Oh Susanna
Bio
Suzie Ungerleider, born in the USA but raised in Vancouver since a young child, has been performing under the name Oh Susanna since 1995. Suzie’s style is eclectic and diverse, to say the least. According to her website, her music "evokes stories older than this century, a ghostly remembrance of Civil War days filtered through Hank Williams' screwed up soul and Mick and Keith's electrified junk-induced blues with a hint of Leonard Cohen's fatalism."
The website WesternWheel.com says, "Her songs are inspired by historic events, love won and lost, and her own yearnings and wonderings about life. She sings hard-hitting blues, then switches to gentle, intimate melodies."
Suzie released her debut CD, a seven-song EP titled Oh Susanna in 1997, that she followed in 1999 with her first full-length album, the critically-acclaimed, Johnstown. Her third release,Sleepy Little Sailor came out in 2001.
Suzie appeared on two CMT TV specials in 2001, including an hour-long concert shot in Calgary. She also appeared on a Christmas Special where she sang "Once Upon a Midnight Clear" and Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." In 2002, two of Suzie's songs, "Alabaster" and "Tangled and Wild" were featured in Tully, an award-winning independent film.
In 2003, Suzie released her third full-length album, also titled Oh Susanna. Blue Rodeo’s Bazil Donovan played on the record and co-wrote a number of song’s including the album’s first single "Right By Your Side," which received extensive airplay on CMT.
"Some people like the really dark and moody, heavily blues-influenced wailing on the
Johnstown record," says Suzie, "and other people really like the lighter, 'in the sky,' dreamy feeling of
Sleepy Little Sailor. This one, I wanted it to be more like a band record. I was tired of being solitary."
Suzie is currently working on her fourth full length album, tentatively titled Looking Glass, which will be released in early 2007.
Sources: Oh Susuanna's official website, MapleMusic.com, WesternWheel.com
Relationship to Blue Rodeo
Oh Susanna can be linked to Blue Rodeo in a number of ways:
- Suzie is often accompanied by Bazil Donovan (of Blue Rodeo) and Joel
Anderson (of the Jim Cuddy Band) while performing.
- Suzie introduced Bob Egan to Blue Rodeo.
- Bob Egan played on Johnstown.
- Bazil has also collaborated quite extensively
with Suzie and has even written a few songs with her.
- Colin Cripps (of the Jim Cuddy Band) produced Sleepy Little Sailor.
- Suzie has opened up for both Blue Rodeo and the
Jim Cuddy Band numerous times.
- Suzie contributes guest vocals on The Light that Guides You Home, Jim Cuddy’s second solo album.
- Both Oh Susanna and Blue Rodeo were featured in BBC Radio 2’s "The Maple Music Revolution."
- The Jim Cuddy Band and Oh Susuanna were the featured guests on the season premier of CBC Radio One's "Fuse."
Quotes
"I met Bazil four years ago at the Horseshoe Tavern when I was playing in Toronto for the first time. A friend of mine dragged Bazil out to see me and had probably been talking me up quite a bit because when I met Bazil he looked quite skeptical and sullen - but knowing Bazil maybe he was just being his shy self. But I remember thinking to myself, 'These guys are weird (there were a group of them) and I can never see myself being friends with them.' Anyway I guess Bazil was impressed because he told Jim and Greg about me and suggested that I play at their Stardust Ball in Toronto that summer."
"Meanwhile I had returned to Vancouver to put together my life again because I had taken off three months earlier to see America through the windshield of a '71 Cutlass Supreme with a boy who eventually would drop me off at a bus station in Bristol, Tennessee because of our irreconcilable differences. I have not seen the boy since but I hear he is happily married to a mormon girl in Utah."
"Anyway, I had heard from my friend who had introduced me to Bazil that Blue Rodeo was considering me for this summer gig. I told my agent Frank about it and one day while he was making a highly unusual trip out of the office in which he literally lived he bumped into Jim at the Granville Island Market. It turns out that the band was mixing their record at Mushroom Studios. 'I hear you want Oh Susanna,' Frank said. 'I'll get her press package to you at the studio tomorrow.'"
"So Frank called me up and said, 'Go ride your bike down to the Studio and take these guys your CD and press kit.' So I did. I walked shyly into this small room full of 6 or 7 men all sitting squished together on some couches eating Indian food - but Bazil, the only one somewhat familiar to me was not there. 'Um, I am Suzie - Oh Susanna - and I am here to drop off this package.'"
"'Oh yes,' Jim said graciously, 'come in.' There were so many of them it was hard for me to tell who was in the band and who wasn't but this furry gray-haired mischievious guy said, 'Come here and sit down. Here, you want some Indian food?' And so I squished in beside him and he took my package and started reading it right in front of me and turning to me and just staring impishly into my eyes with our noses practically touching. I blushed and blushed but I just returned his stare with I am sure a very silly smile on my face. And that was my first introduction to Greg."
"And so that summer I came to Toronto to play what was probably my 15th gig in my life on a huge stage at Fort York opening for one of the biggest bands in Canada. I was completely aware at how lucky I was and how surreal the experience was. I kept saying out loud, 'I can't believe I am here.' I was nervous but I had a strange courage that inexperience gives you. And I realized how generous the band was to take this risk in asking a novice to share the stage with them. In fact it was that magical weekend at the Stardust Ball that made me take the plunge and move to Toronto."
"Since then there are more stories of how my life has been intertwined with and influenced by Blue Rodeo - playing and writing songs with Bazil who has been a dear friend and supporter of my music from the first day he heard it, playing some wacky gigs with Greg who decided it would be better if we played as a combo rather than as two separate acts, opening for Jim Cuddy and introducing him to Bob Egan who has now become Blue Rodeo's steel man, meeting Colin Cripps who has just produced my newest recording, meeting Alex de Cartier (at that Stardust Ball) who now works tirelessly with me."
"Blue Rodeo believes in helping people. Meeting them has been instrumental in steering the course of my life in the past four years and I am very grateful for that."
Related Web Links
The Official Oh Susanna Website
Last Updated
October 2006
Special Thanks To
Natalie