Artist InformationBiography
Winner 2008 East Coast Music Awards Female Recording of the Year
Winner 2007 Mountain Stage Newsong Contest
Winner 2007 NS Music Awards Best Folk Recording & Galaxie Rising Star
Winner 2007 PEI Music Awards Best Folk Recording & Female Vocalist
Nominee 2007 Canadian Folk Music Award Best Solo Artist
By the end of every live show, Rose Cousins has you feeling something. Intimate vocals and warm guitar convey a passionate honesty that leaves you feeling like each of her songs could somehow belong to you. Since releasing her first EPs, Only So Long (2002) and Miles To Go (2003), Cousins has spent time carving a place for herself in the songwriting community in her adopted home base, of Halifax, NS, nationally and in the US. With her distinctive stage performance, audiences can find themselves in tears one moment and fits of laughter the next. Her style is beautifully captured in her latest release and first full-length recording If You Were For Me.
While growing up on a potato farm on Canada’s Prince Edward Island, Cousins developed her musical ear listening to whatever her mother had playing on the stereo, record player or to her own clock radio. The second eldest of five children, Cousins would use her father’s cassette recorder to capture music from the radio and movies on TV, and play it by ear on the old piano in the living room. Though she journaled and wrote poetry as a young girl, she only ever composed instrumental pieces. Her first performances were singing with her mother and older sister in their small town church.
Rose left the Island to pursue a secondary education, and on her first day, made friends with a fellow resident who owned a guitar and set out to learn how to play. On her 19th birthday, she purchased her first guitar. Two years later, in 1997, Rose played her first open mic in Halifax, and proceeded to play the circuit steadily for the next four years. On a mission to hone her skills, Cousins’ spent hours learning the works of her growing influences and performing them live (Patty Griffin, Joni Mitchell, Ani Difranco, Shawn Colvin, Sarah Harmer), while starting on her own material behind the scenes. She performed her own songs, with lyrics, for the first time in 2001.
After working full time for six years and playing on the weekends, she left a full-time job in September 2005 and has yet to look back. It was a mere month after setting out on her own to pursue music solely, that she was approached by CBC producer, Glenn Meisner, after he heard her perform on a live taping for CBC Radio’s Atlantic Airwaves. Meisner and CBC Radio offered her support and what followed was the recording of If You Were For Me, a collection of songs cultivated from her rural upbringing, thoughtful observation, and lonesome heart.
“It seems when you finally open up to opportunities, they end up presenting themselves and recording with CBC is something I had always wanted to do. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect and I’m lucky to be among the few artists that receive this opportunity.”
If You Were For Me draws on influences from traditions of folk, bluegrass, pop and Appalachian music. Released in September 2006, the record has been receiving regular airplay on and praise from radio stations across North America (CBC Radio Canada, WUMB Boston, WYEP Pittsburgh, WFUV New York).
A year after her big transition, she had not only a new record and a steady touring schedule, but two 2007 East Coast Music Award nominations: SOCAN Songwriter of the Year and CBC Galaxie Rising Star Recording of the Year. The strength of her music and her growing profile have placed her on stages with Canadian greats including David Francey, Lynn Miles, Joel Plaskett, Jill Barber, Bob Snider, Ron Hynes, Luke Doucet and Chris Whiteley and well known US folk artists John Gorka, Cheryl Wheeler, Lori McKenna, Darrell Scott, Edie Carey, Mark Erelli, The Weepies, Jennifer Kimball and Catie Curtis. She has earned great respect among her peers is often called upon to lend her vocals to other recording projects.
In the summer of 2007 Rose performed at the Ottawa Folk Festival (Aug) and the Strawberry Music Festival in California (Sept). She was the only Canadian finalist and winner in the 2007 Mountain Stage Newsong Contest, including the honour of performing on Mountain Stage.
Cousins entered the fall with four Nova Scotia and four PEI Music Award Nominations taking home two from each province: Best Folk Recording and Female Vocalist of the Year in PEI and Best Folk Recording and CBC Galaxie Rising Star/New Artist in NS. She also received a Canadian Folk Music Award nomination for Best Solo Artist.
In 2007, Rose joined with colleagues Jill Barber and Meaghan Smith at CBC Radio Halifax to record a collection of Christmas songs called A New Kind of Light – Songs of Christmas. The recording, in conjunction with a sold out benefit concert, helped to raise $161,000 for Maritime food banks.
She begins 2008 with a busy schedule and a win at 2008 East Coast Music Award for Female Recording of the Year.
“Neither folk nor country, Cousins straddles that middle ground blazed by strong, independent singer-songwriters like Shawn Colvin before her, a similarly fresh voice rising above cliché, one armed with an exceptional grasp of pop sensibilities.”
- Exclaim! Magazine
“It’s no wonder Cousins’ is the object of audience affection…..”
- The Boston Globe
“Her resumé shines, but her songs are the real story, as Cousins, whose voice rings as true as a bell, spins forlorn folk dissertations on fear, desire and love that burn with a quiet, spine-tingling intensity.”
- Ottawa Xpress
“…Intimate and inspired, If You Were for Me is subtle in scope, generous with gesture and reveals the soft soul of an artist finding her voice in full folk stride. One of the best local releases in 2006, this work puts her in standing alongside Joel Plaskett and Matt Mays as one of HRM’s finest storytellers. 4 stars”
- Halifax Daily News
Instrumentation
MOST OFTEN:
Rose Cousins - acoustic guitar, mandola, piano, vocals
Other accompaniment may include:
double bass
electric guitar
cello
viola
violin
drums
Discography
ALBUMS
The Send Off (2009)
If you were for me (2006)
Miles To Go (2003) EP
Gingers On Barrington Street (2003) live w Craig Cardiff
Only So Long (2002) EP
ROSE ALSO APPEARS ON:
Christina Martin - Two Hearts (2008)
Old Man Luedecke - Proof of Love (2008)
A New Kind Of Light - Songs of Christmas (2007)
Craig Cardiff - Goodnight (Go Home) (2007)
Thom Swift - Into the Dirt (2007)
Two Hours Traffic - Little Jabs (2007)
Jenn Grant - Orchestra for the Moon (2007)
Matt Mays - When the Angels Make Contact (2006)
Edie Carey - Another Kind of Fire (2006)
Jill Barber - For All Time (2006)
In Flight Safety - The Coast is Clear (2006)
Ruth Minnikin - Marooned and Blue (2004)
Voices for V-Day (compilation)
Don't Mind Me (compilation)
Heavy Blinkers – IPX - EP (2003)
Ruth Minnikin - solo EP (2003)
Matt Mays - Matt Mays (2002)
Links
| http://www.rosecousins.com |
| Rose Cousins Website |