In the 1990’s, 12-year-old Emily Fennell from Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada, got an early education on the power of community. She spent the summer competing in and winning dozens of county fair singing contests. While the other competitors chose standards like “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” or “I Will Always Love You,” Emily stunned audiences into silent amazement with K.D. Lang’s version of the Patsy Cline song “Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray.”
That song choice, her spellbinding performance of it, and the venues in which she chose to display her talents, is everything you need to know about the woman who would become Miss Emily. She has a voice that demands your attention, she is never predictable, and she values community more than anything else.
For more than 20 years she has channeled those principles in her songwriting and performance, never shying away from an open conversation with her audience about the struggles she has faced. Whether it was misogynistic encounters with old-school promoters, domestic violence, or being a musical road-warrior and a single mother at the same time, Emily has always opened her heart in a communal invitation to share, heal and celebrate.
During the writing process for her upcoming album that commitment was tested. “I wasn’t in a great head space,” she acknowledged, her voice cracking under the emotional weight of the memory. “Like so many of us, sometimes life brings you down. In one of my darker moments, I wrote an angry song. Then, as I continued prepping the songs, I realized I did not want anger to be a prominent theme on my new album. I wanted to celebrate community and record music that made people feel better.”