NAC presents Ferron

NAC Presents: Ferron and Her All Star Band

In collaboration with the National Arts Centre, Canadian folk-icon Ferron, hits the Yukon Arts Centre stage accompanied by her All Star Band.

Called “the Johnny Cash of lesbian folk-singing”, Ferron’s music is a unique blend of Indigenous, feminist, and LGBT2Q+ power. Her legacy has grown to inspire contemporary acts such as the Indigo Girls, Shawn Colvin, Tori Amos, and Ani DiFranco.

Ferron’s songs are typically hopeful, soulful, introspective and often autobiographical. One of her signature songs, “Girl on a Road,” recounts her experience of leaving home at age 15 with money she saved from working in a fish cannery. Her other best-known song, “Testimony,” has been recorded by Holly Near, Ginni Clemens, and Sweet Honey in the Rock, and was published in a 1985 issue of Sing Out!. Other notable Ferron songs include “Misty Mountain,” “Ain't Life a Brook,” “Shadow on a Dime” and “It Won't Take Long.” Cathy Fink, Ronnie Gilbert and James Keelaghan have also recorded Ferron songs, as has Lucie Blue Tremblay, who translated “Ain't Life a Brook” into French as “Nos belles années.” Ferron’s vocal style — which she has described as “a wave that's close to the Earth; I want it to be restful and hopeful” — has often been compared to Bob Dylan’s. Writing of Shadow on a Dime, the Globe and Mail’s Liam Lacey characterized Ferron's voice as “warm, raspy and almost masculine in timbre,” and described the album as “rich in acoustic textures and a compelling palette of moods: salty, mysterious and wry, with memorable melodies and lyrics studded with acute and unusual insights about love and freedom... If one thing distinguishes Ferron's songs, it's their expression of a tenacious need for personal freedom.” – thecanadianencyclopedia.ca