By Jim Barber
In the midst of the epoch-shaking Grunge movement and the ascent of hip hop on the charts, transforming the music industry and dominating the cultural conversations, a powerfully daring, blissfully emotive and dynamically vibrant song ‘Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover’ stole the spotlight when the video first hit the airwaves in 1992.
The daring sensuality and potent authenticity of the performance by then rising New York singer/songwriter Sophie B. Hawkins was a breath of fresh air, and a passionately bold undermining of the conventional definitions of sexuality and romantic longing. It made a star of Hawkins and an unexpected success of her debut album, Tongues and Tails,
Two years later, the prodigiously talented multi-instrumentalist, singer and poetically gifted songwriter released her follow-up album, 1994’s Whaler, which featured the hit songs ‘As I Lay Me Down,’ and ‘Right Beside You,’ and is the subject of a fall acoustic tour that sees the New York City native playing re-imagined versions of the album. And she’s coming to Canada, starting Oct. 16 with a show in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. That’s followed by shows in Camrose and Fort Saskatchewan in Alberta, back across the border into Prince Albert, Sask., before heading east to Brandon and Winnipeg, Manitoba. Hawkins then returns to Alberta for shows in St. Albert, Red Deer and Calgary, before wrapping up in Vancouver. B.C. on Oct. 29, and Victoria Oct. 30.
Hawkins subsequently released the albums Timbre in 1999, Wilderness in 2004, The Crossing in 2012, and the critically-lauded Free Myself in 2023, all on her own Trumpet Swan Productions label. She also portrayed legendary 1960s singer Janis Joplin in the play Room 105 in 2012, and appeared as herself in a 2013 episode of the hit TV show, Community. She is also a fierce and vocal advocate for animal rights, the environment and the LGBTQ community.
There is a mutual appreciation between Hawkins and Canada, and it goes back to the earliest days of her recording career, when ‘Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover’ was starting to ascend the charts. Canada was one of the first markets to pounce on what was, at the time, a bit of a revelation – a song and an artist that was operating outside of the norm of what pop music is supposed to be. It was a song, and album, and creative force whose heartfelt … and sometimes heart-rending authenticity clicked with Canadian music lovers.
“Canada has always been good for me from my first appearance on MuchMusic. I think my first gold record was from Canada. Canada appreciated me for myself; they appreciated my artistry and my personality. They didn’t find fault with it; they liked it. And I felt very welcome right from the beginning. I just feel very comfortable with Canadians because, especially with what’s going on in America, people really know and see Canada as a refuge of intelligent people with strong boundaries and respect for others,” she said, adding that she is not only looking forward to visiting communities in Canada’s west on her Whaler 30th Anniversary Tour in the fall, but also to performing at the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival, on Friday, July 11.
“I think with touring in general, there’s the initial ‘yes, I’ll do it,’ and then there’s this dread that a lot of musicians have because we honestly don’t love to leave home. We’re homebodies. We like to practice, write, you know – shuffle around in our little cave. But there comes an excitement that come in anticipation of a show. I know when I get excited about a tour or a show it’s when I talk to the other musicians and I realized that we’re a certain kind of people, and we meet each other and we love each other. And we’re going to do something amazing on stage. It is always amazing because there’s an audience there who’s expecting and wishing us well. And we’re up there doing what we set out to do in life. There’s something beautiful when that happens. So, the excitement came for me when I talked to the musicians who are playing with me on this show in Saskatchewan, who are both Canadian, and then I was like, ‘I love this. I can leave home for this. This is exciting.’”
Even an artist with a recording and touring pedigree as impressive as Hawkins understands that the logistics and economics of touring has changed significantly over the years, along with the nature of how music is consumed. This is why artists of all styles and levels of experience are trying to get gigs in places where there is a reasonable hope of success. It does her heart good to know that all of these centres in Canada want to hear her perform.
“I think for every artist, and it’s probably totally obvious to your readers, most artists are now doing double bills or more, or doing acoustic shows because there’s not enough money out there. And there’s no place in the music recording business where you can make money anymore to support yourself. You can’t make money on streaming. There’s no money in radio, obviously. There’s hardly any money in the sales of physical copies. So where does an artist ever make enough money to support a family? We’re pulling it together as much as we can by touring. But all artists, even the big artists, are doubling up in the big venues since COVID changed things,” she said.
“And I don’t know if it’s just because of COVID. I really don’t know what the answers to these questions and these issues are. But I do know it’s very difficult to survive as a musician and as a singer/songwriter the way that we used to be able to survive. It’s a new normal, and everyone’s adjusting.”
So, how has Hawkings adjusted and adapted and navigated through changes in the record label model, changes in the way music is consumed, changing tastes, technologies and times?
“For me, the sanity has always come from sitting down and writing songs. That’s not only who I am, it’s all of who I am. And the performance part is an extension of this person that you’re talking to. If I didn’t have to sing my songs; in other words, if other singers were singing my songs, I would never have got on stage, because I had no need to be famous. I appreciate people and I love that they love the songs and I’ll sing my guts out for any audience, but when I get off stage, I am just myself. I am serving people, making sure they have everything, what can I do for them? I’m very much a mother and a friend and I don’t need the fame, and I don’t need the attention. That’s where I’m coming from – it’s about what can I give to whomever. I’m someone who loves to write songs, loves to write books, loves to paint and has to make a living to do it. And it’s not because I don’t want to make a living, it’s not enough. So I think what I have to say to people who are creative is you have to recognize what the landscape really is and what you can tolerate – what compromises do you want to make,” she said, warming to the subject of artists collaborating together to try and steer society back to a place where art is more organic and, celebrated for what it is intrinsically not what revenue it generates, and where the artists are appreciated and supported.
“I feel if all artists, all musicians and creative people could bond together and said to Spotify or Apple and all the digital corporations, whoever owns the rights – and we have to do this on a governmental level too – we have to say we’re not going to put it out on those platforms any more. You can’t have anything. And I don’t know how that happens. I just don’t know the answer or the alternative to that. Maybe we just make our own physical things and tour and sell them physically at the venues. The thing is, we’re never going to make money, a fair living, if we keep tolerating making less than 1/16th of a cent for every spin because no one can survive on that. And I feel it actually should be illegal that people get our music for free. We need to make a new system and to be able to tolerate this new system. How do we tolerate this change? The truth is when you finally really come to understand how little you’re going to make in the current system, you will tolerate it because the way things are now, it’s not worth it. If it stays the same, and this is already happening, even for established artists, you’re going to have to get another job. If you’re a new artist, it’s highly doubtful unless somebody is bankrolling you with millions, that you’re even going to make a dent. If you don’t have that, you have to have another job. So, you might as well make it part of your job to make a new landscape for all artists. Decades ago, there was a time when songwriters had to fight for their rights, because they weren’t getting paid [royalties] and it had to be done on the political level. That’s where we’re at again today.”
“Even with young bands, no matter how enthusiastic they are and how happy they are to be out there making music and playing, they’ll very quickly come to realize how much work they’re doing, even just the driving, and the loading and unloading and the fact that they’re going to have to pay for the back line and pay for repairs to their gear and their vehicle. Yes, it’s true, when you get on stage, you love the audience so much and they love you right back, but there’s this big gap, and everyone should know about it, in terms of what it’s costing the artists to be there and what they get out of it. Luckily, I’m getting paid very well by the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival and I really appreciate them for that, but if not for that, there’s no way I could show up and pay the musicians I’m working with what they deserve to be paid. That’s why they call a gig like this a unicorn, and bravo to the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival for paying the artists and for being that unicorn. So, I don’t know. Other than live shows that actually pay, I don’t know what the answer is, except for going against these digital rights owners and saying, ‘you took too much. It isn’t legal, and we’re going to withhold them to you until you give us a better portion of the revenue.’ This is something we have to do.”
Hawkins sees herself, and all artists, as conduits of creativity, of harnessing a force that is both within them, and beyond them, to not just create things or ideas that stir the souls and spirits of those who witness them, but also help the artists themselves process life in all its complicated majesty.
“It’s important for a person who wants to be an artist to not quibble with it, to not even really know or acknowledge they are an artist, because I think the world will tell you when you’re an artist. We all go into this, and for me its music, because it heals us – my music heals me. It really does. It heals me, and it makes me grow so much. I couldn’t live without writing songs and writing the musical I’m writing and writing books. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t want to, let’s put it that way. What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t one day say, ‘I’m going to be an artist.’ I might have said I want to be, but the world will tell you when you are, and I think that’s an important distinction. If you can get lots of people who listen to you of your own accord and based on your own work and talent, they determine whether you’re truly an artist, rather than some foundation or the government, which can be very political. Get it to the people. Get it away from the politicians. Get it away from the elite. Get it to the people. And that’s a great thing about popular music. It’s about the people. It’s not about elite art. I don’t want to be an elite artist. I want to be an artist of the people,” she said, as she discussed how her artistry actually operates in real life and real time.
“I’ve done it like this every day that I can remember. I have journals from when I was in my teens. So, I wake up in the morning, I start writing in my journal, starting with writing down my dreams. And then it goes to current thoughts, and then it drifts into thoughts of what I’m working on, whether it’s my musical [Birds of New York], or a book, or a song – and things just happen. A phrase will come out and I’ll go, ‘okay, there it is. That’s the thing.’ And I’ll work on that. It’s just a way of life, of processing what’s happening and the angst, the hurts, the everything of life. I wake up and I start writing about them, and then it may turn into the next song, or the next something else. And then sometimes I wake up, I write in my journal and I say, ‘I think I’m just going to paint today.’
“And it is a discipline. Discipline is so key to my existence. It makes me happy. It makes me feel safe, and it keeps me going in the face of all these things that we’re talking about, all these things. So, discipline, I think, is very important for the artist, because what we do is work, and what you have to do is do as much of it as possible, or you won’t get anywhere. I haven’t really analyzed it, but there is something that happens when I’m writing. Sometimes I’ll just wake up with a thought, with a phrase, but I do write it down, and then whether I go to the piano, or to the script, or to the book, it depends on the kind of feeling, or the kind of momentum it has, or what’s needed. In general, I think the words probably do come first, in terms of songs. I think my mind floats a word, and then I see it there and see that it’s powerful for me, so I’m going to work with that. But then once I sit down at the piano, the music takes over, or the guitar. I don’t even care what instrument it is at the time, to be honest with you. All I want, in that moment, is to be surrounded in the sound and to find the chord changes that fit the mood. But it always seems to start with a word or two.”
Each of Hawkins’s albums have emotional and thematic tissue connecting all the songs, creating a unified ‘tone’ or ‘vibe’ that makes them special and unique – snapshots in life and times of the artist. But that overall motif doesn’t appear until the process of composition – be it for a song, first chapter of a book or scene for a theatrical show – is underway.
“For me what happens is there’s an opportunity. So and so wants to work with me, or maybe someone wants to fund a full album, or something like that will happen. Then I’ll say what is a possible theme that would be great right now? And often it comes from a song from way back, combined with a song I just wrote and they seem to pair each other. And the theme emerges. And I think the same thing happens with a book, and I think the same thing with a musician, is that as you’re writing, you’re sort of drowning in ideas and feelings, and then the hook comes,” she said.
“And the hook can be a hook of a song. It can be a thematic idea. I can be something where you say, ‘okay, that sounds like something I can latch on to.’ And then it dredges all the stuff that’s relevant to it. I think the thing about most songwriters is they do have tons and tons of songs in their drawer. That’s just a metaphor for wherever you keep your songs, that’s where they live. I think for book writers, they have piles and piles of drafts in different places. And then something comes into your life, an opportunity, and you see how this piece fits with that piece and then eventually more things fall into place. It’s not linear, I guess is what I’m saying.”
The theme of Whaler, which is the album being commemorated and celebrated on Hawkins fall tour, including the western Canadian dates, is one that differs significantly from her compelling and widely successful debut, Tongues and Tails.
“Tongues and Tails is a very heavy, intense album and the experience of having it out there in the universe is intense. And then when I would go back to my apartment and start writing the songs that became Whaler, on Christmas Eve actually, it was this very romantic, very light happiness. Whaler was a life lesson in a world where I felt I was never succeeding enough. You know, even though ‘Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover’ was so successful there was not a second single off the album. And there should have been. So, I felt like I was never doing well enough. I was trying to do the right thing, to make everybody else happy, at least in the record company. But it was never working. There were always people who were disgruntled and saying so to my face,” she said, talking about the reimagined version of the album, coming out in October, called Whaler-Re-emerging.
“Whaler was like my special place. My little tree house or my little boat in the middle of the ocean. And that’s why when I came back to it all these years later as a songwriter for Re-emerging, not trying to do the album again, but because I sat there and I said, ‘I loved writing these songs. I want to reconnect with that part of Sophie B Hawkins who wrote these amazingly romantic songs.’ And that’s what Whaler Re-emerging is all about. Because you can’t beat the album Whaler. I mean, maybe you could, but it is what it is, and it’s good for what it is. I wasn’t trying to compete with it or do better. It was really wanting to live in these emotions again that were a refuge for me.”
For more information on Sophie B. Hawkins, Whaler Re-emerging and her Canadian Whaler acoustic shows, which will feature the album played in its entirety, visit https://sophiebhawkins.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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