Heather Dale

Heather Dale is a Canadian Celtic folk musician, author, entrepreneur, and filker who was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association's Hall of Fame in 2020. Much of her music draws on Celtic and Arthurian legend, but she also incorporates influences and instruments from other genres, including world music. She runs her own independent record label, Amphis Music, from its office in Toronto, Ontario.

Personal life Heather Dale is the daughter of Peter and Nancy Dale. Her mother's family comes from Cornwall, though Dale describes herself as a "Celtic mongrel", with Scottish, Irish, and Welsh ancestry in addition to Cornish. She also has "family roots" in the west side of Ottawa. As of 2004, Dale was a member of the Toronto/Cornish Association. Dale founded Amphis Music (officially Amphisbaena Music) in 1998, and it has been her primary record label throughout her career.

As of 2004, she was touring with a four-piece backing band and giving solo shows. Dale and Deschamps spent a decade on the road together before moving back to Toronto in 2019, the year which marked 20 years as a professional musician, according to an interview Dale did to promote the release of her 20th album, Sphere (2019).

On April 3, 2014, the Globe and Mail listed her as number six on a list of "the top 10 Canadian entrepreneurial crowdfunding campaigns of the moment" for her Indiegogo campaign to fund "CELTIC AVALON", a self-described "big King-Arthur-themed touring show & concert DVD, and youth educational program." This campaign raised over and produced Dale and S. J. Tucker's original musical Queens of Avalon (2016), about the relationship between Guinevere (played by Tucker) and Morgan le Fay (played by Dale).

On August 25, 2020, Dale was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association's Hall of Fame during that year's virtual Aurora Awards ceremony. Dale was the first musician to be inducted into the Hall of Fame since its establishment in 2014.

Style and subject matter

Dale's music is frequently compared to Loreena McKennitt,

Dale's early album The Trial of Lancelot (1999, with songs written between 1996 and 1999), features instrumentation that includes piano, guitars, flute, fiddle, cello, and various kinds of drums. Her instrumentation across her career has combined traditional Celtic instruments (Irish flute, tin whistle, bodhran) with rock-associated instruments (e.g. electric guitar) and instruments from world music, notably the didgeridoo and the udu. The nine songs on this album all draw on Arthurian legend. According to A Bibliography of Modern Arthuriana (1500–2000) (2006):

May Queen (2003) also uses Arthurian legend as its primary subject matter. She re-recorded most of the songs from Trial and May Queen in her later album Avalon (2010). Dale's version uses different English lyrics than most other recordings, favouring a more accurate translation of the Wyandot words.

According to Alan M. Kent's 2007 essay "Towards a History of Popular Music in Cornwall, 1967–2007", Dale's music is "explicitly 'Celtic' and keenly Brythonic and Arthurian in theme." Kent identifies Dale as infusing Cornish popular music with "ethereal and soaring female vocalization," placing her in a genre also occupied by artists including Mary Black, Loreena McKennitt, Maire Brennan, and Enya. Despite Dale's inspiration by the Society for Creative Anachronism, Kent notes that throughout both The Trial of Lancelot and May Queen, she makes use of Cornish historical literary material, for instance the story of Tristan and Iseult (recounted in her song "Tristan and Isolt" on May Queen).

The Road to Santiago (2005) extends beyond the Celtic styles of her earlier albums, and includes influences from "jazz, art song, shanties, Spanish/North African rhythms and modal melodies, medieval court music and contemporary pop balladry," according to a review in the Toronto Star.

Her album Sphere (2019) draws inspiration from the Me Too movement and Time's Up. Stylistically, Sphere also draws on world music motifs, as well as ambient music.

Influence

Dale's lyrics are quoted in many of the novels in S. M. Stirling's The Emberverse series, including The Sword of the Lady (2009), The High King of Montival (2010), The Tears of the Sun (2011), Lord of Mountains (2012), The Given Sacrifice (2013), The Golden Princess (2014), The Desert and the Blade (2015), and Prince of Outcasts (2016).

Tanya Huff's novel The Wild Ways (2011) is dedicated to Dale, "who sang about Selkies and started the whole thing".

Fellow filker and author Seanan McGuire states in the acknowledgements to her novel Chimes at Midnight (2013), that Dale's album Fairytale was a part of her "soundtrack" while writing the novel.

Author E. K. Johnston cites her music as an inspiration for her novels The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim (2014) and Prairie Fire (2015), and quotes the lyrics to "Joan" (a song about Joan of Arc from the 2008 album The Gabriel Hounds) in the latter novel.

Discography

Albums

Dances by the Marian Ensemble (1996) This Endris Night (2002) 2005 Herself Best Performer 2008 Herself Best Performer 2009 Heather Dale and Ben Deschamps Best Performer 2010 Herself Best Writer/Composer 2011 "Joan", Heather Dale and Ben Deschamps Best Filk Song 2011 "As I Am" Best Romantic Song 2013 "Joan", Heather Dale and Ben Deschamps Best Filk Song 2018 "The Road to Santiago" Best Road Trip Song 2020 "Mordred's Lullaby" Best Filk Song

2004 May Queen Other Work in English

2007 The Hidden Path Other Work in English 2012 "Skeleton Woman", Heather Dale and Ben Deschamps Poem or Song 2012 Fairytale Related Work 2020 Herself Hall of Fame