Rita MacNeil
Rita MacNeil ( born May 28, 1944 in Big Pond, Nova Scotia, † April 16, 2013 in Sydney, Nova Scotia ) was a Canadian folk and country music singer and songwriter.
Life and work
Rita MacNeil was born in Big Pond, a village with about 50 inhabitants in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. Her parents were Neil and Catherine (Rene ) MacNeil, who had three sons and five daughters. Rita MacNeil, her fifth child was born with a cleft palate to the world, which was later corrected surgically. She grew up in a financially and socially unstable environment. At 17, she broke out of high school, moved to Toronto and began as a folk singer performing in clubs and to write lyrics, although she had never received professional musical education and also could not write notes. Your livelihood, she earned with low-paid part-time jobs, including as a department store employees at Eaton 's. For a brief relationship with her daughter Laura came out, it brought on 15 April 1966 in Big Pond to the world and let raise there by their parents, while she returned to Toronto and continued to work on her career as a musician. There she met the technical illustrator David Langham, whom she married in 1967. On April 30 In 1970, their son Wade in Toronto to the world.
In addition to her work as a musician himself MacNeil became increasingly involved in the local women's movement and fought for the equality of women. These activities inspired her to some of her first songs that were sung at demonstrations and meetings. So they wrote the song Born a Woman in 1972 as a protest against a local beauty contest. From Toronto, they later moved to Ottawa before they temporarily returned with her husband in their home. In 1975, she published in the Canadian independent label Boot Records Ltd.. her first album Born a Woman. The second, Part Of The Mystery, was published six years later and was financed by MacNeil's family and friends. Followed by another independent album. Through an appearance at the Expo 86 in Vancouver MacNeil first drew international attention.
1982 MacNeil bought a former, consisting of one room school building in Big Pond, where she then lived for several years. In 1986, she opened there Rita 's Tea Room, a restaurant with a gift shop, which became a center of attraction for tourists in the course of her musical career.
MacNeil wrote in 1987 under a contract with the label Virgin Records that their album Flying on Your Own brought out in the same year. Thus she succeeded at the age of 43 years, the breakthrough as a musician. The album placed on # 27 in the Canadian charts and reached double platinum status (from 200,000 records sold ). Also published in the following year album Reason to Believe was commercially successful and gained double platinum .. Reason to Believe reached number 20 in Canadian, # 32 in the UK and number 17 in the Australian album charts, where it remained a total of 21 weeks. The away single from the Working Man, a person acting by miners ballad had, MacNeil written after a visit to the mine Princess Colliery in Sydney Mines. She carried them along with The Men of The Deeps, a Canadian choral ensemble of miners from Cape Breton Iceland, inter alia in 1989 at the Juno Awards ceremony. Working Man was one of their most successful songs, reaching # 11 in the UK charts.
Until the mid- 1990s, MacNeil released a new album, all of gold to triple platinum status obtained and placed in the Canadian hit parade almost every year. Her musical repertoire consisted of folk, country, blues, Celtic music, roots and rock. Her total of 24 albums including several compilations with Christmas carols. MacNeil had very overweight and suffered from lifelong bouts with shyness in front of live performances, what their success as a musician, however, did not diminish.
From 1994 to 1997 MacNeil hosted the CBC music hall show Rita & Friends, which consistently had one to two million viewers and in 1996 was awarded a Gemini Award in the category Best Performance in a Variety Program or Series. Published in 1998, MacNeil with co- author Anne Simpson her autobiography On a personal note. In 2000, she reunited with The Men of The Deeps. They released the album Folk Mining the Soul and went on tour together. The Canadian pianist Frank Mills they did 2010 Christmas album out and took in the same year a concert tour with him. In 2012 they released their last album Saving Grace, after eight years on the original songs were heard for the first time. In the winter of 2012/2013 they toured again with Frank Mills by the Maritime Provinces, Ontario and Saskatchewan. Among her recent live performances belonged to participate in the "Sound Celebration" at the East Coast Music Awards 2013 in Halifax. She was accompanied by the orchestra of Symphony Nova Scotia, with whom she had worked several times in the late 1980s to 1999 ..
Rita MacNeil, who had scheduled more shows for the summer 2013, died on April 16 of the year with 68 of complications after surgery. She left behind her daughter and her son Wade Langham, who had recently served as her manager.
Awards
Rita MacNeil has been nominated 13 times for the Juno Award and won him three times: in 1987 in the category of Most Promising Female Vocalist of the Year, 1990 Female Vocalist of the Year and in 1991 as Country Female Vocalist of the Year.
In 1991 she was appointed Member of the Order of Canada. Five universities awarded her honorary degrees. In 2005 she was awarded the Order of Nova Scotia. It also won several East Coast Music Awards and Country Music Awards.