Sable Island People

Susan Crowe, Singer-songwriter

(May 2009)

Susan Crowe is a singer-songwriter. Thirty years ago, Susan composed and performed the score for a film about the Grey seals of Sable Island. Susan on guitar was accompanied by Clark Brown on flute. Titled Horseheads, the film was made by Henry James, a professor at Dalhousie University who was conducting research on both Grey and Harbour seals. Henry connected with Susan via Zoe who was at the time working as a field assistant with the James Gang on Sable. Long before that, Susan and Zoe (both Bluenosers born in Halifax) had met as teenagers, within the range of the Silver Sands Moose. Susan eventually moved away to live and work in Toronto and Vancouver, and for a decade during that time she gave up on music. But in 1994, Susan began to write songs again, and is now among Canada’s most respected singer-songwriters. She has preformed throughout Canada, and has toured in the USA and Europe. Susan has received nominations from both the West Coast and East Coast Music Awards, and the Juno Awards, and received the Music Industry of Nova Scotia’s Best Female Artist Award in 2004.

In addition to her solo career, she is currently performing with Raylene Rankin and Cindy Church. She has written for several artists and projects, notably Quartette, Lunch at Allen's and John Reischman and the Jaybirds. For more information about Susan and her music: www.susancrowe.com

After moving back to Halifax, Susan reconnected with Zoe, and in August 2007, she visited Sable Island to spend a week helping with various projects—collecting marine litter items from the beach, searching for invertebrates, checking bands of horses, and sorting specimens etc.

Although Sable Island has had a significant impact on Susan, she is not one to seek novel and/or glamorous experiences to use as fodder for the production of new material. Her work is thoughtful and contemplative. The island’s influence may be expressed more fully after time and distance have provided some perspective and context, but Sable will not emerge in her music as the obvious and predictable. Susan’s new collection of songs (her fifth CD Greytown, May 2009) includes one titled “Boy on a Bicycle”. Her connection with Sable Island is reflected with quiet and gentle joy, in a single line. The song speaks of troubles—misunderstandings, betrayal, loss—but also of other times when the life opens up and the horizon is boundless, and the wind sets you free. The song begins with “Trouble comes in cyclones…” but with the imagery and the feeling of the refrain “I’m a boy on a bicycle, a sailor gone to sea, a Sable Island pony…” there is hope, there are happier times. 

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