Music Makers

Serena Ryder’s little white body hides a big, Black voice. Tim McGraw bullies Vince Vaughn

When Serena Ryder won the Juno for Best New Artist earlier this year, she dedicated the prize to her co-manager Bonnie O’Donnell, who died in January.

The devastating loss floored Ryder, yet it also inspired the 24-year-old to write about half the songs on her new CD, is it o.k. (available November 11th).

“When something like that happens to you in your life, and that had never happened to me before so it was a very, very intense time, everything stops,” says Ryder on her cellphone from Dark Island (located in the St. Lawrence Seaway), where she’s recording an album with the band The Great Lake Singers. “I found I was more aware of the love that I have all around me.”

And it’s the theme of love, and the palpable loss of love, that you find running through the contemplative CD. Ryder is growing as a songwriter, and her distinctive bluesy, vibrato-tinged voice — imagine if Janis Joplin had been raised by Judy Garland — caresses each tune.

“My voice has always had a lot of vibrato, and it takes effort from me not to have vibrato and not be gravelly,” she says. “I’ve always been told, since I was a little kid, that when people close their eyes they think there’s a big, Black woman singing, and when they open their eyes there’s this skinny white thing.”

Singers On Screen Country music star Tim McGraw (left) torments Vince Vaughn this month when he plays  Vaughn’s bullying older brother in the comedy Four Christmases. McGraw, last seen in The Kingdom, has also signed onto Get Low, about a recluse (Robert Duvall) who decides to have his funeral while he’s alive so he can enjoy it, and is amazed when thousands of people show up.   Vintage Vinyl The Waking Eyes kick it old school with their third album, holding on to whatever it is, by actually releasing it as an album (you know those 12” vinyl things with a hole in the middle). The Winnipeg band draws on a variety of genres and the effort pays off big time. For those who don’t own a record player, the  CD hits shelves Nov. 4th.

Out this month

November 4

The Lines - Flood Bank
Hinder - Take It to the Limit
Fall Out Boy - Folie a Deux

November 11

Brandy - Human
Spindrift - The West
Taylor Swift - Fearless

November 18

Il Divo - The Promise
Nickelback - Dark Horse

November 25