Original singer Rebecca Barclay creates a richly daring canvas of dynamic nuance, built with passion. With her tumultuous rumbling-tumbling bass notes to her soaring nightingale highs, this creative musician fills each musical offering with detailed vocal colours.

Rebecca Barclay has been an inspired singer since the age of twelve when she started actively researching folk traditions. She has a particular interest in the stories of older songs, bringing them to life with both traditional and multi sourced original vocal ornamentation.

Performing widely across Canada and the UK, Rebecca Barclay has played both as a soloist and as a compliment to an assortment of bands, ranging in style from folk choirs to ceilidh dance bands, celtic-jazz and celtic-rock bands plus her own unique special blend.

Rebecca studied in depth many musical traditions before starting her own band in 1991 and has been part of many varied folk-rock bands and folk choirs with the older songs being her particular interest. Rebecca was influenced by the fabulous musicians in the city she grew up in, a city which celebrates well over 50 cultures from across the world.

Inspired to sing from the age of ten, after meeting her parents friends Sylvia Fricker and Ian Tyson with their dedication to traditional music, rhythms and unique harmonies, Rebecca's traditional music education grew while presenting as a co-host the celtic traditional music radio show Music from the Glen with Graham Ashby on CKCU Radio, Ottawa, in the early 80’s. Her parents were filmakers, hailing from Calgary and Ottawa, and made many documentary films for the CBC on Canadian folk musicians while Rebecca was growing up, including Gordon Lightfoot, Ian and Sylvia, and the Canadian folk song collector Edith Fowke. Encounters with these extraordinary people led Rebecca into researching older folk field recordings stored at a library near her junior high school. Rebecca listened to and learned hundreds of traditional songs, learning to sing them directly from the voices of older traditional singers, the beginning foundations to building a traditional repertoire.

Photo: John Steele

PHOTOS: Tania Anderson

the new BARCLAY & STEELE duo CD, 2011, WITH THE NIGHT FAST APPROACHING created with the traditional music recording
expertise of Tyneside's Ron Angus.

In 2010 Rebecca Barclay was nominated as Canada's best Traditional Singer for her work on her traditional folk-roots CD of 2010, named after the periodic table element red CINNABAR.

CINNABAR is a resounding blend of traditional song brought to life with ornamentation and rhythmical influences from a diverse range of cultural traditions, full of joyful and original textures, the weaving of an unusual sound. The CD is the result of working with many different musicians and pulling them together to focus traditional songs bursting with new flavours.

The very first BARCLAY & STEELE CD, a collaborative traditional project with Nothumbrian guitarist John Steele, named ISLET, was released in North America in May 2010 during their Eastern Canada tour after being released earlier in the UK.

Response to the album ISLET has focused on the satisfying and understated nature of John's guitar playing, making the album reminiscent of UK early folk revival. For those who prefer classic folk storytelling, with intricate, intense, precise vocals, guitar and fiddle to complete the sound... this album is for you.

(for more info on all that see: barclay and steele .com)

the albums are available here
on this website at:

http://www.johnsteele-music.co.uk/shop.html

or from CD Baby at:

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rebeccabarclay