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Wendy Davis
Sointula BC

Jewelry & CD's

When Wendy Davis opens her mouth to sing, out comes a voice that is warm, honest and direct – just like her songs. It is a pity that more people have not even heard of her, let alone heard her sing. In this respect, the people of Malcolm Island are to be envied.

Davis, who wrote songs and sang for several decades in Ontario, has lived in Sointula for 18 months. She didn’t begin singing until her mid-20s, and needed some work, she revealed at her Sointula home in a recent interview on a brilliantly sunny day. Back when I started, I couldn’t sing my way out of a paper bag,” she admitted with a rueful smile, although the Peterborough native said she has always enjoyed singing.
Davis was influenced initially by Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt. "I found my own voice about the same time I started to sing.” Working first for RCA as a writer, she began singing professionally with Canadian chanteuse Jane Siberry in the late 1970s. She recorded her first single at the renowned Grant Avenue Studio in Hamilton, Ontario.

“Daniel Lanois was the first person to produce me,” she said of the famed Canadian expatriate, who has produced albums by U2, Bob Dylan and Peter Gabriel. Collaborations followed with some of Canada’s most respected singer-songwriters, albeit ones without the name recognition of a Shania, Celine, Alanis or Avril.
Davis sang with two-time Juno Award winner Colleen Peterson before that fellow Peterborough native founded the Canadian country-folk supergroup Quartette with Sylvia Tyson, Caitlin Hanford and Cindy Church. The long list of Canadian singing collaborators also includes Ian Tamblyn, David Bradstreet, David Wiffen, Beverly Mahood and Jamie Warren, although most of them are known better in Ontario than out West. Davis sang on Boy Inside The Man by Tom Cochrane And Red Rider. Sweet Dreams, a duet with J.K. Gulley, was nominated for a 1987 Canadian Country Music Association award.

Davis turned from the music business in the late 1980s for personal reasons. By chance, she fell in love with a man named Gary MacGruther and moved more than halfway across the country to join him on wild and lonely Barclay Sound. Casting about for a new West Coast home, “like throwing darts at a map,” they ran into somebody who raved about Sointula.

“We were just enamoured as soon as we got off the ferry,” Davis recalled. “I really love being near the water. I love the weather. I love it when it’s windy and foggy. I don’t think there’s anything more beneficial for body and soul than a walk on a beach,” remarked Davis, describing herself as a compulsive beachcomber.
She’s paying the bills with pottery, painting and various crafts. Although Davis is singing with other Malcolm Islanders, she would like to resume her music career. Davida Hudson, for one, is a fan. She sells a Wendy Davis CD at West Coast Community Crafts in Port Hardy. It features esteemed Canadian songwriter Willie P. Bennett on harmonica and mandolin. Bennett, said Davis, sang at her wedding.

The CD also features bass-playing by Gwen Swick, who joined Quartette after Peterson died of cancer in 1996. Swick can’t say enough good things about Davis. “She has a voice that tears your heart out, and she has the great gift of knowing how to use it,” Swick raved in an email. “Her songs have also reached deep inside me. I can’t even put my finger on what it is, but it is a beautiful, soulful search and as a listener I feel I must go along with her.”

Swick said she has sung with Davis many times, live and in studio. She is consistently and beautifully musical,” Swick continued. “We have had many wonderful musical moments together. And lots of fun, too — we have laughed a long time together.” Swick identified one of the secrets to Davis’ songwriting. "Wendy is a very thoughtful person and someone who sees a great deal. She doesn’t miss much. This attention to detail is likely at the source of her great abilities in so many art forms. She is a true artist.” Finally, Swick added a personal reference. "And in her relationships with people she is as loyal and great a friend as she is a gifted artist.”