From Winnipeg to Abbey Road Studios for Sheena Grobb
Sheena Grobb has advice for anyone who will listen: "Don't get in your own way."
The singer/songwriter has learned to let things unfold organically. Perhaps since she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Grobb is working on many things, including the release of a new CD this fall, in tandem with her Living Compassion Project. She is Bruce Ladan's guest on SCENE this weekend.
Sheena Grobb lives and breathes music. She says she was singing before she was talking.
"My mom has a beautiful voice and so she can't help but give a lot of herself to me," she explained. "I've noticed that my voice changes as my life changes. It's like there's something that's transmitted through voice that is hard to explain."
Grobb just posted a video from her last CD Get Out Alive.
Lindsay Nelko, a Winnipeg choreographer had googled the word 'alive' and Grobb's song popped up. As a dancer (So You Think You Can Dance), Nelko related to the song so much that she contacted Grobb and suggested they work together.
"We just went with it," said Grobb. "Within two weeks we shot my footage in Winnipeg and they shot theirs in L.A. It was so easy and so effortless. It felt perfect."
Grobb subtly released the video into the world last month.. From her second CD Grow, she had written the song when she was paralyzed, due to her illness.
"That song in itself symbolized so much of what I was going through," she explained. "So it will stay with me my entire life. Whatever album it's on, it's important."
On top of it all, Grobb's upcoming CD is being mastered at Abbey Road Studios in London. Again, it happened with very little effort, as though it was meant to be.
"That's what's so strange and so affirming for me," she explained. "For so long I was trying to fit some kind of mold, trying to do things a certain way."
The person helping her with production is Ervin Bartha from ClearLight Sound. He sent one of Grobb's songs - The Breakless Heart to Abbey Road in London and asked what they thought of it.
"They loved it. These are the same people who are working on Lord of the Rings!" exclaimed Grobb "It was an affirmation for me that even in little old Winnipeg where I made these songs that were not even over-produced, that it can garner that kind of feedback. It meant a lot."
Hear more about Sheena Grobb's Living Compassion Project on Scene with Bruce Ladan on Saturday May 24. SCENE airs every Saturday from 5 - 6 p.m. on CBC Radio One, 89.3 FM/990 AM/97.9 FM in Brandon.
