Legendary guitarist Liona Boyd is celebrating a 50-year profession within the music trade with the discharge of an album. This Factor Known as Love blends people, pop, and international music influences via her signature classical guitar sound.
Produced by longtime collaborator Peter Bond, visitor artists embody Mark Masri (of The Tenors) and Ronnie Hawkins in a mix of moods that vary from romantic to playful, and themes that cowl each love and loss.
LV spoke to the long-lasting Canadian music about her profession, and the brand new launch.
Bye Bye Love (Feat. Mark Masri):
Liona Boyd
Liona Boyd is usually referred to as The First Woman of the Guitar, and there’s little doubt she was a trailblazer for girls as classical guitarists, and classical guitarists basically. Throughout a 5 decade profession, her musical observe has included solo and orchestral performances within the classical music sphere, together with people and international music. She’s additionally carried out extensively on tv, together with her personal specials.
She’s a five-time JUNO Award winner, and has a recording catalogue of 30 albums, lots of which have been licensed Gold and Platinum sellers. On-line, Liona’s music has seen greater than 100 million streams.
Boyd has carried out for the British Royal Household and American presidents, and she or he’s collaborated and recorded with a variety of artists that embody Sir Andrew Davis and the English Chamber Orchestra, Yo Yo Ma and Georges Zamfir, Gordon Lightfoot and Tracy Chapman, Chet Atkins, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, Olivia Newton-John and Roger Whittaker.
She was named an Workplace of the Order of Canada in 2022, following recognition with The Order of Ontario, and the Diamond Jubilee Medal. Liona can be a printed creator, and launched two autobiographies, in addition to a youngsters’s e book that was printed in 2022.
Earlier in 2025, she was inducted into Canada’s Stroll of Fame.
Album Notes: This Factor Known as Love
She’s joined on the album by classical guitarist Srdjan Givoje (a distinguished Croatian artist) and Andrew Dolson, who contributed background vocals and metal guitar on some tracks, in addition to Peter Bond, who performs electrical guitar, metal string guitar, bass, drums, and percussion, and produced the album.
Boyd wrote all of the songs, apart from By Bye Love (by Boudleaux Bryant and Felice Bryant), and Jamaica Farewell (by Irving Burgie aka Lord Burgess).
Among the many bittersweet songs on the album are Gordon Lightfoot that includes Ronnie Hawkins, a tribute to the late Canadian icon, and a redux of Summer time Desires, Boyd’s hit track that includes the late Olivia Newton-John, which was initially recorded in 2012.
Different songs are private and contemplative, together with Dwelling On Borrowed Time, and My Life Alone.
On the lighter aspect, she sings a duet model of the Everly Brothers’ traditional Bye Bye Love with Mark Masri of The Tenors. Her ballad The Marriage ceremony Tune celebrates lifelong love, and a playful piece, Tamarinda, was impressed by her time dwelling in Mexico.
Liona Boyd performs Concerto of the Andes in 1990, a piece she commissioned, and premiered with the Costa Rica Symphony:
Liona Boyd: The Interview
Boyd’s profession has taken her in many alternative instructions, from famend classical guitarist to beloved singer-songwriter. When she started, nevertheless, none of that was on her thoughts.
“No plan in any respect, it advanced organically,” she says. “I used to be simply imagining taking part in in church basements at first,” she laughs.
From a rising profession as a performing artist, she started to get requests for TV appearances.
“The following factor was TV exhibits,” Liona remembers. “I did so many TV exhibits all around the world.”
Radio spots adopted, then a document deal. “I began with a small Canadian label,” she provides. She would later signal with the Columbia Masterworks label.
Nonetheless, the spine of her music for a few years was touring and performing.
“I toured for a lot of, a few years. I used to be very adventurous.” Boyd remembers making the most of the time she’d spend in airports ready on connections, taking part in her guitar to observe and work out new materials. She typically carried out with orchestras, typically as a solo act.
“I cherished attending to know the world,” she says. Her excursions took her to many locales that weren’t generally known as hotbeds of classical music, or guitar for that matter, together with live shows in Kathmandu and Calcutta.
“In India, they’d by no means heard of classical guitar,” she says. “I’m very proud that I used to be a sort of pioneer representing Canada around the globe.”
Whereas she was often referred to as upon to formally characterize Canada at occasions such because the Cultural Capitol of Europe pageant in Thessaloniki, Greece, and through Canada Week in Bermuda, her Canadian illustration overseas was most frequently merely on account of the truth that many worldwide audiences had little or no publicity to Canadian artists or music.
“Often it was unofficial,” she says. “Individuals would ask me to play ‘Canadian music’ — that’s why I began writing my very own,” she feedback. “I felt like an unofficial Canadian ambassador.”
She additionally remembers taking part in for Cree viewers in Moose Manufacturing facility and different factors in northern Canada, together with Fort McMurray and Rouyn Noranda.
“Actually distant locations the place they didn’t have many live shows,” she says. In some methods, they had been amongst her favorite reminiscences. “I sort of all the time missed the small, intimate theatres.”
She wrote a track about it, in truth, referred to as Small City, about checking into questionable motels, and taking part in in tiny venues.
She typically performed at venues that had seldom seen an artist like her, together with a number of small cities in Saskatchewan and different factors west. “They hadn’t even had a live performance,” she remembers. “It was an amazing privilege. I spent hours on the highway answering mail,” she provides. “You couldn’t do it nowadays.”
The travelling and touring fuelled her music. “I preferred to be alone,” she says. “It’s how I stayed inventive over time.”
For a number of years, she lived within the US after marrying a distinguished Beverly Hills businessman. Once they travelled, they stayed in 5 star resorts, however she says she missed the extra modest lodging and live performance halls.
“I had such a superb time as a scholar,” she remembers. “My guitar went all over the place with me.”
Jamaica Farewell (Feat. Srdjan Givoje):
Songwriting
“I by no means thought I might sing,” she says. It wasn’t a part of the plan early in her profession. “Part one was purely instrumental.
Boyd typically toured with Gordon Lightfoot via the Seventies as his opening act. The 2 artists turned mates, and she or he started to contemplate songwriting, though she wouldn’t pursue it per se for a number of extra years.
At Lightfoot live shows, she remembers audiences of 20,00 or extra listening to her play Debussy and different classical repertoire. For many of them, it was their first publicity to classical guitar.
“There have been no different feminine guitarists that had been well-known [back then].”
Summer time Desires (Feat. Olivia Newton-John):
“A few of my songs are fairly autobiographical,” she says. Three on the album, together with the Olivia Newton-John duet, reimagine earlier releases. “She was an expensive good friend of mine,” she says of the Australian singer-songwriter. Each the unique Summertime Desires, and her new model Candy Desires, seem on the album.
This Factor Known as Love was initially a vocal piece. She’s turned it into an instrumental work. “It makes a wonderful duo,” she says. She performs the piece with Peter Bond, who additionally organized the monitor along with her. “I work with an incredible producer. He’s initially from Kingston,” she says. “He’s labored with me for 20 years. We’re very shut mates.”
It’s essential to seek out collaborators who’re on the identical web page. “We now have the identical imaginative and prescient. He was very influenced by Enya, as was I.” She notes the monitor Dwelling on Borrowed Time has related manufacturing values. Guitarist Andrew Dolson is one other collaborator on the album. “We did many, many live shows in Canada and the US,” she says of Dolson. “He’s a fantastic, fantastic classical guitarist, in addition to a wonderful singer.”
Boyd was dwelling in Palm Seaside simply earlier than the pandemic hit. Fortunately, she’d stockpiled a number of songs by that time. They characterize a steadiness of feelings, from experiencing loss to celebrating love.
“That’s life isn’t it?” she says. She feedback that she’s skilled many losses during the last a number of years, together with that of her mother and father. “Dwelling on Borrowed Time — it’s so pertinent to the best way I really feel.”
Different losses have included mates like Lightfoot and Olivia Newton-John. “I assumed they’d be round longer.”
Celebrating Love Of Completely different Sorts
One of many tracks on the album is titled My Canine, devoted to all animal lovers. “I’ve all the time cherished animals,” she says. “I selected the canine, even thought I’m most likely extra of a cat individual.”
She lived in California throughout a few of the wildfires that devastated the area, and the track was impressed by the tales of the canine and cats who’d run away in the course of the fires, solely to seek out their means residence later. “Individuals reuniting with their pets, there’s such an amazing pleasure,” she says. She remembers having a cat that went lacking for days, however then got here again. “I believe that was one of many happiest moments of my life.”
Tamarinda was impressed by her love of Mexico. “I wished to sing. It’s obtained a whole lot of Mexican really feel to it, and it’s very playful.”
She wrote The Marriage ceremony Tune as a waltz, maybe one which future brides and their fathers can dance to.
The tracks add as much as a meditation on the ups and downs of life. “Completely different moods, and completely different areas in life,” she describes. The songs had been collected over a interval of years. “I don’t write so much,” she provides.
Her influences as a songwriter come from a lot of the music she was listening to as a younger girl and artist. “I grew up within the 60s and 70s.” She counts bands like ABBA, and people musicians of the period, together with Gordon Lightfoot and Leonard Cohen, significantly the latter’s seminal Suzanne. “He was an affect.”
Different inspiration comes from her many travels. “Among the adventures I had influenced me to jot down songs,” she says.
Liona Boyd performs in Cuba in 1982:
Giving Again
Again in 2023, Boyd teamed up with Lengthy & McQuade in a contest to provide away Yamaha classical guitars to younger folks throughout the nation. She remembers it as a rewarding expertise.
“I obtained letters from mother and father,” she says. Typically, they’d embody an image of the children with their model new guitar.
“In my will, I’m leaving some huge cash to an organization that helps younger folks within the arts, and music, significantly,” she says. “They do a whole lot of good work.”
She notes the significance of younger musicians taking part in collectively. “It’s good remedy.” Boyd additionally mentions Sistema, the group working with children in under-served communities. “It actually adjustments the lives of tens of hundreds of younger folks.”
Liona has her personal fond reminiscences of working with orchestras, and conductors like Boris Brott and Kerry Stratton. “He was conducting me many, many occasions,” she remembers. “We’ve misplaced them. They had been two explicit conductors that I knew as mates. This life is tough if you lose so many individuals you’re keen on.”
Her ex-husband, who she remained near over time, lately died at 100. “We had been nonetheless shut,” she says. It impressed the track Dwelling My Life Alone. “So, life isn’t the identical,” she continues.
“I got here again to stay in Toronto after the pandemic, and so many individuals I do know are gone.”
What are her future plans?
“I wrote two autobiographies,” she says. “I’m writing one other e book. It’s impressed by tales from my life,” she explains, including that it’s not strictly autobiographical in nature.
This Factor Known as Love
“One of many methods I like to play is a whole lot of harmonics,” she says. “Candy Desires — you’ll hear it on that track. I believe that’s one in every of my favorite items,” Boyd provides.
“I’m so appreciative that I nonetheless have music followers.”
The brand new album is offered digitally, and in addition on CD. “That is extra for my guitar fan fanatics. Some folks need bodily.”
Together with the CD, they’ll get liner notes, behind the scenes pictures, and different added goodies.
- Discover particulars and buy a signed CD of This Factor Known as Love [HERE].
- Stream This Factor Known as Love all over the place [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 a long time, and a inventive writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
