Life is Delicious- Midlife, Menopause, Mindset, Miracles, Gen X Women, Empty Nest, Retirement, Self Improvement

Finding Your Voice: The Power of Claiming What's Inside You with Angela Kelman

• Marnie Martin • Season 1 • Episode 8

Share episode

Send us a text

Angela Kelman's musical journey started with a small town choir director that saw her authentic talent and her belief in her sparked a lifelong passion that would lead her to become the lead singer of Juno award-winning country group Farmer's Daughter, create children's music albums, and develop a revolutionary singing system that helps students find their authentic voice.

During our conversation, Angela shares the beautiful synchronicities that guided her career, from a choir director who advised against classical training to preserve her natural pop style, to the serendipitous airplane meeting that introduced her to her husband when she least expected it. Her story demonstrates how following your intuition—even when it seems to lead you away from conventional success—often brings you exactly where you need to be.

We dive deep into the challenges of life on the road, the difficult choices between career advancement and personal fulfillment, and the evolution that comes with listening to your heart's calling. Angela's candid reflections on knowing her worth and learning to ask for proper compensation will resonate with creatives of all disciplines who struggle to value their talents appropriately.

Beyond her musical accomplishments, Angela reveals how motherhood transformed her creative expression, leading her to develop children's albums and illustrated songbooks that earned Juno nominations. Her Five Point Singing System, born from years of teaching experience, demonstrates how our gifts can evolve and find new expressions throughout our lives.

Whether you're a music lover, a creative professional finding your way, or someone navigating life's unexpected twists, Angela's wisdom about resilience and self-discovery offers powerful insights for anyone seeking to live authentically and follow their inner guidance. Listen now to discover how claiming what's inside you—and speaking it into existence—can transform your life in ways you never imagined.

Find Angela Kelman here:

Website : www.AngelaKelman.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angelakelman

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/angelakelman

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/angelakelmanmusic

Find your host Marnie Martin here: 

Website : www.LifeIsDelicious.ca and  www.MarnieMartin.com

Email: lifeisdeliciouspodcast@gmail.com

Join the FREE Facebook Community here:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61566319975336

Speaker 1:

Hey guys, it's Marnie. I have an awesome guest for you today and I'm so grateful that you're here to check it out. But before we get into that, I want to tell you a bit of a story that you might not know about me. Back in 1979, my family and I took this road trip that was for about a month long, and we live in the interior of British Columbia, or did at the time. So we went down across the states and there was this really great little store that kind of had a little bit of everything. I can't remember the name of it, but my parents walked in there and picked up a and I'm going to date myself an eight track tape of the Carpenters. So on this month long journey we listened to that tape over and over and over, and at that time I was probably about 11. And I just fell in love with Karen Carpenter. So by the time I got home from that trip my parents were just like I think we should put you into some voice lessons, what do you think? And I was like I love that idea. So off I went into voice lessons and in high school I had a band called Line of Fire, so singing was something that was really one of my first loves before I got into being a voiceover artist.

Speaker 1:

I was in college and I was studying advertising and I had one of my friends who was a drummer come up to me and he said oh Maren, you got to learn about this school. It's so perfect for you. It's called Musicians Institute of Technology, it's right in downtown Hollywood, and I'm going to apply, and I think you should too. Back then that was way before the internet, so I don't even remember how I actually got the information, whether I mailed away for the catalog or how that worked, but I ended up auditioning and moving to LA and that's where I met today's guest.

Speaker 1:

Today's guest is Angela Kelman, and she is a Juno award-winning artist from Brandon Manitoba. She's most well known as the lead singer and principal writer of the Canadian country girl group Farmer's Daughter and after 10 years of touring with Farmer's Daughter and receiving multiple nominations and awards from BCCMAs to the Junos to the CCMAs, angela pursued her solo career, which she recorded several of her own albums spanning various genres and styles. She had a bossa nova style Café Brasilia. She had a Juno nominated children's album called Angela May's Magnificent Menagerie and in 2021, she had a disco album called Mirrorball. There's no style that Angela cannot do.

Speaker 1:

So we have so much history and so many fun things to talk about, and I am so excited, so let's get into it. I'm a multi-passionate entrepreneur, best-selling author, foodie and voiceover artist, and I created the Life is Delicious podcast with one simple mission in mind to help you add more flavor to your life and to help you write your own recipe for a life that feeds your soul. I'm so glad you're here. Good morning, angela. I'm so glad to have you here. Do you want to hear something super funny? Sure, we've been friends for over 35 years.

Speaker 2:

No, we have not, Marnie, because we're only 39.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's right, I forgot. I'm not supposed to tell anybody that's crazy to think that isn't. It? Isn't that insane? I was doing the math and I thought what is going on here, but I guess that's just life.

Speaker 2:

That is life. And then when you look at those things that people post about you know 1980 was so many years ago it's like, oh my dog, it was.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and we remember those days. We do remember those days barely. Yeah, exactly. My first question is take me back to when you were a little girl. When did you catch sort of the singing bug and what was your biggest influence that kind of led you into the performance space?

Speaker 2:

Well, that is. You know, that is a very interesting question. So I think I had an excellent choir director in elementary school and music teacher back in the days when there was a permanent music teacher on staff.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, that was amazing.

Speaker 2:

It was amazing and I give her all the credit for recognizing my natural ability and saying to my mom and this would have been about grade five, grade six, so what are you 10, 11? And I always loved to sing and everyone in my family could sing, even though they didn't do it like I did it. I was one of those kids that I get emails from parents about going. My daughter's always singing. You know, so can you help her? And so I just think I love music so much.

Speaker 2:

And it was Mrs McMunn in Brandon, manitoba, my elementary school teacher, that said to my mom you know she hasa gift, but I don't. I would advise you not to train her, which was a really big thing for her to say, because it's natural when parents are told that their kids have a gift and something to seek out, help for them or guidance for them. And Brandon Brandon School of Music at Brandon University, it was classical, mostly classical, and I think that and I'm not classical and classical is great, but I was just pop music all the way. So, between that happening and between my dad playing records like Nat King Cole and Petula Clark and Hank Williams on Sunday afternoons in our little house in Brandon Manitoba. You know, morning music speaks to us and so because everyone was musical in my family, I thought everyone could sing. So then you get into school and you realize the kid standing next to you in choir is like tone deaf and it's like are you, are you joshing us? You know, but no, actually it's a gift. It is a gift and I'm so grateful that I was chosen to have that gift of natural ability to hear and and duplicate melodies.

Speaker 2:

And then you know so then it started in grade six. I remember going to the local television show to do a Christmas carol performance with our principal who played the piano. And then from that came we moved into junior high and there was no music program and a bunch of us rallied and actually got a music program started in grade seven and so, and then it started like a piano player and I would sing in front of the school. And then it started like a piano player and I would sing in front of the school. And I mean I look back at that and go, you're 12 and 13 and you're getting up in front of a school of 300, 400 kids and singing for your peers, like I mean that's brave, that's brave, right. So for me it's always been this I don't know, divine intervention, something comes to me out of the blue, I don't question it, I just follow it.

Speaker 2:

And it's led me on this amazing life and case in point where we met in Los Angeles two Canadian girls meeting at a music school in Los Angeles. I had been working the scene in Winnipeg in the 80s and was busy and there was work and I was making a living wage. I was doing had a wonderful lounge partner who taught me so much. His name was Tom Dahl and we would do. We'd get house gigs all around Winnipeg and I was working 48 weeks a year and sometimes I was working like a cocktail hour and then going and singing late night in another lounge or with a band. So it was a great time to be a young, developing singer.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I learned so much from the School of Hard Knocks and from some mentors in my life, like Tom, and then you know kind of running my own band.

Speaker 1:

You learn a lot of things really quickly when you take on the role of band leader you know, that's such an amazing thing that you were advised not to be trained, because that's very similar. I started taking lessons at 11 as well yes and the teacher that I went to.

Speaker 1:

Actually she had this star pupil who was her opera kind of classical gal and she was like the be all and end all of this. You know her students and I remember listening to her sing and thinking I don't ever want to sound like that and that was such a. And so I actually took lessons with. Her name was Greta. I took lessons with her for probably two or three years and then I got to a place where I was like my I'm getting this is not working for me because I can't do the pop the same way. I don't want to lose that. So I quit and I said no more of that.

Speaker 2:

So very similar experience and in my teaching and I advise parents when they come to me, like I teach kids classes and I just love it and I teach adult classes too and it's, it's such, it's, it fills up my heart so much. But we can talk about that later. But I wanted to say that no disrespect to classical and operatic training, it's really but, you have to know what you want.

Speaker 1:

So what lane you want to be in?

Speaker 2:

for sure, so opera and classical are different. You use different techniques than you do with popular music and you cannot transfer all of those techniques into pop music. Like I can tell.

Speaker 2:

I walk into wherever and someone's singing a pop tune and I can tell instantly whether they've been operatically trained or not because you have to understand the difference and a couple of times I've had students who ended up going to CAPU in the music program and they come back to me and I go what happened to you? Right, it's like? No, I have to make you aware that you leave the operatic voice at the door when you come into my house wanting to learn how to sing pop songs.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Because that technique doesn't work with popular music.

Speaker 1:

It's a totally different sensibility Apples, and even the way you use your vowels and everything right? Yeah, yeah, it's apples and oranges. Yeah, totally. So here's a question because I've always been curious, and the reason I ask this question is because I love to sing and that's one of the reasons I ended up at school in Los Angeles with you, but performing was not something that came naturally to me. So where did your love of performing come from? And another reason I ask is because when you get on the stage and I remember just really admiring you for that so much when I was a young girl, because you were a little bit older than me, not by much, but you'd had lots more experience but you light up when you're on a stage and it's so apparent that it fills your heart and your soul and you bring this light with you. So where did that come from?

Speaker 2:

We feel music differently, those of us who make it our life passion. I think I've always maintained that we need to feel things a little deeper so that we can, when we get up on stage and sing and emote, we make everyone else feel something, because that's our job as a singer.

Speaker 2:

Our job is to interpret the song the way the writer intended it and to use all our skills natural or learned to deliver an emotional performance that makes your audience sit up, take notice and feel something, because so many people go through their lives not really feeling like we're do we just get on like, especially nowadays when everyone's so busy, and we kind of go into autopilot. And that's personal opinion. But, if you can, I think so many of us are drawn to music because it does remind us we're human, remind us we're emotional. The performance thing. I just love to entertain.

Speaker 2:

I used to think about myself I'm an entertainer first, I'm a singer second and I'm a songwriter third. And in any chapter in my life those may shift, whatever is the predominant one. But I think I and I grew up in a household in the in the seventies and eighties, I think that, and as a child back in the day when you could get lost in imagination, like we just had this great big yard and all the neighborhood kids and cousins would come over and we'd play. We'd play outside till dark and we'd make up plays and we'd dress up in my mom's bridesmaid gowns from 1956 that were in the playhouse out back Like just, we had a lot less distraction as children.

Speaker 1:

What a beautiful childhood. I mean, I remember that too.

Speaker 2:

Yes, we played and we learned so much from play. So it's a chapter of our life that was precious and helped form who we are today. But I think I got derailed which I often do at this age when I said I was working 48 weeks a year in Winnipeg and one morning in my beautiful brownstone apartment that was fabulous and affordable in Winnipeg, I woke up and a thought came to me I'm moving to Los Angeles. Oh, interesting, I have no idea where that came from. I have no idea where that came from.

Speaker 1:

How did you hear?

Speaker 2:

about the school. I don't even remember and I think, and it's not like you could get on the internet.

Speaker 1:

No no.

Speaker 2:

Right. So maybe, oh, I think that some friends, musical friends, in Edmonton had gone to MI and they were guitar players and they were telling me about it, and then I think I wrote away for the catalog, right Isn't that amazing how different things were back then.

Speaker 1:

Right, I know, and I remember doing my audition tape and this is just really going to date me. But you know my ghetto blaster record sing acapella into cassette tape, put it in an envelope and mail it off to LA. That's what I did. Cross your fingers and wait for an envelope to arrive.

Speaker 2:

But you know, we learned once we got there that they pretty much accept everybody. So what you know, it was nice to go. We got accepted. Yay't I awesome. Yeah, there's one girl in the class that's one step from tone deaf and then you go oh, but it was a great school it was a great school and I learned some skills from that, from kevin latau who worked with that girl, who actually got her to sing on pitch, and I still use that technique with some of my kids who struggle Heaven is amazing.

Speaker 2:

You know, as we've learned over the years, there's so much neurodivergency. Everyone learns differently. Music is one of the few things in life that can be left brain or right brain, and you will gravitate more to one of those sides of the brain when you're doing music. So you and I are right brainers.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

The little kids who you see reading sheet music, playing piano like you know flawlessly or violin, they're most likely more left brainers, because that's the math of music.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

We go for the heart, the soul, the feel, the shapes, the colors, right, and they go for the math, the breakdown, the feel, the shapes, the colors, right, and they go for the math, the breakdown of structure, the precision of the notes, all that stuff, and there's no right or wrong thing. And then I feel the best players that I've ever encountered and singers have just a little bit of both. They're not only readers or only feelers, they have just a little bit of both. They're not only readers or only feelers, they have just a little bit of both. Again, I'm not an overly religious person, I'm a spiritual person, but I really think there's some kind of divine entity that has this little golden thread attached to you that pulls you in different directions.

Speaker 1:

I 100% believe that and when you're open, especially as a creative, sometimes we have to take different paths that we didn't even know we were going to take to get to where we were meant to be.

Speaker 2:

So true, so true. And if you are a creative, you have to have an outlet.

Speaker 1:

Yes, multiple outlets or multiple yes.

Speaker 2:

Yes, or else it just you feel like a piece of you is missing, or you're feeling unfulfilled, or you can't put your finger on it. Yeah, I tell that to everybody. If it's in you, you got to do it.

Speaker 1:

I believe that to be true too. Do you remember what your very first gig was, your very first performance gig?

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, that was a long time ago. Well, I'll tell you, we had a high school teacher who had played in bands all his adult life and he started a rock band at our school in Brandon, manitoba, and it was Crocus Plains Secondary and we were called CP Express and we got the name off the CP Rail, you know, delivery truck or something, and it was a big band and it was all high school kids, and so I think maybe one of the first gigs we did with that was an elementary school tour.

Speaker 2:

And so and I remember, remember my mom and keep in mind. This is like the late seventies. My mom made the four of us girls or help make um satin jumpsuits.

Speaker 1:

Oh fun.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, not the best choice, but anyway, and they were in different colors.

Speaker 1:

Very 70s, very 70s.

Speaker 2:

And the little kids were just, they treated us like rock stars, right, and rushed the stage after the show. It was very cute. But then, from that, being one of the lead singers in that band, a local dance band called Cold Duck, who had been around forever, hired me as their singer. So I remember the bass player, Paul Solon, coming to my mom's house and I'm 16. And he's like 27 or 28. And he's going yeah, Mrs Kelman, Molly, we'll look after her like big brothers, Like we will make sure that she is like you know she's all good and they did. Those guys looked after me and they were really a great band to start my performance career for money with. I was at 16 and 17 and 18, I was working a lot and I you're going to laugh and I remember making 80 and 90 bucks a night, Like you were doing weekend gigs, right. So you now this is 1980. That's good money for back then. Well, now you only make 80, 90 bucks a night for some gigs, Right.

Speaker 1:

Isn't that insane.

Speaker 2:

Right, and it's just like that's insane that nothing's changed in 45 years, like it's just insane. And and so many reasons in the world and social media and sharing platforms and streaming platforms has really demonetized the art for the artist. And don't get me started on that, that's another subject day. But anyway, that's another episode. That's another episode. But you know, we as creatives, we don't do this for fun. We do this because it's in us, we have something to say and we should be paid for it.

Speaker 2:

And there is, you know, there's different levels of remuneration and if you're lucky enough to do what I did with Farmer's Daughter, even though it was a struggle for the first few years, by the end of our 10 years together we were making some pretty good money, but we also self-managed our career, so most of that money was going back into the promotion and again, this is pre-social media. So we are dropping $40,000 to $50,000 a video. We are dropping, you know, tens of thousands of dollars in recording albums, keeping a band on the road crossing Canada. You know you're out in Ontario and you've got a full bus of band and you got two days off, but you still have to pay them a per diem and you still have to pay them, pay for their accommodations, and so you know that was a real good reality. On Music Business 101.

Speaker 1:

So what was the hardest part of being on the road?

Speaker 2:

The hardest part for me of being on the road was missing family things. My mother had a mastectomy and I had said to our management I need to be there with her and there was a gig booked in Calgary at the Saddle Dome and it was some rodeo and I got the lecture well, if we cancel that gig, everyone suffers and no one makes money that day. And so out of I was kind of I felt a bit guilty so I said yes. So I went to my mother the day she I was, I think. I got there, I was with her the day she had her surgery and the next morning I went up to the hospital and she was bright eyed and bushy tailed and I said, mom, I'm gone for like 30 hours and I'll be back. I left her bedside after this major operation and this is before Brandon had WestJet service, so my cousin drove me into winter, caught a flight to Calgary, showed up for the gig. The guy that was the promoter on the gig had no idea what he was doing. Nobody showed up. We got stiffed on money. The guy never paid us and I'm thinking and I left my mother for this and I will never do that again.

Speaker 2:

But um, but one funny thing happened from that a performance to 10 people in the Saddledome. There was a cow there and we always sing the national anthem at these things. We sing, we sang so many national anthems at places all over for pro sports and rodeos and public events, yada, yada. So I hit the pitch pipe. I don't know, I think we do it in B or something. Oh, canada, and you got to remember, I got a part above me and I got a part below me, so the key used to be pretty bang on for us to stay in our ranges. So I hit the pitch pipe and the cow goes and we go oh, okay, we sing in the key of cow, whatever that cow did, but all three of us in the same key and where that calf hit that note it was the funniest thing and we you know jake's eyes are getting bigger because it's so freaking high for her and and, uh, but it was. That was one of the funny stories that happened.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's, so sad sadness for me of that weekend yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, isn't it interesting, though, that we have to go through those hard moments to create boundaries for ourself and to find those moments where we say I'm never doing that again, and that's a line in my sand that will never move anymore.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that, that is so true, and you're right, we have to have those life experiences to teach us that. Yeah, well, that didn't work. Yeah, a hundred percent.

Speaker 2:

Not doing it again and I think as getting older, I think I have way easier time saying no. And I have a. I have a girlfriend who's just like she, is a force, and she's been a force for the last 30 years that I've known her and one of the things that she said one time that I've adopted is that doesn't work for me, and how can you argue with that when someone's asking you to do something that you may not really want to do?

Speaker 1:

I know and I love that so much and I use that for myself. Yes, and I think part of my ability to set boundaries now is, whenever I consider doing something, whatever it is for someone else or an obligation, I have to be able to do it and be happy about it so that I so that everybody's winning in the situation, because if I have to compromise my own happiness or my needs to help that situation, that's a no-go anymore.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and it takes a long time to learn that.

Speaker 2:

I think, yeah, that's life lessons, and so I work with a lot of teenage girls.

Speaker 2:

I have a real rainbow of kids in my school and I love them all and they are amazing and they're very brave and one of the things I share with them is you don't have you. You can have boundaries at this age and if you're around somebody that you don't feel good around, then you can block them. You know, use the social media terms. Yeah, you know you need, and I tell them they're all precious and they're worthy of someone who treats them well if they're choosing partners and my husband's often out in the kitchen, just outside the music room where I teach, making me dinner because I have like an hour between classes. Sometimes I go and you know I said you want a partner like that Exactly, who works along with you to make you know things run smoothly and thinks that, thinks that you're what you do is great and supports you. And you know I wish someone had said that to me in my youth because I think I would have saved a lot of time.

Speaker 1:

I. I think that's such an important thing and how blessed are those kids to have you in their life. Because if you can learn that lesson at a young age, your life you just have so much less heartache. You don't have to learn things the their life. Because if you can learn that lesson at a young age, your life you just have so much less heartache. You don't have to learn things the hard way and you don't have to go through as much anguish. And yeah, you know, it's just knowing that that you can make choices and surround yourself with people that are good to you.

Speaker 2:

That's so funny. You should say make choices. Because my Thursday class, which were unruly teenagers every time they left I go have a good weekend, make good choices. And one of the girls who kind of walked a fine line, she said, oh, I was going to go with those kids and I went. Oh no, I heard Angela's voice in my head Make good choices.

Speaker 1:

No-transcript conversation with you about the road and where you were at, and you were just in a place where you were just like I just want to have a baby and I that just profoundly impacted my decision-making process because there was such a pull in my heart to be a mom that was just, I love to sing and that was my dream was to be a professional singer.

Speaker 1:

But having that conversation with you allowed me to make a different choice and not feel bad about it, and there's not one moment in my life that I've ever regretted not pursuing that professional career, because I needed to be a mom at that time. And I followed my heart and I always thank you for that, because that was such a beautiful thing.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, I've wanted to be three things in my life or two things a singer and a mother and I've achieved both. But I've seen a lot three things in my life or two things a singer and a mother and I've achieved both. But I've seen a lot of my girlfriends in the industry who did want to be a mom and, for whatever reason, didn't end up being a mom and I think they feel a little bit of a loss. And, having been raised around lots of children, I have a tremendous love for children. Music and children are my biggest loves in my life. I think that with your little guys you had what I wanted and I had what you wanted.

Speaker 2:

But it's finding the balance. Oh, absolutely, it's finding the balance and I was lucky in that the career happened and I got to a certain level, you know, top of the Canadian music industry for those few years and then like there's it's a lot of work, it's a lot of sacrifice, it's a lot of heartache, it's managing egos, it's it's it's bittersweet and it can wear you down. When Farmer's Daughter wrapped up in the early 2000s, that was more my choice to move on in my life because it wasn't feeling good anymore. So I just knew, and I'm one to stick it, I'm one to beat a dead horse you know what I mean.

Speaker 2:

Like. It's like and I just again Not a quitter, not a quitter when I'm in, I'm all in and so. But it was starting to weigh on me and I thought I am 34, 35, and I would like to have a child, and this is not feeling good anymore and so started to pull out of that. And then our management company went on to manage Emerson Drive. But there's an abrupt halt. That happens once you've been in the limelight. That's very hard to deal with.

Speaker 2:

And yeah, right, like you know, for a year, two, three after, people still know who you are because it got to be a point where you were recognized everywhere. We were like because we were all over. And in the 90s, country music was the market share, it was over 50%. This is pre-streaming, this is buying albums, this is the Garth Brooks, reba McEntire, vince Gill age of country and the Dixie Chicks were just starting to emerge. And you know we had run, we'd been running hard for almost 10 years.

Speaker 2:

Again, something said if you don't get off this carousel, you may miss your opportunity to have that other thing you want most in your life, which is a baby. And I was planning to do it on my own because I relationships hadn't worked out for me and I. And one day, on a plane I'm flying and I was also like you more and I was. I was exploring other um directions of my career under the umbrella of music. My perfect gig after Farmer's Daughter would have been like a talk show, like Rosie O'Donnell or right because of cooking segment and music, or Kelly Clarkson music segment, like I would have loved to have done that me yeah, right and uh, but it just didn't turn out that way. But I had made some inroads at CMT and they asked me to do an honor interview with Dan Hill and I love Dan Hill.

Speaker 2:

I love Dan Hill since his poster hung on the back of my brother's bedroom door in the 70s, right. So I was excited. So I go out and I buy his latest CD and I'm reading the liner notes and I've got some stories and things I remember from his career past and I was on a plane, I had the liner notes, I had some other references, some magazines or whatever, and there's this guy sitting a seat next to me with the middle seat empty, and we were also the last two to board, because obviously we're seasoned flyers, because when you fly a lot you just wait to the last possible minute to board. We sit down, turns out he forgets his book. He's an avid reader and I've got all this stuff all over my lap and I'm trying to write questions because the interview is the next day at Lodge in Kananaskis, and I'm trying to prep. I like to be prepared.

Speaker 2:

I'm a Capricorn, you know he's. I feel him looking at me and I look at him. I go morning. He goes hi, he goes. I'm Doug, I go hi, I'm Angela. So I'm doing my thing and he keeps kind of poking me like hey, what are you doing? It's like, uh, first of all he goes. You're a very, very pretty girl looked at him and I said thank you. My mother thinks so Right and so.

Speaker 2:

I'm trying to shut him down, right, shut him down, and he keeps, he keeps bugging me and I and I always say I've tried to flick him off like a sticky booger, but anyway, um he finally. Finally he picks up a magazine which is a national geographic and he's flicking through it and he's changing the pages. And I had on a faux leopard print, um, winter coat, faux fur, and he found a I don't know what, it's not a pride of leopards, whatever, it is a leopard, it's a group of leopards. And he, he leans over to me, shows me the picture, goes hey, look, they're wearing your coat. Okay, buddy, you want to talk? Let's talk, okay.

Speaker 2:

So I pack up my shit and I okay, the floor is yours. So he starts talking. Well, where do you live? I said North Van and he said oh, I'm going to a friend's 50th birthday party in North Van at the Queen's Cross Pub next week. You should come, give me your number and I go no, I don't know if this guy's a serial killer. Anyway, he doesn't know who I am, which was quite refreshing actually. He didn't know who I was. Uh, he said, but his friend Bobby would know who I was because he was a big country music fan. So anyway, jump ahead 25 years, we're married and that's the guy I married and the father of my son.

Speaker 1:

Serendipity, stepped in and gave you another gift.

Speaker 2:

We told this story at our wedding and the big thing, which was really funny I looked at him and Doug's a wee bit older than me he's 18 years older than me, but he was a. You know jeans and a and a turtleneck and funky glasses and a belt buckle Cause he's an Alberta boy and uh, and when we started talking I said, uh, are you married? And he said no, I've. I've been separated for 18 months. And I said no, I've been separated for 18 months. And I said, do you have kids? And he says yes, I have two and I want more. He said that he claims to this day.

Speaker 2:

He did not say that. I said that made my 35-year-old little ears perk right up, because you look like you had your own car and you could possibly pay for dinner once in a while. That's the criteria, right there.

Speaker 2:

Because I've been dating musicians no, no disrespect to my musician friends and I have had a couple of very generous musician friends. But yeah, he still claims he did not say that. I said, well, then, god made you say that because that's the thing, that was the seal of the deal. Like, oh okay, let's talk right Anyways. Yeah, so that's funny, and he had no intention of getting involved seriously. You know, we dated for a year and then and said is this going forward? Are we just going to be get together for lunch?

Speaker 2:

and we were both in here we are here we are, 25 years later in our son and um, that's a great story, it's a good, good story, and you never know. And again, whoever you are and whatever you think, wherever you think you're at in your life, you're not Exactly. Yeah, just give in. Yeah, you're not driving the bus for the big part of the big picture.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I love that because I believe that too and I think that's really and look how awesome that is because you got to have a baby and now you have a grown son, obviously, but that led you into creating children's albums and sing along books, and so tell us a little bit about how that kind of all came organically.

Speaker 2:

Again recognizing opportunities. So I had a student whose parents had a retail store that was a Canadian version of and I hate to say Canadian version of anything, but it was. If you've ever heard of Build-A-Bear, it was called Snuggable Huggables and they wanted to do a similar thing here in Canada. And the mom had approached me and said we need some music. We'd like an album for the store. Do you know anybody that writes children's music?

Speaker 2:

Now, marnie, I don't know if you were there when Tommy Tedesco, who was a famous part of the wrecking crew, who was on everyone's albums in the 60s and 70s and did movie soundtracks, he was the keynote speaker at our opening day um at MI Musicians Institute in LA and I remember hearing him tell a story about the producers from Charlie's Angels called and that particular episode was going to be shot in Hawaii, and so they called him and said hey, tommy, do you play Hawaiian music? He goes, yeah, totally. So he said the next, he goes. I had three days till the session. I went to Tower Records and bought every Hawaiian music record there was and I went home and I woodshed. He didn't play Hawaiian music, yeah, I do. And then he woodshed and then he nailed the session Well for me, it was the same thing. She phones me and said, hey, do you know anybody that does children's music? And I go yeah, I do.

Speaker 1:

Good girl Love that.

Speaker 2:

And good girl love that. And then it's like and actually I do and I always have, and with Alex, my son, oh my gosh, everything was a song, right, you know.

Speaker 1:

What's funny about that, though, is that I think that is so powerful when we you know, when we say something out loud, I do that, and how often have we done that in our life where we've claimed like I'm a writer or I'm whatever, and you, you have no idea how to do that, but you know, there's a piece of you that has that inside you and that gives you permission to be it. Yes, so cool, say yes, and then figure it out and claim it and speak it out loud so that you, your brain, hears it, and the first few times it feels like an imposter, but after you do it long enough, it's like I am a writer and I do write children's music, and you did.

Speaker 2:

And it was great and I did, and it got Juno nominated and yeah, that was a real, a real like feather in my cap, as my mother used to say. But everything was a song and you can't help when you have little kids, like you know. Like there's a little Spanish song We'd sing and that was really fun, until he started to sing it in public.

Speaker 1:

And I had to go. Okay, we can't sing that song. Careful what you wish for In restaurants, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Or get on a party, do what you got to do. You know it's potty training time, so you make up a song. It's just the delight of children and I would run all my songs by Alex. He was like a year and a half or two when I was writing that album and it ended up being a great thing for us. The store ended up closing. We had signed a deal where we still owned the rights to all the music because I had a big imagination for these kids' songs.

Speaker 2:

And so, through Doug doing some research because now we were in the world of the Internet at this point when I was writing the kids' stuff he found this excellent artist in Quebec who did not speak English. His name was Franfou F-R-A-N-F-O-U. Unbelievable. He had done things for like Chirp magazine. You know, if you have kids, you know what Chirp magazine is Chickadee and Chirp and I loved his style. It was colorful and it was bold and it was just everything I wanted my books to be. And we communicated via email and he got the songs, because in all my songs there's that little entertainment element, there's a little bit of humor, there's a little bit of educational references there's. He got all of it even though we did not speak the same language, and it was just a delight to work with him and I did three books. I did Frank the Cat and I did Disco Dinosaurs and I did Funky Monkey, and you can check out AngelaKellmancom. They're all on there and it was one of the most fun, creative endeavors I've ever done right, yeah, and it's really.

Speaker 1:

I always think it's for creative people. We often need to wear more than one hat. Oh, we do. It's so fun to be able to express yourself in different ways and scratch a different itch, you know, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And it's the hardest part for us creatives is the marketing. But I'm finding that I, even for my little local gigs that I'm still doing, social media is pretty damn powerful, but I hired a 26 year old to do it for me. Well done, because I can't like this has become. When you have to create, you know, do all the social media and do like, it just becomes a 24 seven. You never get a break.

Speaker 1:

It's important to do what you're good at so that you can use your strengths in your way and, like you say, hiring a 26-year-old. That's what she's good at, so it's such a beautiful thing it is and we work great.

Speaker 2:

She's my assistant. She's been with my students since she was six and then was my assistant all when she was in high school and and then went away to university and came back and she's been with me ever since and I I just couldn't do it without her. I couldn't. And she's got a vision. She sees how you know the end game and it's really working. And so I have to laugh because I don't know if you follow a comedian on social media called Leanne Morgan. No, she told a story.

Speaker 2:

All of a sudden I started seeing Leanne Morgan Leanne Morgan and she's funny and my Christmas gift was to go see her play in May, so I can't wait. She's here in Vancouver. But she told a story about she hired some 20-somethings to be. They approached her, I think, and said hey, can we, like we can do social media for you and we'll post a clip and one of the first clips they posted of her talking about going to her and her husband, who are in their late 50s, going to a deaf leopard journey concert. And she tells this story and it's hysterical and she does great physical comedy and share her facial expressions and her body language and it's not vile or vulgar and it's just good, clean, fun.

Speaker 2:

Lots of family stories and stories about her and her husband, chuck Morgan, of family stories and stories about her and her husband chuck morgan, and um, and these two young guys posted this clip of her talking about the journey deaf leopard concert and she went viral. And now and she said and she started as a silk pad I think one of the jewelry companies still pad or something. She was an in-home. You know, you'd book a party with her and she was. She knew she was funny and she would go off script and she started getting her own banter and and and she couldn't get arrested to do comedy clubs or anything like no one was interested, like you're.

Speaker 2:

Basically you're just a housewife kind of mentality, right yeah and so, but then, after this social media thing went viral, well, she's selling out all over north america now I love that and she's got her own.

Speaker 2:

Chuck Lorre just signed her for her own TV show and she was in the movie not the best movie, but a lighthearted, you know. Detach your brain with Cordially Invited Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell. I haven't watched it yet. Oh, it's cute. And she's the older sister and I just love her because she's almost my age. She said I just love her because she's almost my age she's. She said I knew I was destined for Hollywood as a child. I just didn't know how I was going to get there Right. So now she's there and it's really her. Her journey is really interesting.

Speaker 1:

It's so funny because I quite often talk about show through talents and I talk about this a lot on the podcast because I think that that's a prime example of somebody who has this gift in them and so often we discount what comes naturally and easily to us because we think it's just too easy. I can't make a living doing that.

Speaker 2:

It's too easy.

Speaker 1:

I have to struggle or go get a job or you know, and somebody has to pay my way. But it's so often the opposite of that and if you pay attention to the things that really shine through in your gifts and your talents, man, you can totally run with that and make your whole life from it as we both you know found and I think that's so great.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is great and you know I've been really lucky in my life that people along the way have recognized my gift and have rewarded me for it. The one of the hardest parts about being your own advocate is asking for what you're worth. That is. I struggle with that. I struggle with that and I'm at a place where it's like if they don't want to pay me that I don't want to do the gig. And I've found a nice balance of gigging a little bit more I'd like a little bit more than I am now for better pay, because I got back into some of the local breweries just to get my chops up, because singing is very physical and it's like weightlifting. If you stop doing that for six months you're going to get a little flabby, and you got to work for a month to get back to where you were before.

Speaker 2:

So singing is an ongoing thing. The way I sing and the repertoire I sing. It's a lot of energy and a lot of athletic energy, so I need to stay in shape. So, anyway, I did a couple of you know brewery gigs that didn't pay well, but now it's like okay, here's some entities with a little budget and so and a lot of them ask you what do you want? So you fill it in and I'm just at the point where this is what I want. If you choose not to, that's okay.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and you know what I do with voiceover work. I've struggled with asking for what I was. I was always like, am I going to bid too high?

Speaker 1:

And then I lose the job and like, oh my goodness and I really struggled with that too. And then I got to a point where I was like you know what? I've been doing this for a long time. I'm really good, I deliver on time. And so when people would say, could you please quote on this job, I would always return the email saying what's your budget for the job.

Speaker 1:

And quite often I would say oh my goodness, I would charge you know, let's just say $300. And then I'd say you tell me what your budget is and I'll try and make it work for you, and then they might come back, our budget's 600. And I go you know what I can make that work? And then you make twice as much money and you go. Why didn't I know that?

Speaker 2:

20 years ago. Why?

Speaker 1:

did we undersell ourselves? I know it's such a powerful thing.

Speaker 2:

I always undersell myself. I remember I'll tell you a story I had a four piece kind of vocal thing going on. It was, it was really good. I had a four-piece kind of vocal thing going on, it was really good, and it was a piano player and it was kind of like Manhattan Need Transfer thing. And an agent I used to work with called me and said, yeah, yeah, I've got a gig, but the budget's not that great and it ended up being like 200 bucks a man, which was the least I will ever pay anybody, and I said, ok, well, we'll do it this time. You know who the client was.

Speaker 1:

Who Mercedes Benz? That happens a lot in my industry too.

Speaker 2:

And you know what? It wasn't the client, it was the agency. And it's like and there's another lesson learned, right? It's like, yeah, I won't do that again. So and then you go and you'd give a great performance and people rave and it's just like, oh great, I just gave you a thousand dollar performance for 200 bucks.

Speaker 1:

And once in a while you need to do that to maybe get in front of that client and then from that point on you know you can attract other clients of that caliber. But you're not going to do it for 200 bucks or it's a charity event.

Speaker 2:

You know you want to give charity events a break because they're there to make money for a good cause. That's awesome.

Speaker 1:

I love that yeah. Yeah, we're smart, marn, we're smart. Well, we're figuring it out, you know, one day at a time, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I think we played a game with a bunch of my friends a couple months back and it was like say one word that describes you, and I said resilient.

Speaker 1:

I was just going to ask you, as you were talking, I was going to say where do you think that resilience comes from? Because I think resilience is actually one of the most key elements to have happiness in your life.

Speaker 2:

Yep, and I think it comes from. I think the resilience came from my mother's example, because my mom was a child of the dirty 30s of the Depression. She was hungry as a child. They wore rags as a child would drift in and the kids would go out and pick up the cow patties to put in the stove to heat the grandma's old cook stove, which is about the only thing they had. And she would say some days we only had a piece of bread with a little bit of sugar sprinkled on it and that's all we had to eat and as I was a struggling young musician, her first question to me would always be do you, are you eating right?

Speaker 2:

because that was permanently inked in her dna and then in 96 she was when she was 63, she was hit with breast cancer right, and she fought it for 22 years wow she survived it for 22 because she was just that person.

Speaker 2:

She was silly, sheacious, she was resilient this isn't going to get me she'd say in that tone, and she was right, and I think of a lot of it's mindset. And so I watched that all my life and admired her for it. You know, she was she. She finally accepted what I did for a living, when in her daycare they would turn on CMT. And here comes my face Right, and all of a sudden, here I am on TV in her daycare going and she's going. Okay, I can relax, it's a thing. Yeah, it's a thing, it's, she's doing it, she's paying her bills. We don't have to eat, she's eating. Buying groceries yeah, she has her own car, you know she's. She's not. She's in a good place. So. But I have to tell you a funny story. So one of our first farmer's daughter radio hits was our version of Son of a Preacher man.

Speaker 1:

I love that version.

Speaker 2:

Right, we did a country swing version and one of our little kids I think it was Kayla, she must have been five or six and mom would play Farmer's Daughter in the daycare and Kayla said Auntie Molly, can you please play that Farmer's Daughter song, son of a Bitch of a man? So you know, there was lots of humor that came from mom's daycare and oh, I just love the kids. There was nothing better for me than holding those babies when they were sleeping and stuff as a 12-year-old. And yeah, it was really a gift because I believe that, you know, the young and the old are treasures in our world and we really have to give them the time and the love that they really need and deserve.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure. So now that you are at the place you are in your life, how do you take care of yourself and recharge your batteries? What do you do about that?

Speaker 2:

So I know things about myself. I know I have to get enough sleep and luckily Doug and I are pretty good sleepers now since I'm past menopause and I also strive for 30 minutes of physical activity a day, whether at least the minimum of 30. So whether that's putting on the Gilmore Girls and walking on the treadmills to detach from the stress of the world, something aerobic that keeps my breathing, for my singing good, and I do weights to keep my muscle tone and that's de-stressing for me, that's awesome, right. And I have kind of tailored my teaching schedule not to be so maniacal because I love to work and I love to help people. But again I've had to say no, I can't. I can't take on 15 private students a month in addition to my, you know, seven to nine classes a week.

Speaker 1:

That's. You know, that's the most important thing. I think as we get older we have a little bit more wisdom to know our balance limits and what we have to do for ourselves. So that's amazing that you've figured that out and found a bit of a sweet spot so that you can bring your A-game when you come and you're not overstretched.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes you just get off balance, but you just pick yourself up because you're resilient and you put one foot in front of the other. Because you're resilient and you put one foot in front of the other. And I had a one of my best friends lost her husband within six weeks to pancreatic cancer eight years ago and she, it was hard, it was hard for her and I would phone her almost every day and I'd say how are you doing? And she said I just keep putting one foot in front of the other and that sticks with me because that's progress.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and sometimes it's baby steps right and that's and that's. All that matters. Is that now?

Speaker 2:

yeah, now eight years later, she's thriving, you know she's made some good decisions and you know she feels the grief, but it's not not all consuming anymore and you would know, you, just you know grief is a funny thing. You just lost your mom and it's, and you're in the business of death phase. Right, because that's a thing, it's the right. After someone you love passes that you are executor of the will, or even spouse or whatever child. There's a business of death that has to get dealt with. And then the grief comes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it's really interesting being in the sandwich generation too, where you're looking after your parents and kind of helping them manage that next chapter of their life. But you also still have, you know, young adult children, or even younger children, depending where you are in your life, and you have to find that little space in between where you can actually care for yourself and make sure you still have your cup full enough to do all the things you're required to do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's true story, sister.

Speaker 1:

So this has been so much fun. We could just talk for days and days and days. So we'll do this again, but tell everybody just because I think it's an awesome tool that you created the five point singing system. We've talked so much about your career and the ways you've kind of reinvented yourself over the years, but there's probably some people that are going to be listening, that are going to go. I want to learn from this woman, so talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 2:

So I guess in 2010, it was I'd been teaching since Alex was little. I thought it was scary and then I thought, well, what am I really going to do? Like I got to figure something out and I don't want to tour anymore because Alex is little. So I started teaching and luckily, we were in a house where I have a 380 square foot room which I've made my music room. So I'm sitting in it right now and I'm looking at a stage with a drum kit and microphones and a PA system and and I have these classes in my house and it's been it's really been soul filling. It fills my heart up.

Speaker 2:

I love it because singing is much more than just singing. It is allowing you to be who you are in a lot of ways. And I I say to my adult students you find your voice in this room, you find your voice in the world, because there's a lot of people who don't speak up, who want to sing, who were told by a choir director oh yeah, just stand over there and move your mouth, you don't sing well, or whatever. There's people coming with a lot of baggage. Our voice is attached to who we are, and so I started teaching and I started teaching adults, which ironically ended up being mothers of my children's students. They said we want to sing, and then, you know that turned into a class and then other people got wind of it and they wanted in and nobody was leaving the other class. So I started another night.

Speaker 2:

So it's I do three adult classes a week and it's it is. It's awesome. It's awesome. It is so awesome. You help people discover what they can do. So in one of my classes I I brought in instruments one time ukuleles. If you have piano lessons in your life, great, you know, our middle C is good on the piano. Oh, you played. You played flute. I'm going to put you on bass because you've got really good feel Well. Now my friend who I put on bass is now gigging in a band, right, and because, like, I see what you can do but I have to help you see what you can do.

Speaker 2:

And so there's a lot of therapy that goes along with this voice thing.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Right. So through all that, when I started teaching, I started to realize Right. So through all that, when I started teaching, I started to realize, you know this, I've developed a little system. It was very interesting that I started to see a pattern, and so I narrowed it down, like a pilot does when they get in the airplane and goes you know they're checking and flipping all their switches. I thought there's five predominant things that a person needs to know to become a really good singer, and so I'm going to get a little kind of, you know, technical here, but it's like breathing. So you singers, the way I teach and the way I sing, it's all based on breath where you take the breath, how deep each breath is, frequency in the song. And then the second thing is diaphragm support. So that muscle in our midsection we manipulated as singers to the higher we go in our range, the more diaphragm support we have to engage, and to me that- I remember all that.

Speaker 2:

Right, it feels like I'm pulling it to my backbone and those two things working together create placement, so where the note sits in your body and actually resonates, if you're doing breathing and diaphragm support right, then you're going to be in the right placement. And then the fourth thing and I get this with about 15% of my singers something I call vocal path, and we learned about this in our course in LA and it's the direction that the sound column comes out of your body once you take in the breath and you do the diaphragm support. And then the fifth thing that a lot of people don't realize and a lot of, a lot of naturally great singers have an aha moment when I, when I bring this up to them, it's the shape of your mouth, especially in our mid-range and above, when we're singing pop and rock and country and lots of big sounding songs, you have to drop your jaw to release all tension. So I realized through almost 20 years of teaching that those anything in a song can be fixed with one of those five points.

Speaker 1:

There's going to be a lot of people that will find your system really useful and helpful, and I'll definitely link all of that in the show notes so people can find you and get a hold of that five point singing system if they would like to. And, oh my goodness, what a pleasure. It has been such a joy talking to you and I just hope you guys have all the best in 2025.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, Marnie, I appreciate it and I appreciate you asking me to be a guest and one of the things I'm listening to you as you speak. You're a great breather.

Speaker 1:

Oh well, thank you so much for being here with me, and we will definitely do this again.

Speaker 2:

Sounds great.

Speaker 1:

Take care oh my goodness, that was so much fun and so many great nuggets of wisdom. So let's recap some of the awesome things we talked about today. Number one we need to stay open to following our guidance that shows up for us, because it can help us to create the most beautiful life. Number two sometimes we have to have a little faith that, even if it seems that we're going in the wrong direction, that maybe we need to learn something along the way to be able to find our way back to where we're supposed to be, I believe that to be true.

Speaker 1:

Number three we need to have experiences that we regret or where we make mistakes, so that we can learn the lessons that help us to create healthier and better boundaries for ourselves. Number four when you follow your heart's calling, surprising things and miracles can await you. Number five speak it into existence. If you know there is something inside you that you want to bring into the world, claim it, speak it out loud, believe it and before long you will be exactly who you want it to be. Number six if a talent comes particularly easy to you, chances are it is a show-through talent and it just might be exactly where you need to lean in to create your next great chapter or maybe even go viral.

Speaker 1:

Number seven, know your worth. Don't be afraid to ask for what you deserve, whether it is financial or otherwise. Thank you so much for listening today, and if you enjoyed this episode, I really hope you will share it with someone you love. And don't forget to hit that little bell icon so you get notified every time a new episode drops. And if you would be so kind as to leave us a review, it really helps other audiences to find us and possibly become a part of the Life is Delicious family. And, in case no one has told you today, there's not one person on this planet that is exactly like you, and the world is a better place because you're here. So thank you for being here. I'll be here next week and I hope you'll join me right here on Life is Delicious.