Lorraine was born a three-pound preemie Brit RAF brat and spent the first decade bouncing between England and Southeast Asia. Music is one of the first things she remembers. At nine months old, she would put out her hand and rest her face against her father's to dance "Cheek to Cheek" Rather than television, she remembers pulling the chairs around the fish tank, listening to either classical or big band music and watching the fish dance. She was always writing stories and making up songs, especially in the bath-tub~or when she was supposed to be asleep. Water, writing and insomnia are still faithful companions.

Mid-sixties found her in Toronto, Canada~freezing-off things she hadn't had time to grow yet! She begged for piano lessons rather than ice-skates...but got a one-way ticket to Palookaville....and ice-skates. During rehearsals for the high school musical Oliver, she discovered she could make a big belting sound~rattling the lockers. By age fourteen she was skipping classes to go play at coffee-houses in a folk trio. She chomped at the bit until she graduated at sixteen and has followed the Muse ever since. Her first band experience came two years later, in Vancouver, BC, after singing her way to and from Halifax, Nova Scotia~on the road that was the Revolution of Love.

By the eighties she was living and working in New York(married an American musician) lucky enough to get in on the A list of session players, working for nearly twenty years~recording sessions, gigs, TV, and movie soundtracks~with her heroes....people like Steve Holley (Paul McCartney, Joe Cocker, Julian Lennon, Ian Hunter, to name a few of the bands he's played drums for) Jimmy Vivino (Late Show with Conan O'Brien's guitarist) Larry Campbell (now touring with Bob Dylan) Larry Eagle (now touring with Springsteen) and Red Sedan....Arthur Suydham, that is (movie soundtrack: The Feud with Stanley Tucci and Rene Aubergenois) These were busy, learning times~she studied voice for three years with Professor Bonnie Kirk from the Brooklyn Academy of Music to learn her instrument and make it last. Her song-writing partnership with Hank Bones was prolific~their song "Three Good Reasons" reached number seven on the Cashbox Indie Charts. Her favourite statement during these years, "This will go good in the autobiography!" The insomnia was very helpful with the twenty-one hour workdays and two kids to raise....notebooks of writing began to fill trunks....and baths were sanctuary.

In the '90's, Lorraine was pulled by incredible forces~back to the best coast. She came to say goodbye to her best friend, dying of breast cancer. As she walked down a country road on Salt Spring Island, a car came round the bend and pulled off. An old and bent Native American man got out of the car and took Lorraine in his arms. Nothing was to be the same again....even the music became about something more. Within three years of meeting the Shaman, Grey Wolf, she was "adopted" by him, living with him for a time in '94. Two years later Lorraine, her husband and daughter said goodbye to New York and moved to the left coast. The music~and her son~can pull her back east every once in a while but the magic and home is here.

A year after moving and feeling semi-retired, Lorraine met Tom Hume who invited her down to his place and a little "jazz session" with Ed and Mark. She wasn't sure about doing this "jazz" thing, didn't know what she would do with it....but muscle-memory held some of the standards she'd listened to as a child. The first thing that hit her was being able to hear herself!! Suddenly she could play with the nuance and texture of melodies, instead of having to powerhouse over a wall o' amps. This felt so good. Suddenly a whole new energy came into her writing, everything gelling together at the right time for her very own style. The addition of T3 on the drums a couple of years back made the rhythm section cook. Ten years after leaving New York, Lorraine is right where she wants to be~with Jazz Musette....or....awake, in the bath, with a notebook.

 

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