Allison Crowe's Spring Show for WCRS - Tofino April 3, 2009

Expect overtones of Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles, jazz and Broadway when Allison Crowe, Canada's exciting, bicoastal, singer-songwriter, performs weekend concerts in Tofino and Ucluelet in aid of the Westcoast Community Resources Society Crowe performs Friday, April 3 in Tofino’s Clayoquot Sound Community Theatre, and, on Saturday, April 4 in the Ucluelet Secondary School Bandroom. For both shows doors open at 7:30 p.m. and the music flows at 8:00 p.m.

It’s a welcome return to our coast, and an opportunity for Allison Crowe to join up again with WCRS Executive Director Margaret Morrison and her dedicated team. For 17 years now the WCRS, in partnership with other services and resources, has promoted equality, diversity and the well being of all. With a commitment to ending all forms of abuse, including systemic power imbalances and family violence, the WCRS provides responsive, safe and supportive services to individuals and families while supporting their right to explore options and make choices in all areas of their lives. Compassion, tolerance, non-violence, self-empowerment, and a non-sexist, non-racist consciousness are among the shared values and goals of the Society. All WCRS services are free and confidential. Specific programs include Children's Counselling, Women's Counselling, Community Outreach, Community Youth Worker and the Westcoast Transition House. Details can be found online @ www.wccrs.ca

Born and raised in Nanaimo, BC, now living in Corner Brook, NL, internationally-acclaimed Allison Crowe (www.allisoncrowe.com) delights in a wide range of roles. She's performed for the Queen's Master of Music, headlined a concert for the John Lennon Memorial Garden in the Scottish Highlands, been featured on BBC Radio, and in MOJO magazine and media across Europe and North America. Online, her simple, honest, music videos have been enjoyed by more than five million people.

"Treat yourself to one of the mightiest talents on the singer-songwriter scene today," says Bob Muller, song curator at JoniMitchell.com "Ever wonder what it would have been like to listen to a gifted singer/songwriter from Saskatchewan in a small, intimate hall before she became Joni Mitchell? Don't fret the missed opportunity. There's no need to turn back the clock. Check out Allison Crowe," writes Robert Reid in The Record.

Crowe's rare gift and talent in communicating emotions not only make her a thrilling original act, her role as an interpreter is getting much recognition. "Her version of 'I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)' would give Aretha Franklin goose-bumps," notes Robert Moyes in Boulevard. Recently, two major tributes to Leonard Cohen have featured her song contributions.

During her triumphal Beatles Week 2008 concert series, BBC Radio 2 interviewed and recorded Allison Crowe in Liverpool performing "Hallelujah" for an hour-long documentary, "The Fourth, The Fifth, The Minor Fall", that explores the many facets of this Leonard Cohen creation. Other participants include musicians Imogen Heap and Kathryn Williams alongside producers John Lissauer (Leonard Cohen) and Andy Wallace (Jeff Buckley).

UK-based MOJO magazine's December '08 issue paid tribute to Cohen with a feature celebrating "deep and moving music". Of Allison Crowe's contribution of "Joan of Arc" to its 'All Star Tribute", (alongside Judy Collins, Nick Cave, Martha Wainwright and others), a cover-mount CD titled "Cohen Covered", MOJO says: "Once famously described by the Vancouver Courier as possessing a style akin to 'Elton John meets Edith Piaf', the Canadian singer-songwriter Allison Crowe is renowned for her ability to blend control and melodrama. Certainly she does so on this spirited cover of Cohen's Songs of Love and Hate classic, a track which also powerfully showcases her considerable talent as a fine interpreter of song."

Longtime NPR Radio host Ross Hocker calls a performance by Allison Crowe: "The most honest, heartfelt, and directly intimate concert in my entire life."

For the upcoming concerts, Allison Crowe brings with her a trio of fine west coast BC musicians. Hailing from Salt Spring Island, Billie Woods, guitarist in Crowe's band, opens the show with songs inspired by life in Canada's Pacific northwestern coastal forest, and infused with the warmth and vitality of the sambas, bossa novas and other cultural rhythms of Brazil. Crowe's band on the bill also features a pair of top-flight rhythm-makers: jazzer Dave Baird on acoustic and electric bass, and percussionist Laurent Boucher, renowned for his playing with Sunyata and other combos making music from Big Band to world beat.

Dates & Venues: Friday, April 3 - Clayoquot Sound Community Theatre, 370 Campbell Street, Tofino + Saturday, April 4 - Ucluelet Secondary Band Room, 1450 Peninsula Rd., Ucluelet

Tickets: $15 General, $10 Students/Seniors @: The Crow's Nest, Wild Heather Books (Ukee); Beaches Grocery (Pacific Rim Hwy.); Common Loaf Bakeshop & Wildside Booksellers (Tofino) & www.allisoncrowe.com  (Door $18/$12)

Official Website: http://www.allisoncrowe.com