Serena Ryder

Born to Andy and Barbara Ryder in 1982, Serena Ryder was always a musical soul. One who was singing in public by the time she was seven after growing up on a steady diet of her parents Beatles and Leonard Cohen collection. She received her first guitar soon afterwards as a gift from her father and started learning how to play it by the age of thirteen. Ryder was a fast learner since by the time she was fifteen, she was playing Toronto coffee houses accompanied by her piano teacher, covering the folk standards she grew up listening to. However, there was more to Serena Ryder than a mean version of “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright”.

Before she’d even got her first guitar Ryder had been writing lyrics of her own, and after she learnt to play she was constantly writing her own material, whether it was the poetry that she’s been writing for years or her own attempts at songwriting. By seventeen Ryder had left home and settled into a community of artists in Peterborough, Ontario. She continued performing live in any way she could, even taking a job singing while the set was being changed during a local production of Gone With The Wind in1998. Incredibly enough, it was while she was doing just that that she was noticed by Damon de Szegheo, the owner of a local label and studio called Mime Radio.

Szegheo approached her and asked if she wanted to do some recording at his studio, she said yes and the result was her first full length album, December 1999’s “Falling Out”. However, the album wasn’t what secured her a legitimate record deal. That honour would go to a demo tape made from a live performance of hers at the legendary Black Sheep Inn, in Wakefield, Quebec. She spread the tape and it found its way to the offices of CBC Radio, who were so impressed with what they heard that they invited her to perform live on-air on the show Bandwidth. Hawksley Workman, a fellow Canadian songwriter and the head of Isadora Records, heard her one the show and contacted Ryder before she’d even left the station, asking if she wanted to record an album with him.

Her first release on the label was her live demo tape, released as “Serena Ryder Live”, but in 2005, her second album and first major label release “Unlikely Emergency” was released. Her track “Just Another Day” started to gain some serious airplay and its success saw her ink a deal with EMI Records. Three years later, after heavy touring, a covers record and an acoustic session E.P, she finally made her commercial breakthrough after winning the Juno Award for Best Newcomer with the album “Is It O.K”, which itself won another Juno award the very next year for best Adult Alternative Album.

Ever since then, her talents have been recognised by Melissa Etheridge, who she toured with in 2011, and Bruce Springsteen, who featured a cover that she did of his song “Racing In The Street” on his official website for a period of time. 2011’s “Harmony” saw her reach new heights of popularity, with the single “Stompa” sailing into the top ten of the Canadian Hot 100 and being certified platinum in January 2013. Not for nothing has this unique songwriter been compared to everyone from The Black Keys to Ella Fitzgerald, and now she’s at the peak of her considerable powers, nothing short of divine intervention can stop her now. Highly recommended.