What: Coco Love Alcorn with Anne Schaefer and the Collective
Where: St. Paul’s United Church, 2410 Malaview Ave., Sidney (also Duncan Christian Reformed Church on Friday, the Waverley in Cumberland on Sunday and Gabriola Island’s the Roxy on Monday)
When: Tonight, doors 7:30 p.m., show 8 p.m.
Tickets: $20 advance, $25 door (Tanner’s Books, Lyle’s Place or cocolove.bpt.me)
Coco Love Alcorn’s new song The River has a homespun quality in more ways than one.
The tune, an a cappella track self-recorded with a five-track looper, has the timeless feel of an ancient spiritual — even though it’s an original composition. To create a choir effect, the Ontario singer-songwriter built up her vocals layer upon layer.
The video, which is available on YouTube, was shot in a bedroom of her Owen Sound home. Behind Alcorn you can see silvery rug-like thing. It looks like a professional back-drop — in fact, it’s a find from a Fabricland bargain bin.
“It was 16 bucks or something. You know how people have bear-skin rugs in front of their fireplace? My original intention was to sew arms and legs and a head, and have a robot-skin rug,” Alcorn said, laughing.
Tonight, in Sidney, Alcorn will team up with Victoria singer-songwriter Anne Schaefer and her 20-member choir, the Collective. Joined by Alcorn’s drummer/ bassist, they’ll perform The River and other songs from Alcorn’s album Wonderland, released last week. It’s part of a cross-Canada tour for which she’s teaming up with other choirs.
“[Collaborating with choirs] is a whole new world, but I’m really excited about it,” Alcorn said.
The daughter of noted jazz singer John Alcorn, Coco Love Alcorn has sung soul, jazz, folk, pop and electro since her debut disc was released in 1995. The Wonderland album and tour mark her return to a full-time gigging since the birth of her daughter, Ellie, five years ago.
Alcorn didn’t take a full sabbatical, but put music on a back-burner to raise her child. During this time, she played 25 to 30 shows a year, about one-quarter of her previous schedule.
“My heart felt very content to be at home, spending time with Ellie, living in a really lovely community. And having some semblance of routine for the first time in my life,” Alcorn said.
Life was good. Alcorn had time for regular cycling, jogging and crafting. Yet, after a while, it didn’t feel like enough. She missed the thrill of connecting with audiences and the joy of travelling.
“My spirit got restless,” she said. “There was something missing for me.”
Wonderland is full of soulful, gospel-inflected songs. The backup instrumentation is sparse; lead and harmony vocals are the focus. Like The River, these other compositions sound as if they have been handed down for generations.
“There’s something about the gospel churches in the [American] South and also in a lot of other cultural and spiritual traditions. Those traditions of layering voices, getting people singing and rhythm that can be made with anything at hand. Clapping hands or stomping. There’s something very raw and passionate and primal about that.”
Alcorn said her direct influences included folk field-recordings collected by Alan Lomax, as well as the down-home bluegrass, blues and gospel found on the soundtrack of the movie Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? However, she notes her overall influences are much more diverse: Charlie Parker, Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan.
Alcorn’s parents split up when she was two. Both loved music. Her dad enjoyed Roberta Flack and Chaka Khan; her mom listened to James Taylor, Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell. When the extended family visited her grandmother for Christmas in Nova Scotia, everyone would sing carols and play funk and jazz music together.
Alcorn joined a vocal jazz choir in high school. In Grade 11, she was one of 18 accepted into an honours vocal jazz ensemble featuring young singers from all over British Columbia.
She views Wonderland as a watershed in her career. With this album, she said, all her disparate musical interests have come together.
“It feels like such a natural fit. And the lyrics are very simple, talking about connecting with the spirit.”
