a process that includes last year's Boulder, produced and released by musician Bitch, of whom Ferron sings praises. The acclaimed album featured stripped-down remakes of previously recorded Ferron favourites like Souvenir, It Won't Take Long and Shadows on a Dime.

Ferron said she simply played and sang before Bitch took the recordings away to return with a finished album. "I loved the (earlier) versions I made," Ferron said. "But Bitch said young people don't identify with that sound. They wanted a different sound, a kind of rawness. In the States, it got rave reviews: 'Ferron as you've never heard her before – raw.' "

It's been 32 years since Ferron independently released her self-titled debut album after admiring the work of singers like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. "There was an inner morality (in the work of my favourite artists) that was trying to balance itself out," she said. "But whatever songs they were singing, there was still something in there that wasn't me, and when I'd get to that line, I didn't feel truthful. That's when I decided I would start writing my own songs."

That first album, Ferron said, still sounds "really honest. I remember that girl. She was captured in that LP."

But after releasing Shadows on a Dime in 1984, Ferron took a hiatus from the music business. "I was just working all the time," she said. "We would be on tour for three or four months at a time. "I didn't get the point of my freedom if I didn't feel free anymore. If I was emotionally distraught but still had to be on stage, then who was I working for? I thought I was working for me," she said.

After what she described as her standard three-year writing cycle, she took another three years to get enough financing together to release Phantom Center in 1990.

Signing with major player Warner Bros., which reissued two earlier albums and released Still Riot in 1996, was an eye-opener for the singer. "We weren't a good fit. (Producer) Ted Templeman thought (Still Riot) was a perfectly recorded album," Ferron said. "Then the person responsible for radio came in and, 20 minutes later, it was all over. She just said, 'There's nothing here for radio.' And they didn't know what to do with it after that."

The last decade, however, brought an epiphany. "When I started out, I had a stammer. I couldn't look up. There was a sense of separateness between me and other people. Every time I walked out on stage, it was an act of courage. I felt I was walking out there to be judged. I guess I was, in some way," she said.

"But I don't know if it's from doing music for 35 years or from just growing up, but finally, one day, I could look at people and realize, 'They're me. We're each other. There's nobody there who's bigger or smaller.' That really changed my show," she said. "I am, apparently, quite enjoyable on stage now. Life became full of love and humour."

Ferron performs Saturday at 8 p.m. at Petit Campus, 57 Prince Arthur St. E. Tickets cost $20, $10 for students. Phone 514-790-1245 or go to www.admission.com. For further information, phone 514-524-9225.
bperusse@thegazette.canwest.com