Spilling Inside Out by Deborah Ledon

Feisty, funny, and staunchly anti-diva, Deborah Ledon is a thoughtful, passionate teller of personal truths - a composer and performer of songs that try to dig a little deeper, even when it's not always comfortable. "I'm not a formula writer," she says, "I just follow my heart and how I hear it."

Her self-financed, independently released first album, Spilling Inside Out, is filled with the kinds of observations that deliberately stray a little outside the boundaries of the standard pop song. Taking her inspiration from the world as she sees it, Deborah doesn't shy away from subjects that she finds shocking and upsetting.

I Love To Love You is a heart-wrenching ballad that dares to detail an abusive relationship from a uniquely disturbing point of view.

Naughty Nina Sunshine, I Live A Lie, Mickey and Fat Cat are knife-edged portraits of people who have done everything possible to offend the singer's sense of fairness and justice.

Song4TheSpineless is based on actual events as it deals with the tragic death of a teenage boy at the hands of a friend.

But it's not all dark stories and shady characters.

Sans Vous/Without You is a wistful, softly rhythmic ballad while Like A Latin is an autobiographical embrace of Deborah's Cuban roots. It also serves as a fond remembrance of her late grandmother whom she credits as being the most influential person in her life, the one who passed on many valuable lessons. "I learned from her that difficult does not mean impossible," she says.

Although her family was relatively privileged in Castro's Cuba, life became challenging once they moved to Canada. "I had to learn to be strong at an early age." Her parents divorced, and she, her mother and brother lived a rootless existence, moving countless times all over Southern Ontario, the Maritime Provinces, and the US before settling in Toronto. Years later, after she moved to the Ottawa area, Deborah's passion for music emerged. While working a full-time job in tourism, she took the opportunity to do theatre and sing in three bands. The metamorphosis from shy public speaker to confident performer began.

Another job involved working as a nurse, doing all the things nurses do including the task of wrapping bodies for the trip to the morgue. Deb acknowledges that while working as an advocate for her patients and often watching the system fail them, she began to hone her awareness of injustice. And that, she says, started to find its way into

her songs.

Since moving to Vancouver several years ago, Deborah has found plenty to write about while living and working in this cosmopolitan rainforest city, especially when it comes to the growing gap between the ultra-wealthy and the disenfranchised. "I'm from Cuba where people have very little as far as material possessions go," she says, "but here in North America we have so much deceit and so little authenticity. We need to work on that while we still can.

If you think Deborah has a lot to say for someone releasing her first album, her answer is "absolutely!" For her, it's all about moving forward musically while doing everything she can to avoid being typecast as a certain kind of singer. "I don't think I have one particular style because I've done everything as a singer and I think that's how it should be," she says. "I want to do it all!"

Some artists simply take a little more time to develop their craft and carefully build an audience. That's all part of knowing who you are and that is one category Deborah Ledon is happy to be a part of.

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