Born in Montreal, Canada, singer-songwriter Juliana Sparks knew at an early age she was going to be a musician. Born into a creative family, she was nurtured by parents who supported her artistic leanings – her dad, a talented artist who worked for the National Film Board as a rep, provided the visual.
“My earliest memories are of my dad taking my brother and I on Saturdays to work, and then we’d run to the screening room, where would pull anything we wanted off the library shelves and thread the projectors ourselves. I was watching Norman McLaren, Ryan Larkin and Charlie Chaplin before I knew how important those filmmakers were. When I write songs now, I’m always thinking in terms of film, so the visual had a strong impact on my work…”
Julie’s mother was the writer in the family – “My mother’s family was unusual, because my Scottish grandmother was a single mom in the Depression years. What was interesting was her love of words – my mother tells of her mother pushing the stroller down the street with kids in tow, reciting poetry from memory. Because the library in Wallaceburg was limited, my grandmother would order books by mail-order – Thomas Hardy, Yeats,…the classics. I was encouraged to read anything and everything, so the writing came very naturally...”
With the help of some very special teachers who recognized her talents, Julie’s first professional gig was at the age of sixteen. “My mother worked with a music teacher who heard me sing while still in high school. Turned out that he had been a jazz musician in Scotland, and had backed up singers like Sarah Vaughan. “He took me under his wing, and taught me how to job, worked on a repertoire with me and gave me my first real gig . Suddenly I was singing jazz standards with a band…”
From there it was the road, across Canada, and the United States backing up other singers and fronting a whole series of Top 40 cover bands. “I was fortunate because I got to work, seven nights a week – you develop stamina, and you really learn how to perform in any situation. Sometimes you would drive 40 hours to the next gig, and then have to hit the stage in an hour. The road is tough, and you really know if you want to be a musician after a few weeks…”
It was during those long weeks on the road, she discovered her talents as a songwriter. “When you’re out there, the days are long, and so you start trying to fill them. I had always kept journals, and then one day it occurred to me that I had a book full of song lyrics…”
After discovering the coffeehouse scene in Toronto, Julie began her career as a singer-songwriter, working in small rooms with an acoustic trio.
“When I first started writing, I realized that I was much more influenced by the folk music I had grown up listening to – women like Joni Mitchell and Ellen McIlwaine. So I decided to put together a band with that kind of sound – and I discovered open tunings."
And then the adventure..."I became obsessed with the idea I should go to Telluride to see the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. So I got on a bus with a friend, and we went all the way to Colorado. When I heard that music, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. A musician friend at the time, heard my stuff, and thought I should meet Justin Abedin. He really got it, and so we started playing together. One day, I was talking to him about doing a record, but how I couldn’t find the right producer. And he just said, why don’t I produce? And it made so much sense…and then all the jigsaw pieces fell into place…”
“Juliana”, Julie and Justin’s CD collaboration, was released in September, 2007.
“It’s been a long road, but it’s been worth every bit of heartache and hard work. I have been very blessed, no question, and I’m so happy to be surrounded by so many supportive and talented friends and musicians. It has been a great year…sometimes it’s hard to believe, that we really did it…and it’s everything I’d hoped for.”