IDOW Presents – Charlotte Cornfield + Michelle Willis + Hello Delaware (duo)

  • September 25, 2018
    8:00 pm - 11:00 pm

In The Dead of Winter presents an early fall show with Charlotte Cornfield + Michelle Willis and Hello Delaware (duo format for this show!) at The Carleton on Tuesday, September 25th. Show time is 8 PM and tickets – $10 advanced (+taxes and fees) – are available HERE, or you can pay $15 at the door.

Toronto songwriter Charlotte Cornfield has been releasing music for over 10 years, and penning verses for longer than she can remember. A clever and innovative lyricist, she exists in the same continuum as progenitors of song like Bob Dylan and Neil Young, as well as more contemporary writers such as Courtney Barnett, Angel Olsen and Will Oldham. Vocally, Cornfield stakes out her own territory; by turns a lived-in, streetwise drawl, an octave-sweeping falsetto, and a comfortably crooning alto. In 2016 she released Future Snowbird, a follow-up to 2011’s critically acclaimed Two Horses, which The Record’s Coral Andrews calls “a folk-rock tapestry so raw and vulnerable, it’s almost as though she’s a fly on the wall of her own relationship.”

Prior to launching a solo career, British-born, Canadian-raised singer/songwriter Michelle Willis amassed an impressive résumé through a variety of collaborations and work as a session keyboardist and background singer. She graduated from Toronto’s Humber College jazz program, and began performing weekly residencies at piano bars across the city. It wasn’t long before she had expanded to become a hired gun for a variety of different acts like David Crosby, Becca Stevens, Laura Mvula, Snarky Puppy, Parachute Club and Zac Brown Band.
Her debut solo record, See Us Through, was released on GroundUP Music, a label started by three time Grammy Award-winner and founder of Snarky Puppy, Michael League. She has since toured her album across Europe, Scandinavia, USA, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore. Aside from leading her own band, Michelle is currently a member of both of David Crosby’s ‘Skytrails’ and ‘Lighthouse’ bands, the Becca Stevens Band, and the Justin Stanton project.

Growing up in rural Nova Scotia, Dana Beeler began her career as a solo country music artist. After one record, some cross-country touring, and a terrible break-up, Beeler was ready to branch out into new sounds. Enter Hello Delaware. “Being a band allows me to really let down my wall on stage and become the person I want to be,” she says. “I can be weird and honest and outpouring and abrasive, and not worry about how people will react.”

Beeler followed Halifax peers like Jenn Grant and Heather Green in amongst the trees of Echo Lake Studio to craft My Mistake with two-time ECMA producer of the year Daniel Ledwell. “Danny blew my mind and expectations on this album,” she says. “He played basically all the instruments, save drums and a few guitar parts, and created dynamic and beefy musical hooks that really make these songs everything I wanted for them.”

The result sounds like a Jenny Lewis who grew up in small-town Canada—less Hollywood, more trees—but emerged just as heartbroken, and as insightful about it. It’s Americana with shades of *Red*-era Taylor Swift, the elemental pop of Gwen Stefani while a splash of country seeps across the whole affair, as Beeler’s voice bends into a twang with lyrics like “there’ll always be one horse you can’t tame.”

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