Colleen Rennison

Colleen Rennison is a singer, songwriter, and actress. She’s worked in films with Bruce Willis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Minnie Driver, Tom Arnold, Rachael Leigh Cook, Kathleen Turner, Mila Kunis, and many more. None of this I knew when I first heard her voice. A voice that is simply stunning.

I stumbled across Colleen on YouTube. Her band “No Sinner” was under recommendations. My first thought was, what a cool name. I found out later it’s her last name “Rennison” spelled backwards. I clicked the video and the music began. Within the first few notes I could hear those Delta Blues, muddy and smeared with life dripping from the guitarist’s amplifier. Then came Colleen’s voice soulful, strong, and raw with emotion.

I sat watching song after song, blown away at the sound of an old soul singing in this almost forgotten style. I say almost, because in our overstimulated world flooded with perfectly polished music, real talent is hard to find. So when you run across someone of Colleen’s caliber you instantly take notice.

The next morning waiting to clock in for work I looked her up on the web. I followed her and within a few hours she followed me back. A few weeks passed and I decided to reach out and see if she would do an interview. The next day she wrote back and agreed.

So this is Colleen Rennison.

Have you always been drawn to the blues as a musician?

I think so, I’ve always been drawn to anything with soul and pain... I’d say the blues has a lot of that.

  

When writing lyrics do you pull from journal entries or is writing songs a more spontaneous action for you?

I definitely go back into old journals if I manage to keep my hands on them. Sometimes it’s painful but it’s worth it. When you’re in the throes of a feeling you might not be in the position to sit down and write a song about it, but to jot down something is key, even if it doesn’t seem significant at the time it can be very valuable in the future when you have time to reflect and write.

Which artists inspired you when you were starting out, and still inspires you today?

I listened to a lot of Etta James, Aretha, Martha Reeves, Nina Simone... still do. My musical tastes have expanded slightly but never really changed.

I noticed you ride a motorcycle. What kind do you have, and how long have you been riding?

I’ve been riding for about 3 years now, taught myself after a bad breakup and I moved to Saskatoon. Haven’t looked back since.

  

While riding your bike and enjoying the open road do lyrics or lines for songs come to you?

I started riding to clear my head, but turns out it just spins in circles like your wheels. When I’ve got nothing but my thoughts sometimes they’ll start to sound like a song and end up writing themselves into one.

What have you been working on lately in music or film that you would like the reader to check out?

I just came back to Vancouver from Austin for The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) where a film I was in called “Kingsway” showed. It’s a dark comedy about a dysfunctional family where I play Lori, a pregnant singer who rides a motorcycle (the only real stretch was on my T-shirt for that one). I wrote a few songs that made it into the film, and I’m hoping to flesh them out into an EP soon. Also, Colin James just released his new album and I’ve got some backup vocals on it. You should check it out! It’s a great album!

Behind The Axe

My father

Gave me my first axe

When I was 8 years of age

39 years later

It’s my go to tool

I’ve honed my skills behind the axe

And

Honed its blade!!!

Its weight

Its length

Its handle

Which soaks in my sweat

And

Sometimes my blood

Becomes a part of me

And me of it!!!

A symphony of

Cutting, slicing, and chopping

Me, the conductor

It, the instrument

The Axe and Cutting Mattock

Have been in my hands

My father’s hands

His father’s hands

His father’s, father’s hands

So on and so forth

All the way back to Ireland, Scotland, and Wales

Back to Scandinavia and The Vikings

The axe is deeply rooted in my blood

My DNA

Everything that is me

When it comes to working outdoors

One day

When I’m old

And my hands too feeble

Too crippled

To hold my axe

I’ll look back on the lands I’ve shaped

The dirt I’ve churned

The trees I’ve fallen

And remember

My days

Behind the axe

Open Letter to Brandon Graham

Time slips by or maybe

I’m slipping as time goes by me?

Not every day is a drag

But it seems the ones

That involve passing by the TV

When the news is on

Can really bring me down

I’d much rather walk outside

Stroll down the path with my friends of the woods

Like a raccoon named Sugar

She’s so large

So big

I believe from

Eating out of the ice cream store’s dumpster

Down the street from my home

She waddles from the weeds and peers at me with

Dark curious eyes

Then slowly makes her way back into the brush

There’s also a deer I’ve named Brownie

Her husband Buck Owens and their child Jane Fawn-Da

Also come to say hello

A turkey named Loner

For

He is always alone

And a rabbit named Tag

For

It runs to me then back away

Then back to me then away it runs

They all seem to be so much more entertaining

Than anything on the tube…

And Brandon

I still wonder how your writing is going from time to time?

I wonder about all of my friends

Who practice the craft of words

Along with my own thoughts of what next to write?

Lizzy Worth is still doing her thing above us

In that far away land called Canada

I’m sure she still scribbles words

Her cat Plumb

Most likely meowing in circles around her

As she pulls words from the air like magic

And arranges them on paper

Illian Rain is up there too

Her cat’s named Leroy

I’m sure he meows

I’m just not sure how much it affects her writing

Whatever the case

Illian and Lizzy are such strong voices

From the land of Canada

And Brandon

I still talk to Lizzie Woodham from across the sea

Emailing words through wires way over there

She’s patient with me and my questions

About her writing

About the places and things that make up Europe

From Scottish Snow Flakes

To

The Irish Sea

To

The smells and sounds of the streets of Soho

But most of all she listens to me and my wandering mind

What a friend I have in her!!!

And Brandon

Mallory Smart is still out there somewhere

The windy city I believe

Or maybe the city of wind?

She loves coffee, you know?

She writes and publishes

Publishes and writes

Words swirl around her mind

Like a cyclone

At least that’s what I believe they do!

When I met Mallory

Another person that loves “The Beats”

It gave me hope for the future

And Brandon

I still think of your encounter with Burroughs

It still makes me smile

And Brandon

I still wonder if we, us, and our friends in writing

Will ever have a name associated with our work?

With our lives?

Like “The Beats” or “The Lost Generation”

I’ve pondered this question for years?

So, I will now take it upon myself to name us

“The Holding Generation”

There! I’ve coined it!!!

For

I feel we are holding onto hope

Holding onto anything

That tomorrow will be better than today

That moms and dads will be able to hold

Their children after a day at school

That the kids will carry books

Instead of bulletproof jackets

Holding onto the thought

That maybe just maybe

People will stop killing each other

Holding onto the idea that society

Will somehow someway get their act together…

But most of all

Holding on

While we continue to write and create art

That’s all I can do anymore

Brianna Belladonna

Brody Dalle

Riverview

Between Belbedere and Clyed

The last days of his youth

Were coming to an end

He was born into a world of hard labor

The plow, the axe, and the crosscut saw

Were the tools by which

His family carved out a living

They migrated wherever

The next income could be made

From

The North Florida farmlands of Hilliard

To the snake-infested waterways

Of the Okefenokee Swamp

Cutting timber and growing crops

Were their way of life

Yet

Life was also lived

On the mean streets of North Jacksonville

Riverview

Was where you went

When all other options were gone

His father grew up on these

Same streets delivering turpentine

From the forest surrounding the city

At the age of 14 in 1906

He would gear up mules

And make the journey alone

On a wagon

His overalls stained with sticky pinesap

With tobacco

With sweat

With dirt! 

Now his son

Was following his father’s footsteps

Yet

Work was not all that thrived in Riverview!

On the north side

When the sun went down

With his hair slicked back

And

His blue eyes sparkling in the streetlights

This young man

Would slip into the night

With his brothers and friends   

Going from honky tonks to juke joints

Anywhere a good time could be had!

Because

When you were a child of The Great Depression

And

Had seen times so hard

Your parents boiled the seed

For planting that year’s crop

To feed your brothers and sister

To feed you!

Any happiness even if through recklessness

Was excepted

But 

His way of living

On the edge of existences   

Was drifting away

Drifting toward a domestic life

Of a father

Of my father

And

On a Sunday afternoon in 1952

One last ride was taken

He and his Harley 74

With its

Suicide shift jutting upwards

Its 1200 CC motor winding out

The wind stinging his face

As he blasted through

Florida’s highway heat waves, and humidity

He hit the Main Street Bridge

On the north side of the city

At 100mph

Crossing over

From one life to another

From Harleys to house mortgages

From ‘42 Ford coupes

To station wagons

He would raise his kids

With only stories of the life he left behind

But the promise

That our lives

Would be better than the one he had lived!

The sun set on his wild ways

But rose every day for us

In the figure of our father!

Now

His 82-year-old hands wrinkled and scared

Point here and there in the horizon

Telling me stories

About the places and people

That once were alive!

Yet he can’t find any trace

Of the world that surrounded his childhood

But the world he created for us will live on

For generations to come

All made by a man who was born into nothing

But was able to give us everything  

Harry Crews 9/10/10

                                Photo ©Jason E. Hodges