Five years ago, Amanda Stott was that young, farm girl with the powerful voice. Today, her voice is just as powerful, but it now has more texture and taken new directions as musical influences have reached her beyond the farm.
Yukoners will get a chance to hear how her voice has developed April 13 at the Yukon Arts Centre.
“Growing up on the farm, I knew there was a band called, The Beatles, but I never heard them much,” she says over her cell phone from the middle of a crowded food court in Toronto. She is there to prepare for a performance at Massey Hall.
“I’m so excited,” she says. “A lot of people say it is the best venue for performing.
“And I’ve never even seen it before.”
As the “Amanda Stott Story” goes, she awoke at 5:30 each morning and milked Annie, the cow. And, when it was time for her nap, she would fall asleep in front of her parent’s speakers that constantly carried songs from a country station. At the age of three, she was already singing at the community church.
“I’m proud of growing up on the farm,” she says today. “When you grow up on the farm all you want to do is live in the city, but I learned a lot from the farm.
“Farmers put a lot of work into the land and have no guarantees of getting anything out of it. I learned to take chances.
“And it’s the Prairies … there is a lot of breathing space.”
It has made her the person she is, today, “and I’m comfortable where I am. I always want to make sure I’m comfortable with who I am.”
Her latest CD, Chasing The Sun, has six songs on it that she co-wrote. It is an ability she has cultivated that allows her to say what she wants to say.
She says it feels odd to have the CD out because she worked on it for three years.
The CD introduces a new chapter in her life: “I went from being a kid living at home to a kid living on her own.” Her next CD may include images of the Yukon. She says she will bring a pen and paper because she never knows what will inspire her.
At the very least, she will be writing lots for her blog on her website, www.amandastott.com. “Every week, I find a computer and tell people what I’ve been up to,” she says. “It’s how I stay in contact with the fans.”
Although this is her first trip to Whitehorse, she says she knows we don’t live in igloos: “People think that even we live in igloos in Manitoba,” she says. Information on her performance is available at www.yukonartscentre.org.
Amanda Stott will be performing at the Yukon Arts Centre April 13.
