Loose Tooth Blues
New York based Canadian composer and singer BRENDA EARLE STOKES is an artist who is bringing jazz back into focus for the twenty-first century. With a sophisticated and traditional leaning style, this contemporary crooner has recently unveiled an impeccable LP in the form of the fantastic Motherhood collection.
Across ten tracks, Brenda explores her own experiences as a parent, specifically focussing on themes such as identity, fear, expectations, body image, growth, and friendship. It is a unique and much needed collection through a jazz lens.
An everyday story with an exceptional and endearing soundtrack. With the buzz and excitementaround Motherhood continuing to grow, Brenda took some time out from her current creative endeavours to chat with Aldora Britain Records about her musical journey to date. We discussed a selection of her recorded output so far, popular original compositions, her evolution as an artist over time, and much, much more. That exclusive in-depth conversation is published here in full for the very first time.
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Aldora Britain Records: Hello Brenda, how are you? I am excited to be talking with such a fantastic artist fromover in New York. It is amazing how music can bring us together. Let’s start off by travelling back in time. What are some of your earliest musical memories and what was it that first pushed you towards pursuing this passion of yours?
Brenda Earle Stokes: My earliest musical memories are too many to even describe. I grew up taking piano lessons, singing in the school and church choir, playing clarinet in bands, and generally being obsessed with all of it!
Aldora Britain Records: And now, let’s take a leap forward to the present day and your brilliant solo output. I am really drawn in by your impressive songwriting and songcraft. How do you approach this part of your process? Are you drawn to specific themes or topics? Perhaps coming from a personal, observational, or even fictional perspective or point of view?
Brenda Earle Stokes: My process is usually very organic. A lot of ideas jump out at me when I am practicing or even just going about my day, supermarket, library, in the car. Sometimes I get little obsessions, with a certainmusic theatre composer or a rock band or a jazz pianist, and I go on a tangent with it, but a lot of times I get a
burst of a creative idea and I just see where it leads me. Once the idea has been found and explored then I go through a lot of edits to refine my work into something I want to share. With my latest album Motherhood, I created my first ever concept album where every song was in service to the theme. This was a similar process as I usually take, but I was really focussed on many aspects of one topic.
Aldora Britain Records: Earlier this year, you unveiled an exceptional new album in the form of Motherhood. This was also my introduction to your music, so it already holds a special place in my record collection. What are your memories from writing, recording and releasing this set, and how would you say you grew and evolved as an artist throughout this process?
Brenda Earle Stokes: I started writing the first song when I was pregnant with my son. He is now twelve years old, so it’s been a long process! I spent a lot of time pushing him around in the stroller, taking him to classes, and just being with him, and all the while I was singing little excerpts into the voice memos in my phone and writing down little lyric ideas in my journal.
In November of 2019 I was invited to take part in an artist residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in the Rocky Mountains and that is where the songs really took shape. I went in knowing what I wanted to write and I had mountains of scraps of paper and partial ideas. I just needed the time away from my family to bring them to life! To create a full album of original music around such a personal theme was a huge growth process and one I hope to replicate again.
Aldora Britain Records: It is a gem of an album from start to finish, but I would now like to pick out two personal favourites. Let’s go for ‘This is Your Childhood’ and ‘Loose Tooth Blues’. For each, what is the story behind the song, and can you remember the moment it came to be? Did anything in particular inspire them and what do they mean to you as the writer?
Brenda Earle Stokes: ‘This is Your Childhood’ came about once I realised how little of my son’s early childhood he remembered. I took him to so many places and we did so many things together when he was really little and he doesn’t remember most of it! I started thinking that maybe his childhood didn’t just belong to him, that it was more of a shared experience. Whenever my son got a wiggly tooth he would always get into terrible moods. He would get so grouchy and have terrible sleep. One such instance I was noticing this behaviour and I asked him what was wrong. He told me he had a ‘bad case of the loose tooth blues.’ I guess this is the vocabulary of a kid who is being raised by a jazz musician? I knew this was going to be a song and it was the most fun to write!
Aldora Britain Records: Previously, if we travel back to 2014, you unveiled another superb record called Right About Now. I have also just discovered this one on Bandcamp, but it has made a strong impression already. How do you reflect on this set as a whole now, and is there anything that you would edit or change looking back with the benefit of hindsight?
“My process is usually very organic. A lot of ideas jump out at me when I am practicing or even just going about my day ... a lot of times I get a burst of a creative idea and I just see where it leads me.”
Brenda Earle Stokes: Right About Now was a big studio project for me and the only time I ever hired a producer. We recorded it when my son was only a year old and I felt really overwhelmed during the entire process. I am incredibly proud of the work, but I wish I could have enjoyed the process more. If I could go back, I might have waited one more year to actually record it when my mind and body were more settled after my son was born. Or I should have probably hired more childcare to take more of the load off. But I’m still incredibly proud of that project and glad I recorded it.
Aldora Britain Records: As you well know by now, I love the Stokes sound and your approach to making music. That fantastic jazz and traditional pop undercurrent that runs through your work. How would you say this style of yours came about, what goes into it for you, and who are some of your biggest influences and inspirations as an artist currently?
Brenda Earle Stokes: I have always had very eclectic tastes in music. I grew up in the 90s on 70s and 80s punk and alternative rock and divided my listening between that and the jazz artists, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Bud Powell, that I was also obsessed with. Early in my career I worked on cruise ships doing singalong piano bar gigs, where I would play one hundred plus songs a night. This widened my appreciation for even more artists.
Audience members would request songs nonstop and it would introduce me to a ton of artists that I had never heard before. I continue to listen to this style of music now, interspersed with jazz and a few newer artists like Pete Yorn and Haim. My playlists are really wild!
Aldora Britain Records: A broad question to finish. We have been through such a unique time in history over the last few years. Both politically and within society, and that is before you throw in the pandemic. How have the last several years impacted on you personally and as an artist? How do you think this time has changed the music industry, both for the good and the bad? I am curious to hear your insights.
“I have always had very eclectic tastes in music. I grew up in the 90s on 70s and 80s punk and alternative rock and divided my listening between that and the jazz artists.”
Brenda Earle Stokes: The entire arts and entertainment industry is not on a good trajectory. Parasitic companies like Spotify and Live Nation are draining out money that should go to artists, but also jacking up costs so that attending concerts and shows is astronomically expensive. This is taking a huge toll on events, where attendance
is much lower than it was pre-pandemic. Add that into the insane cost of living and the stress of where the world is politically and it can be really hard to keep everything moving. I try to focus on self-care, family, and my wicked sense of humour to keep myself from sliding too deeply into despair. I also feel like ‘this too shall pass.’
Quickfire Round
AB Records: Favourite artist? Brenda: Oscar Peterson.
AB Records: Favourite album? Brenda: Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach’s Painted from Memory.
AB Records: Last album you listened to from start to finish? Brenda: Genesis, Selling England by the Pound.
AB Records: First gig as an audience member? Brenda: My first rock concert was the Canadian band Platinum Blonde in Sarnia, Ontario.
AB Records: Loudest gig as an audience member? Brenda: I saw the Foo Fighters at Madison Square Garden a few months before Taylor died. It was epic! And loud!
AB Records: Style icon? Brenda: That’s not a question for me! Haha!
AB Records: Favourite film? Brenda: Pretty in Pink.
AB Records: Favourite TV show? Brenda: I just rewatched Downton Abbey and will probably do it again.
AB Records: Favourite up and coming artist? Brenda: I love the energy that Chappell Roan is bringing to the scene. She doesn’t take shit from people.