Harmonies blend in trio
April 14, 2000
Three voices, three lives. But the Sirens have a singular vision.
"This is a form of art for us," said Nora Galloway, 45, one of the London-based singers who teamed up with a couple of friends three years ago to form Sirens.
Hatched on a night before Christmas in 1997, the Sirens had no idea they could make such beautiful music together.
Each had her own musical interest and was working on a solo career.
"We knew of each other," said Donna Creighton, 35. "I got a call from Jo-Ann (Lawton) who was doing a Christmas show and she wanted some harmony.
"Nora had been singing with her already and I had been bugging the two of them to let me in."
After the first rehearsal, it was like they'd been separated at birth.
"It was an epiphany for all of us," said Creighton. "Each one had been thinking about quitting music because we didn't want to go it alone. Then this happened."
The effect is uncanny, even for the trained ears of their families.
Said Lawton, 46: "When we listen to what we have taped in harmony, you really have to listen hard to identify what part you have sung."
Even Creighton's daughter couldn't pick her mom out of the mix.
"It very much broadens the sound of each of us," said Lawton.
They have obviously latched on to something. The Sirens' self-financed CD, Smilin', released last year independently, was just picked up for distribution by Borealis Music, one of the foremost folk labels in Canada.
The CD was produced and engineered by acoustic veterans Bill Garrett and Paul Mills. All 14 songs are originals, a daring effort by an unknown and untested group.
"It's very important," said Lawton, "for us to have the creative element. It knits us together as a group. When the songwriter brings a song to the group, she has specific ideas about where to go with it. But all three have input and the song can often change direction completely."
Lawton, a mother of two who has worked as a volunteer over the years, only got interested in playing music in her 20s, after the birth of her first child.
"I never really thought of it as a career," she said. "I just started listening to folk because up to that point I didn't hear anything on the radio that I liked."
Creighton, a high school supply teacher, has studied music since childhood.
"I went through the whole classical route as a kid. Musical instruments were the toys in our house."
Her mother, grandmother, and a sister have all taught music. And for a time, that's what she thought she'd do.
"Teaching music was the only real respectable way to earn money as a musician," she said.
Galloway worked her way up through London and area bars and clubs. While living in Stratford, she wrote music for a theatre group and learned guitar as a kid. One of the first folk songs she learned was Gordon Lightfoot's Pussywillows, Cattails.
"I never thought about whether I would make a living at it," she said. "It was what I loved to do and it was extremely rewarding."
Each singer brings a different set of life experiences to the group.
Creighton's song, Rocking, on the Smilin' album, is about her teenage son -- she was just 17 when he was born. It relates her own struggles as a teenage mother.
Em's Song, by Galloway, is a touching tribute to her mother, who died of Alzheimer's disease.
"This sounds eccentric," Galloway said, "but that came to me in a dream. I thought I heard her feet shuffling, but then I realized it was the sound of the furnace that my dream identified as my mother."
Em's Song can bring audiences to tears. When the Sirens sang it in Michigan recently, the audience rose to its feet and applauded at the end.
"It was so personal," said Galloway, "it took me a while to let the others sing it."
The song is performed a capella and is one of the most memorable on the CD.
All of the Sirens' songs come from personal experiences, a mark of their maturity as performers and adults, said Creighton.
"There's plenty of music for 20-year-olds and you can always listen to classic rock. But where's the music for people our age? Where are the songs that speak to us?"