Vanessa Carlton has come a thousand miles since her Grammy Award nominations in 2003.
“I was starting from scratch,” she says. “The scariest set of decisions you have to make tend to be, in my experience, the most important steps that you need to make.”
Carlton was approaching her thirties and was without a label, a producer or a direction.
“I would say that was a really hairy period for me,” she says. “I had to leave everything that I had known behind.”
She eventually found herself at Real World Studios in the U.K., thousands of kilometres away from her home.
That’s when the tides began to change for the Milford, PA native.
“I figured out how I can grow for the rest of my career,” Carlton says. “I am very grateful that I found Steve Osborne who is the producer who I found in England who I did the record with. He opened up the door to the rest of my musical life.”
In 2011 she released her most recent album, Rabbit on the Run, produced by Osborne.
“Once I stepped away from the major label system and started doing stuff that I knew I thought was cool and that was going to make me happy,” she says. “Once I started making decisions that came from those places everything kind of fell into place and everything got better. The sound on the albums got better, the songwriting got better, the performances got better and I think I am a more generous and happier person.”
Carlton, who was slated to perform last week at Tom Lee Music Hall in Vancouver, was forced to cancel her performance due to complications after she was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy in mid-October.
“I was all set to fly to Vancouver on Wednesday but, alas, I am not ready yet,” Carlton wrote on her Facebook page.
Carlton, who has only performed in Canada a handful of times, has rarely performed in Vancouver. She says the few times she’s travelled to Canada she has enjoyed it.
“I rarely go to Canada, so when I am in Vancouver it is kind of like going to Europe,” she says. “I have a friend that lives in Vancouver and it is definitely its own thing and I like that because it’s a different rhythm.”
Carlton is best known for her multi-Grammy Award winning hit single A Thousand Miles, which also made it in the top five on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. Her debut album Be Not Nobody was released in 2002 and certified platinum in the United States.
She says that people who have not heard her more recent music often expect it to be similar to that of her Grammy nominee material.
“They are expecting something from a stranger. That’s not who I am,” Carlton says. “It’s almost like a different lifetime for me.”
More information on the tour cancellation can be found at https://www.facebook.com/notes/vanessa-carlton/first-four-november-tour-dates-cancelled/10151798386698303 or by visiting www.vanessacarlton.com
