ElizaBeth Hill

Artist Information

Biography

ElizaBeth Hill a singer-songwriter,has built her craft through years spent in Nashville's toughest songwriting circles. A lyricist with an intuitive touch, there is a depth to her music that stirs the soul and inspires the audience to always want to hear more. Performances have a combination of prolific lyric writing spanning love songs to her Native American lifestyle. Arresting vocals spin these into a sweet mix of traditional yet bluesy country, and folk. (Acoustic Guitar, percussion, bass, multi-instrumentals)
ElizaBeth is a Mohawk. The roots of her music have grown in traditional country, schooled on the Nashville songwriting scene for more than a decade, and are steeped for a lifetime in her Iroquoian culture. She has composed and recorded for dance theatre and film. She has scored music for independent filmmaker Shelley Niro whose film "The Shirt" was featured at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004, and scored Niro’s new feature film “Kissed by Lightning” which premiered at the 2009 Imaginative Film Festival and received a Milagro Award at the Santa Fe Film Festival for best Native American Film.
ElizaBeth was also commissioned to write a libretto by Opera Hamilton, about the life of Chief Joseph Brant. “Tyendinaga” is still in music composition by the opera company, and no date of release has been annouonced.
She was nominated for "Best Female Artist" and "Best Producer" (along with co-producer Bob Doidge (Gordon Lightfoot, U2, Ani DiFranco, Bruce Cockburn)at the 2000 Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards AND Best Music Aboriginal Canada in 2000 Canadian JUNO Awards for her release "Love That Strong" on which she shares a duet with the great American songwriter, John Hiatt.
ElizaBeth’s Mohawk language CD Peacemaker's Lullaby was nominated in 2 categories for the 2005 Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards including ‘Album of the Year’.
Her newest CD ready for release “Too Long Away” continues to carry her listeners on a pleasant ride through simple arrangements, heart-rendering vocals and superior songwriting.

Instrumentation

ElizaBeth Hill - lead vocal, acoustic guitar
Darrin Jamieson - drums, percussion, guitar, vocals
Steve Clark - bass
Darrin Schott - mandolin, fiddle, guitar, vocals

Discography

When the Spirit Moves Me (Music Masters 1993)
Legends, I Am An Eagle (First Nations/EMI 1995)
Aboriginal Women's Voices in the Studio (Sweetgrass Records 1997) Single
Love that Strong (Music Masters 1999)
Peacmaker's Lullaby (Music Masters 2005)
Indian Reservation Blues & More (DixieFrog 2009) Single
Too Long Away (Music Masters 2011)

Links

• MySpace

Audio

• Ise Onkwehonhwe (You are Native American Indian)
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• Earth Song
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• Pow Wow Trail
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• Maybe I'm Crazy
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• Your Friend
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Lyrics

• Pow Wow Trail
• Maybe I'm Crazy
• Your Friend

Video

Photo Gallery

Press

• ARTIST IN ACTION [+ Show ]
  

  by Elizabeth Yates Singer, Songwriter, Storyteller: ElizaBeth Hill explores many genres Craft...by Elizabeth Yates
  
  Singer, Songwriter, Storyteller: ElizaBeth Hill explores many genres
  
  Crafting songs, creating stories, teaching singers, scoring films: all part of the artistic amalgam that is ElizaBeth Hill.
  And on Feb. 25, she gets to indulge one of her greatest passions--singing for an audience. Hill is among more than 20 Six Nations entertainers who will participate ina showcase called Celebrating Our Gifts at the Sanderson Centre.
  "I love to perform" she says. "I love to see the smiles and the tears. I love to be able to move people--their thoughts, their feelings--with music.
  "There's such a wonderful reward in that"
  With a country pedigree honed in Nashville, Hill's music is accented by many influences, including blues, folk and rock. Her melodious speaking voice transforms into expressive vocals--sounding just a bit like Emmylou Harris--warmed onstage by an honest and unpretentious manner.
  Along with the personal satisfaction of connecting with listeners, Hill's talents have been rewarded with critical recognition: a Juno nomination for her 2000 release, Love That Strong, as well as two nominations for Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards in 2001. She plays on the folk circuit all around North America and has been featured on CTV and City TV.
  But singing gigs--solo with acoustic guitar or with a band--are just a tiny fraction of Hill's artistry. She sat down with The Expositor to discuss her myriad activities after returning from the Barrie area, where she gave vocal workshops to native youth. "I show them how their voice moves through their body," she explains. "Your whole body is your instrument, not just your throat."
  This is a time of satisfaction and perhaps, just a smidge of relief, for Hill, who has just completed an intensive five-year undertaking: a Mohawk language CD called Peacemaker's Journey. The project involved connecting with fluent speakers and working to tell their unique stories through song--both lyrical and instrumental. The six tracks which resulted from these collaborations express beliefs fundamental to native culture: thankfulness and reverence for life; a sense of stewardship for the Earth; the necessity of youth to honour their heritage and realize its value.
  "For each piece, I worked to get the most direct and valuable message," says Hill, who is still striving to master Mohawk.
  Growing up on Six Nations, she heard people speaking the language, as well as Cayuga, and Seneca. But only a few commonplace phrases took root--thanks to the disruptive legacy of residential schools, where natives were beaten for speaking their own language. Hill's grandfather had been fluent, but his knowledge was never passed down in the family because Mohawk became a forbidden tongue.
  "This has been a good reason to really celebrate my language and learn more...there is something about original languages that is very enriching for the soul."
  Produced by Bob Doidge at Grant Avenue Studios in Hamilton, the disc will be out this month--possibly in time for the 25th. While initially intended as an education resource, it may have a wider reach due to growing public interest in native culture.
  With the Mohawk CD complete, Hill is writing and arranging a new solo record, aiming to release it by fall. And she's currently enjoying her third collaboration with Six Nation's artist and filmmaker, Shelley Niro. The musician's haunting score for Niro's 2003 short film, The Shirt--which was selected for the Venice Biennale and the Sundance Film Festival--was widely praised.
  Composing for film requires study of the script, searching for the best way to express the director's vision. " I love it: unlike songwriting, your'e actually focused more on what you want the audience to feel."
  "It's very challenging and very much intuitive for me."
  Hill is eyeing the idea of screenwriting herself, as another outlet for her narrative bent. A veteran storyteller--she's always making up tales for her three young granddaughters--Hill stretched that genre a couple of years ago by writing her first play. Called Wooly's Umbrella, it's a comic work anchored in native issues.
  "Whether I'm singing, writing, drawing or creating a story, I'm always doing something in the arts," says the mother of two and grandmother of three who prefers not to give her age.
  "I like the idea of always being an artist, until I die."
  Once in a while, the musician finds time to head south to Tennessee. Hill spent nine years in Nashville, moving there in 1986 to boost her songwriting skills. She took music business studies at Belmont University in Nashville, and hooked up with a publisher, which handled her songs for 2 1/2 years. After that, she headed bacvk to Canada, spending time out west performing at coffee houses and festivals for a couple of years. Back in Tennessee, she resumed working with publishers, while retaining rights to some songs.
  "The ones I liked, they didn't want," she says, including material which ended up on her Juno-nominated disc, Love That Strong.
  While never scoring a major hit--she jokes that many famous stars said 'No' to her songs, with an equal number saying 'Maybe' -- Hill doesn't regret her time in Nashville.
  "I'm so glad I did that. I went there to learn how to be a songwriter and boy, do you learn your chops there."
  She returned to Canada in 1995, largely because her two sons were suffering "cultural lonliness" in Nashville. "I've had people say to me, 'Oh you gave up.'
  "No, I had to shift focus and responsibility to my family. I had to come home."
  Since then she has been working to promote understanding and appreciation for native music. While Western arts have long been accorded prestige and respect, there is lesser acholwledgement for traditional native dance and song.
  "I want to educate people tor realize that, if yoiu are a Western composer studying classical music, that is no more or less valuable than a a traditional dancer or singer, learning songs that have existed for eons and knowing where to place the beats or when to introduce the vocables.
  "There's no difference there."

Setlist

Earth Song (Mohawk Language)
Too Long Away
Maybe I'm Crazy
Our Mother (Mohawk Language)
Will You Love Me Still
Thirty Years of Tears
Steelworking Man
The Tobacco Song
A Soldier Cries
Ise Onkwehohweh (Mohawk Language)

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