When country pop musician Lindsay Ell met Randy Bachman around 20 years ago when she was a teenager, she had no idea that chance encounter would set her on a life-changing trajectory that today would see her performing with her childhood musical hero Shania Twain.
The award-winning singer-songwriter will be taking a break as Twain’s lead guitarist to perform her own music at a free-admission concert at Del Crary Park on Saturday night (August 10) as part of Peterborough Musicfest’s 37th season.
“I ran into a guy named Randy Bachman in my early teens,” Ell recalled in a December 2019 interview with Jason Sheppard of Maryland-based Authority Magazine.
“He was the first person to ‘discover’ me and get me started in the Canadian music industry and teach me how to write a song.”
The Calgary native was just 15 years old when the founding member of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive took a shine to her raw musical talent. Bachman later called Ell “the most talented and multi-faceted artist I’ve worked with in years.”
Would Ell have achieved all she has, had she not come under Bachman’s tutelage? Yes, probably — talent always comes to the fore eventually — but the encouragement provided by Bachman’s interest and guidance sure didn’t hurt matters.
Long before that early encounter with Bachman, Ell knew what she wanted to do with her life. In a January 2019 interview with Michael Leonard of Guitar.com, she recalled receiving her first guitar at age eight and receiving lessons from her father.
VIDEO: “Waiting On You” – Lindsay Ell
“He taught me Stairway To Heaven (and) I knew that me and the guitar was going to be something special. I wasn’t just the only girl playing guitar at school — I was the only person. I was really uncool, but, with every bone in my body, it was what I wanted to do.”
Enter Bachman a few years later, who co-wrote and produced Ell’s first album Consider This. Recorded at Bachman’s Saltspring Island studio and released in late 2008, that debut offering didn’t make a dent in any radio chart listings, but it did serve notice that what Bachman knew early on would eventually come to wider attention.
“After we’d written a couple of songs together, he sat me down and said ‘Lindsay, this is going to be an emotional rollercoaster,'” Ell told Leonard. “He said ‘There will be ups and downs, every day. Even in the same day. You have to learn how to ride the waves.’ He was right.”
After touring with famed blues guitarist Buddy Guy in 2008 and releasing her sophomore album Alone in 2009, Ell made the permanent move to Nashville in 2010 (she now has dual Canadian-American citizenship), there signing an album deal with Stoney Creek Records.
It took a bit but Ell’s first album with the label, The Project, was released in August 2017. Debuting at a very respectable number 40 on the Billboard 200 chart and a more impressive number four on the Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, the album was anchored by the singles “Waiting On You,” “Criminal,” and “Champagne.”
Before recording The Project, Ell was asked by producer Kristian Bush what her favourite album was. Her answer came back quickly: John Mayer’s 2006 album Continuum. At Bush’s urging as a “homework assignment,” Ell recorded a track-by-track cover all by herself and released The Continuum Project, which peaked at number 28 on Billboard’s Independent Albums chart and in the process, earning acclaim for Ell’s guitar playing and artistic expression in terms of her interpretation of Mayers’ songs.
VIDEO: “Criminal” – Lindsay Ell
Just days after its release, another chance encounter — this time at a West Hollywood restaurant — saw Ell come face to face with her guitar hero.
“Out of all the restaurants in Los Angeles, John Mayer happens to be three tables away from me,” marvelled Ell during a July 18 interview with Nancy Kruh of People magazine, adding she approached him to introduce herself.
“I was like ‘Hey John, I’m Lindsay. I recorded Continuum. Please don’t judge me guitar tones.’ He said ‘I can’t wait to hear it. I’m honoured. Honestly, thank you.'”
Ell added The Continuum Project wasn’t originally intended for release, but once word got out that she had laid down the tracks, demands for its release by Ell’s fans prompted reconsideration.
“We decided to put it out. We were like ‘Why not? Show them the journey,'” she told People’s Kruh, while noting “John’s version will always be the perfect version.”
In August 2020, Ell released her fifth album Heart Theory. By far her most personal work to date, the track listing chronicles seven stages of grief. The last song written for album, “Make You,” references Ell’s past experiences with sexual abuse, with the majority of the album’s 12 tracks touch on the heartbreak Ell has experienced.
VIDEO: “Want Me Back” – Lindsay Ell
Commercially, Heart Theory did well, debuting at number 53 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart and becoming Ell’s first album to chart in the United Kingdom. Singles-wise, “I Don’t Love You” and “Want Me Back” received a lot of air play — the former peaking becoming her fourth top 10 hit on the Canadian country air play chart.
American Songwriter subsequently reviewed Heart Theory as “a career-altering masterpiece of an album” that elevated Ell “into legendary territory.” The record earned Ell a 2021 Juno Award nomination.
But more significantly, the album coincided with Ell’s founding of the Make You Movement Fund in support of at-risk youth, sexual assault and domestic abuse survivors. That philanthropic effort takes is its name from “Make You,” one of Heart Theory‘s tracks, and has led to Ell being named the recipient of the Canadian Country Music Association’s 2024 Gary Slaight Music Humanitarian Award, which will be presented to her during Country Music Week in Edmonton in September.
While Ell has toured with country music stars such as Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Blake Shelton and The Zac Brown Band, to mention a few, she is now living out her lifelong dream of touring with her childhood musical hero, Shania Twain.
Ell’s talent obviously made quite the impression on Twain after opening for her during the country music superstar’s 2023 Canadian tour. This past April, Ell announced that she had been invited to play lead guitar for Twain throughout the year.
“My 10-year-old self is speechless, truly, and it was really hard to make me speechless when I was 10 years old,” Ell shared on Instagram at the time. “The fact that Shania asked me to play guitar for her this year, I am truly honoured, I am so grateful … this year is going to be epic.”
Ell joined Twain’s band for her third residency in Las Vegas, which will see the Bakkt Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino host Twain for 24 shows over five months. After wrapping up the first leg of the residency, Ell joined Twain for a series of shows in the UK and Ireland this summer.
“Shania was the reason I started singing when I was a little girl,” Ell told Lily Waddell in a July interview with Yahoo! Entertainment. “I remember the first song that really got me into Shania. Her single No One Needs to Know was in the (2016) movie Twister.”
“Now on stage, I am playing that song with her and she’s three feet away from me — the very song that inspired me to learn how to sing in the first place.”
Peterborough Musicfest is presenting 16 free-admission concerts during its 37th season, each staged on Wednesday and Saturday nights until August 17th.
Overseen by executive director Tracey Randall and staff, a board of directors, and numerous volunteers, Peterborough Musicfest’s stated mission remains “to provide diverse, affordable live music to enrich cultural and economic prosperity in our community.”
For more information on this concert or the 2024 season, visit www.ptbomusicfest.ca or phone the Peterborough Musicfest office at 705-755-1111.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a headline sponsor of Peterborough Musicfest’s 2024 season.
