Suzie Ungerleider
Two-time Canadian Juno Award nominee Suzie Ungerleider officially opens a new chapter of her already distinguished and highly successful career with the August 13 release of her new album entitled ‘My Name is Suzie Ungerleider’. It’s her first since the artist formerly known as Oh Susanna announced that she would now record and perform under her birth name.
Bursting with trademark evocative melodies and trenchant lyrics, it’s the tenth solo studio album by the American-born, Canadian-raised artist revered for such landmark records as ‘Johnstown‘, ‘Sleepy Little Sailor‘ and ‘A Girl in Teen City‘. The decision to say “so long” to her long-time moniker Oh Susanna represents her recognition that the “exciting, dark, funny, charming” character that she thought was Oh Susanna was actually Suzie Ungerleider all along. “So here I am, leaving behind the trappings of a persona that gave me the courage to climb up onstage and reveal what is in my heart,” she reflects. “It once protected me, but I need to take it off so I can be all of who I am.”
The name change is both a personal and political decision, fuelled by her realization that ‘Oh Susanna,’ the Stephen Foster song of 1848, contained racist imagery and a belief system that she wanted no part of. She came to understand its historic associations to Minstrelsy, a tradition both demeaning and dehumanizing to black people. Leaving Oh Susanna behind, she’s become her true self with a wonderful record that marks a fresh beginning, a collection of new compositions that refresh and redefine who Suzie Ungerleider is.
The new album is introduced by the characteristically searing ‘Baby Blues,’ a song about how the traumatic events we witness when we’re young can haunt and indeed shape our older selves. It’s a deep subject with an upbeat punchline. “Like ghosts,” she says, “sometimes you just need to just sit with them, feel their power, and, because they feel seen, they release their hold on you for a little while.” Elsewhere, the album depicts an older and wiser artist and mother sometimes writing for her daughter, both at the time of her dramatically premature birth and miraculous survival on the achingly pretty ‘Summerbaby’ and, now a teenager herself, courageously dealing with her own identity on the intimate ‘Hearts,’ on which mountains of blue watch over her.
Now based again in her home town of Vancouver, she made ‘My Name is Suzie Ungerleider’ with producer Jim Bryson (Kathleen Edwards), whose assured touch amplifies the atmospheric dreamscapes contained in Suzie’s reflective, intimate songbook.
For over two decades, thousands of shows, and nine critically acclaimed albums, Suzie’s gloriously emotive, crystalline voice, her bewitching performances and her fierce songwriting have consistently captivated audiences, her peers and the press.
She is the recipient of a Genie Award for Best Original Song and a Canadian Folk Music Award for English Songwriter of the Year. She has also been nominated for two Juno Awards each for Best Roots and Traditional Album of the Year, as well as two Canadian Folk Music Awards for Best Solo Performer and for Best Contemporary Singer of the Year.
In 2017, she released A Girl in Teen City, an album of songs set in 1980s Vancouver starring a teenage punk girl named Suzie. The album has been met with high critical acclaim and has earned three Canadian Folk Music Award nominations: English Songwriter of the Year, Contemporary Singer of the Year, and Producer of the Year.