Sandy Bell’s debut solo album was born out of heart-wrenching grief, after losing her only son Colin Bell in a tragic train accident. While Bell has sung and written music for much of her life, and co-founded country roots band The Wanted, for decades she was devoted to raising her boy and professionally promoting other music artists' dreams. But she kept her own dream alive to someday release a solo album. It took retiring and moving to Nova Scotia for Bell to finally do it, at age 63 – even though this was never the album she imagined recording.
We don't often come across a release that came about under these very special circumstances, addressing the deepest of human emotions: a mother's loss of her child. Heartfelt, heart-wrenching and gripping, the album may serve as a healing to others who are facing similar fate.
Sandy Bell is a published poet, and "Alberta Blue Sky" offers the strongest showcase on the album for that talent. Set to a stately, almost formal musical structure, the lyrics tie together disparate strands of images, under the unifying, blue Alberta sky.
"Wasteland" slowly unspools its haunting, minor-key melody, perfectly captured by the cream of the crop of Toronto roots musicians (like John Showman, and Andrew Collins, for example). Bell was worried about the state of the environment and how a dying planet and the nuclear threat might affect her young son’s future.
Before I wrote 'I Know You By Heart' I was overwhelmed with this desire to put into song how much I love Colin," says Bell. "Despite this gigantic impulse and how daunting it seemed to fulfill, this was an easy song to write. It’s probably my sweetest song.
The harmonies sit sweetly in "Hold Us Together," a tender-hearted waltz about what it takes to sustain a relationship – whether with one's sister, son, or partner. Showman's fiddle sends the song soaring throughout. "Colin was a teenaged boy when I wrote it and we had started experiencing a bit of the normal turbulence that comes with the territory," says Bell.
"Baby Blue" is as sad and bittersweet as it gets. "I wrote the song after my son passed away, reflecting on some of the difficulties Colin faced experiencing mental health issues when he turned 17," says Bell. "His whole life Colin was a talented, compassionate, funny, universally loved young man. “In some ways, it felt as if we lost him first to mental illness and various medical interventions and then to death."
A classic honky-tonk weeper, "Catch A Falling Star" finds Bell trying to capture some light to make it through a very dark time. She wrote it after her son Colin died, recalling when he was in the depths of mental illness, and afterwards when she was in the depths of mourning his loss. The lyrics combine his pain with hers.
In a musical departure from the rest of the album, the title track, "Break of Day," is a down-and-dirty blues. When the song began to emerge, it kept Bell from sleep, and she was compelled to stay up all night until she finished writing it. Richard Henderson transcribed it the next day, and his plaintive lap steel solo is sublime.
"Covering Hank Williams's 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry' was a no-brainer for the album," says Bell. "I’d sung this with my band The Wanted out in Toronto and loved the song. I slowed it down considerably, and James Robertson came up with his cool guitar lines on the spot."
An archetypal juxtaposition of merry form and mournful content, "If You Went Away" leans the closest to bluegrass of any song on the album. The catchy chorus and sprightly lap steel are gentle but captivating.
"We Praise the Day" could easily be misconstrued as a straight-up Gospel country song; but it's more of a zen appreciation of how lucky we are to have been materialized in the same place and time as our loved ones, for however long we have together. Burke Carroll's pedal steel carries the day.
In another musical departure, the riff-rock of "Hang On" equates the intensity of Bell's grief at her son's passing with the physical pain of giving birth to him. In both cases, the only way through is to breathe.
All songs written by Sandy Bell *except I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
Dedicated in loving memory to Colin Earl Bell (1987-2007)
