Leader-Post (Regina) Danielle French By Emmet Matheson for the Leader-Post Whether she's dueting on her album with Guess Who rocker Burton Cummings or sharing a bill with Regina's Dave Taylor, one thing's for certain: Calgary-based singer-songwriter Danielle French knows a lot of people in the music industry. "I've toured quite a bit throughout Canada and I worked in a recording studio in Vancouver, so I've crossed paths with a lot of people," says French, whose musical resume includes collaborations with everyone from Rita MacNeil to Matthew good. "A lot of it has come down to just being bold enough to ask people to be on my album." Her latest record, Piece, was released independently in the spring of 2003. it was the long-in-coming follow-up to her similarly independent debut album me, myself & i, released in 1995. Hardly idle during the interim, French has spent a lot of time touring, including a three-year stint living in her tour van. Lately, though, French has stuck close to home in Calgary, carving a niche for herself in the city's cultural community. She's currently taking part in an arts administration work study at the famous Banff Centre for the Arts, where she has been taking advantage of the facility's recording studios to cut demos. Such a busy schedule leaves little time for the type of extensive touring she's used to, but French takes advantage of breaks to make short solo trips to Western Canadian cities. "I'm an independent artist, so I can't really affford to take a band out with me on the road," she says. "But I make these 'outreach' tours to places like Edmonton and Lethbridge, and now Regina, so that I can build a little bit of a presence so that I will be able to tour with a band someday." French's pared-down solo performances give her fans a chance to hear different versions of the songs from her fully produced recordings, which have been compared with the likes of Jane Siberry and Jann Arden. "I write with just guitar and vocals before filling it out with production," says French. "So when I play by myself, the song structure is the same, you still get the essence of the song. It's a little more raw and intimiate."
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