McGarrigle Anna - Mountain city girls: the McGarrigle family album

Advance praise for

Mountain City Girls

I can still hear the warbling voices of the McGarrigle sisters garnishing and haunting Emmylou Harriss Wrecking Ball album. Ah! those sweet moments of excellence. And now the history of that talented family in the pages of Mountain City Girls. Their journey to a sweet sound. Daniel Lanois

As witty, intelligent and intimate as any McGarrigle song, Mountain City Girls beckons the rest of us to come hear the domestic music-making of an extraordinary Quebec family. How lucky we are to be invited to this special McGarrigle show. Charles Foran, author of Mordecai: The Life & Times

Reading this book is like having a conversation with the McGarrigles. It is quirky, intelligent and full of mischief. Linda Ronstadt

The stark beauty of Saint-Sauveur in the Catholic Quebec of another era comes to life as the young Kate, Anna and Jane McGarrigle sit nightly at the piano with their father, singing and playing instruments. I, an only child, loved the closeness of the creative sisters who were best friends in their ramshackle home. The sisters were perfect harmonizers because they seemed to share musical brains and could anticipate what note the other would play and sing. It was fascinating to read the biographical details of what was going on in their adult lives when they penned such classics as Talk to Me of Mendocino and Heart Like a Wheel. Cathy Gildiner, author of Too Close to the Falls and After the Falls

From the moment I met The Mountain City Girls, Kate, Anna and Jane, I wanted to be a part of that magical McGarrigle circlethe songs, the suppers, the families and fellow travellers, and they blessed me with it all. This book is a charming history, written with affection and wit by Anna and Jane, and now everyone can share in the story of their lives and lineage. It is a love story really, of a time, a place and a remarkable sisterhood that has given the world some of its most unique and stunningly beautiful music. Emmylou Harris

Be it family history, beautiful snapshots from the early lives of three remarkable women or significant slices of Canadian history from the last two centuries, this book stacks up to at least be a triple threat. Add music and humour, well, now thats positively formidable. Thanks for keeping the bar raised, ladies. Rufus Wainwright

Not many public figures become part of our family album. In Canada, the McGarrigle sisters have. We grew up alongside them, went to their concerts, bought their albums, and then got to listen to the amazing next generation. We heard the sisters talk on the radio about harmonyit made you feel you were living on a much more civilized planet. Their songsin English and Frenchbecame part of our dialogue, our thought processes. Michael Ondaatje

A detailed, intimate portrait of one of Canadas great musical families. Vivid with stories of a changing country, a transforming Quebec, all its real-life to-and-fro ringing with vibrant music. Sean Michaels, author of Us Conductors

PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE CANADA

Copyright 2015 Anna McGarrigle and Jane McGarrigle

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2015 by Random House Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

Random House Canada and colophon are registered trademarks.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

McGarrigle, Anna, author
Mountain city girls : the McGarrigle family album / Anna McGarrigle, Jane McGarrigle.

ISBN 978-0-345-81402-9
eBook ISBN 978-0-345-81404-3

1. McGarrigle, Anna. 2. McGarrigle, Jane. 3. McGarrigle, Kate. 4. SingersCanadaBiography. 5. ComposersCanadaBiography. I. McGarrigle, Jane, author II. Title. III. Title: McGarrigle family album.

ML420.M145A3 2015 782.421640922 C2015-902682-2

Cover design by Five Seventeen
Cover photo Randy Saharuni
Interior images: (palm-lined avenue) courtesy of DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University; (vinyl record) Image01 / Dreamstime.com

v3.1

ANNA

For the folks, both living and dead

JANE

Dedicated to my granddaughters, Gabrielle and Islay McMillan

In June 2012, two years after our sister Kates untimely death from cancer, Torontos Luminato Festival paid homage to her with a concert at Massey Hall. Upwards of thirty people, special guests, musicians and family were brought together by producer Joe Boyd, assisted by Catherine Steinman, to honour Kate and her music. Joe produced the first two Kate and Anna recordings for Warners, Kate & Anna McGarrigle (co-produced with Greg Prestopino in 1975) and Dancer with Bruised Knees (1977), and had curated two previous tributes to Kate, one in London, the other in New York.

ANNA: The Kate McGarrigle Tribute Concert at Massey Hall was a resounding success. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if Kate had floated onto the stage, picked up a banjo and led us in Red Rocking Chair, an Appalachian complaint that highlighted her driving frailing-style. With her perfect timing she was the coxswain on the McGarrigle chasse-galerie.with the haunting refrain When the hungers gone. That night, my daughter, Lily Lanken, and I did Jacques et Gilles, a song Kate wrote about the one million French Canadians who left Quebec over a span of a hundred years to work in the textile mills of New England. Its a powerful history lesson in the form of a childrens rhyme, with a conversation between a mother and her young daughter weaving throughout, and a prequel to a musical Kate was writing about Jack Kerouac.

Earlier in the week, I was invited by Jrn Weisbrodt, Luminatos Artistic Director, to participate in a lunchtime Illumination, a chat format that had creativity as the topic, with a special focus on Kate. I shared the stage with two old friends, author Michael Ondaatje and pianist Tom Mennier, and surprise guest Lily on vocals. The talk was interspersed with passages from Kates songs, played by Tom.