David & Nancy

There is a vibrant circuit of serious musi- cal talent all around Montreal; you just have to know where to look! Some of these musicians have made a go of it in the music business and then went off to other pursuits, some still do it as a hobby, and others are up-and-comers seeking that big break. Singer/songwriter and
musician Nancy Lee is all of the above. Though out of the music business for many years,
she is now coming back with a vengeance, though not as the lead singer of hugely popular blues and rock bands as she had been in her youth. Instead, she’s back on her own with a fresh, new outlook on life. Nancy comes by her musical talents honestly, as both her parents and all five brothers played some form of instrument, and Nancy took up the guitar and started writing her own melodies at a very young age.
By the mid 80’s, Nancy and her husband were in successful touring bands but decided to put their musical dreams on hold to have children. Though they both worked jobs they were not particularly
enamoured with, it made for a comfortable family lifestyle. Sadly, Nancy’s guitar began gathering dust, but the lure of expressing herself through music was never far from her thoughts. Then, when tragedy struck in 2007 and her husband suddenly died, leaving her alone with two teenagers, Nancy realized the only way to work through the pain was to revisit her first passion—music.
It was tough at first to return to her early dreams of recording original songs and entertaining on stage, but today Nancy Lee is back on the road. She says, “Music has the power to totally transform even the saddest of emotions when you connect to others through it. When I am on stage, I really feel like I have come full circle back to home.”
Check out her website for upcoming dates, or visit the fabulous little music café Couer du Village in St. Isadore on Thursday nights, where she often performs live along with many other talented musicians. Visit: www.myspace.com/nancyleesings and http://coeurdevillage.wordpress.com.
SUSAN CAMPBELL - Luxury Report Magazine

The last time I saw David Sherman was a couple of winters ago. He was in the lobby of the converted Bain St-Michel, a Mile End performance venue, greeting the opening night crowd for The Daily Miracle, his new play about newspapers and what ails modern journalism. In his previous life as a Gazette copy editor, David had steered some of my stories onto the pages of our newspaper, but this time my review got someone else’s eyeballs before going to print. He sent me a thank-you note the next day and I thought that was nice. Then, two nights ago, driving back from a Father’s Day visit with my folks in the country, I happened upon David again. He was riding his bike near my corner in the Plateau Mont-Royal. We were both stopped at the same red light. “Well, if it isn’t David Sherman,” I hailed him. “Are you still writing?” Yes, he replied, he was, and added with a bit of a wink: “And what about you?” An hour later there was an e-mail in my in-box. Subject: “Come on by.” Message: “Sometimes I write songs.” Attachment: An invite to the launch of his first CD, titled If I Could Run, happening the next day at L’Inspecteur Épingle, a popular saloon just around the corner from my place. CD launch? Wasn’t David simply a playwright now? Is it possible to be both a playwright and a musician? Curious, I went to see what it was all about.
It was a 5-à-7. At a quarter past 6, David took the stage with his guitar and his band: a bassist, two guitarists (one was veteran Andrew Cowan of the Stephen Barry Band) and a young women David had apparently picked up at Steve’s Music Store and put through a brief rehearsal – “12 minutes,” he said – to harmonize on vocals. I stood at the bar, ordered a pint of Boréale Rousse and watched the short set. There were five songs, three uptempo, two down, about love and loss and friendship. One was even about journalism: a mournful ballad called Dead Angels, which David prefaced by saying he was thinking of all his colleagues who’ve taken buy-outs or the ones who spent two years locked out of the Journal de Montréal. I was trying to figure out who David sounded like: a poor man’s Guy Clark? or maybe John Prine, with that same nasal lilt in his voice? I turned to the fellow standing next to me at the bar, Victor Labelle, who runs the Mariposa Café in N.D.G., where David and his band usually play. “For me, he’s more of a J.J. Cale,” Victor told me, and he was kind of right. Floating through the small crowd shooting footage of the event was David’s other half, the documentary filmmaker Francine Pelletier. I didn’t ask her opinion. Maybe I should have.
As the mini-concert ended, the locals at the back of the bar had a question for me. “C’est qui, ce gars-là? Il vient d’où?” I told them he was David Sherman, “un gars de Montréal.” They looked perplexed. A Montrealer, singing entirely in English in the heart of the Plateau? “Un Montréalais d’adoption, peut-être,” they said skeptically. When David came down from the stage, I told him some of the bar’s regulars were wondering where he was from. He said he’d go set them straight. “I’m from here,” he said. Indeed he is – and Montreal’s artistic community is all the better for it.
On the way out, I ran into my Gazette colleague Irwin Block, who told me he’s writing a feature story on David, an old friend, for the upcoming issue of The Senior Times monthly newspaper. Why David? How many guys do I know who put out their first record at 59 years old, Irwin asked me. Indeed, indeed. Journalism on the wane or journalism on the cusp of a brave new future, where there are words and music, there’s hope for us all.
* David Sherman’s 11-song record If I Could Run, produced by Big Fat Truck, is available for download on iTunes.
jheinrich@montrealgazette.com
- See more at: http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/2011/06/20/cd-launch-david-sherman-at-linspecteur-epingle/#sthash.FTBfQpso.dpuf - The Montreal Gazette