Christie Grace Golden Thread album release concert, Sept. 17, 8 p.m. at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s Pyatt Hall, 843 Seymour St., Vancouver. Tickets: $25/$20/$15, available at the door or online at christiegrace.bpt.me.
It would be devastating news for anyone, but learning she needed immediate reconstructive jaw surgery came as a particularly serious blow to singer-songwriter Christie Grace.
The longtime Bowen Island resident had just started recording her third studio album when an abscessed root canal on the left side of her mouth derailed her plans. The condition required she undergo seven surgeries, two of them major.
“For a singer, all the trauma that happened around my jaw joints, around my tongue, around everything, it was profound because it just put me in such a vulnerable place,” Grace says.
Doctors couldn’t guarantee how she would fare vocally after the surgeries, so she had to trust that she would be able to sing again. In spite of the medical hurdle, Grace continued plugging away at her jazz-infused album.
“It wasn’t that I stopped working on the album, because I did not. We continued on,” she says, explaining she had to take long breaks, spending sometimes three to six months away from the studio.
“On those breaks I would just inhale the songs,” she says.
All the down time spent recovering was a blessing in a sense, she adds, because it allowed her to refine and rewrite her work.
“I just was so happy to have that time to connect even deeper to what it was I was trying to say and why I was saying it.”
Officially released on Sept. 14, Grace’s new album, Golden Thread, took more than five years to complete. It was originally inspired by a solo road trip she took down the coast in 2010 to Big Sur, California, where she attended a healing retreat.
“It was a very life-changing week,” Grace says of the experience. “I was able to really address some ghosts.”
On the long drive home, songs started pouring out of her. She had to pull over, sometimes for a couple of hours, sometimes for a whole day, to jot down all her ideas.
“I didn’t write all the songs on the road, but I wrote over half of the album,” she says.
On her return to B.C., Grace connected with her producer Chris Gestrin and the creative process continued. She recorded the album of self-healing at his home studio in Coquitlam.
Golden Thread is undoubtedly her most personal album to date. Blending modern jazz with pop, folk and R&B influences, the 13 confessional songs recount true tales of love, loss, forgiveness and redemption. Accompanying Grace’s vocals, 20 notable local musicians are featured on the recording, including Gestrin, James Danderfer, Daryl Jahnke,
Joel Fountain, André Lachance, Malcolm Aiken, Liam MacDonald, Rod Murray, Shannon Scott and Juhli Conlinn.
“We achieved what we set out to do which was to really make this a high-quality sounding album,” she says. “This is a real celebration.”
Today, Grace is fully recovered from her jaw surgery and says she came through the experience a stronger singer.
“I’m so lucky because I feel like I’m an even better performer now because of what happened,” she says.
“To be able to share these songs is really meaningful and fulfilling.”
