Jann Arden Co-Writes With Bette By Email

Sad and funny all at once
MUSIC: Jann Arden in concert
Posted By DARREN MACDONALD THE SUDBURY STAR

For someone who has been called the queen of melancholy, Jann Arden has a wicked sense of humour.

Take this recent tweet on her Twitter page:

“I am going to shower now. May shave my legs even…. Or maybe just one leg and one armpit? Yeah, that’s all I have time for today.”

An ardent tweeter, she announces daily what she’s wearing, eating, her dog’s pooping habits and her own menstrual cycle.

“Nothing like trying to figure out the universe on a Sunday afternoon,” she tweeted last week. “Picking up dog crap always brings clarity.”

She’s also an avid bubble tweeter — basically, short video clips that pop up on your screen. Most focus on her dog.

So, even though she wasn’t available for an interview, anyone can learn a lot about Arden and her life simply by reviewing her Twitter page.

Her music will be front and centre in Sudbury on Jan. 19 at Sudbury Community Arena. She’ll be performing songs from her new album,Free,as well as hits such asI Would Die For You, Insensitive, Good MotherandCould I Be Your Girl.Tickets are $55 plus taxes.

She’s touring in support ofFree,her first collection of original material since 2005.

ForFree,the 47-year-old Calgary-bred singer also parted ways with longtime guitarist and collaborator Russell Broom, who was instrumental in penning some of Arden’s most famous songs and played alongside Arden on stage for 14 years.

“(My manager Bruce Allen) wanted me to really think about an album title that spoke a lot about change,” Arden told QMI Agency reporter Jane Stevenson recently. “(The titleFree)is not the most original thing in the world, but it’s a great word. And it’s certainly a word fitting for the times that we’re living in right now.

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“I mean, everyone’s looking for their own version of freedom, I guess, from their jobs or their relationships or how they feel about themselves.”

Since releasing her 2007 covers album,Uncover Me,the biggest change in Arden’s career has been hiring Vancouver-based veteran Allen (Bryan Adams, Anne Murray) to manage her. The two were longtime friends previously. They’d have dinner a couple of times a year going back at least a decade.

“He said, ‘You need to let me manage you. Rumour on the street … is that you’re unmanageable,’ ” Arden says. “And maybe I have been.

“I’ve been managing myself for 20 years (through a management company). You just come to a fork in the road and you take it. There’s nothing that made me go, ‘I gotta get away from these people.’ I just thought I feel stifled and I need to make changes.”

After Arden called Allen for advice, he rang her up in July 2008 when he was in Calgary, seeking a meeting.

“He says, ‘You’re just an untapped talent. You haven’t reached your potential. And you’ve been dicking around too much and you’ve got to be more focused.’

Arden, for her part, agreed.

“I think I’ve been lazy. I think I’ve done just as much as I need to make it work.”

Over the past year, Arden also got to record a duet,Angel in the Wings,on Olivia Newton-John‘s most recent album, at the suggestion of the song’s composer, Amy Sky — “I could hug Amy for that,” Arden says — and has been corresponding via e-mail with Bette Midler on a couple of songs, after meeting the Divine Miss M backstage at Midler’s Las Vegas show.

“She said, ‘Send me some songs,’ and so it took me a month to get the courage up to send a song. I’ve sent her a few I’ve never recorded, so we’ll see what happens. She was really lovely and I left there thinking, ‘You know, I’ve admired her my whole life, and listened to her records, and she didn’t let me down.’ ”

Arden’s career include 17 Canadian top-10 singles, eight Juno awards and a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame. So she hasn’t been as lazy as she might have people believe.

In fact, she has a serious heart condition that’s serious threat to her health.

In 2007, she was diagnosed with a rare stress-related heart condition after being rushed to hospital. Turns out, she’s been dealing with it her whole life.

“This has been going on for me since I was kid,” Arden told Stevenson. “I had all kinds of heart things. I’ve had arrhythmia problems all my life, since I was a teenager. When I was 20, I got a pacemaker. And I had that for 17 years.

“And then it just got to the point where the cardiologist said, ‘It’s not helping you.’ Imagine the changes that cardiology made in a 20-year span. My pacemaker was quite big. So they got it out, but I still have about 16 inches of teflon that’s in my heart and under my clavicle.”

Anyone who reads her tweets knows that she’s close to her parents and lives within spitting distance of them in Calgary.

“It’s great having them there. My dad had a stroke about three years ago, so he’s doing much better now. And my mom’s got a pacemaker and they’re in there 70s. I want to have them here, next to me now. They’re keeping an eye on me and I’m keeping an eye on them.”

For tickets, go to the city’s website at www.city.greatersudbury.on.ca,or call the arena box office at 671-3000.

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Recent tweets

Some of Jann Arden’s recent postings on Twitter:

“George Strombo is one hot babe….very darling indeed. And also, the dog just peed.” (Jan. 12)

“I made a meatloaf tonight in the shape of a….er, shall I say…weiner? yes, a man’s wiener. It was a hit with the fellows I’ve stayed with.” (Jan. 6)

“Dear Jesus, when I turned 46, I woke up and my neck was gone. Just thought I’d let you know…” (Jan. 5)