ON STAGE
What: Jann Arden
Where: Charlie White Theatre, 2243 Beacon Ave., Sidney
When: Friday, Nov. 23, and Saturday, Nov. 24, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: Sold out
Note: Arden will also give a talk Sunday to close the sold-out Winspear Speaker Series in Sidney
At this point in her career, Jann Arden has transcended music. She’s a shoulder to cry on, a best friend with whom you share secrets and the funniest person in the room.
Arden, 56, is a podcaster and author, along with an advocate for those who suffer from alcoholism and have parents suffering from dementia. The skill set of the beloved Calgary performer doesn’t end there, either. Next year, she will perform a version of herself on the CTV comedy series Jann.
When did Arden turn the corner? It could be argued that her journey as an author, broadcaster and social-media personality — which runs parallel to her career as a very successful touring and recording musician — began not quite a decade ago, when the eight-time Juno Award winner began caring for her parents.
Her father, who died in 2015, battled dementia during his later years, and her mother, who is 82, has Alzheimer’s disease. After the diagnosis, Arden lived near her mother on their property in rural Alberta, before the older woman was moved into a nursing home.
Arden writes with frankness about being a parent to her mother and the emotional toll that takes. “I feel like I simply have lost touch with my own mother,” Arden wrote last week on Facebook.
“I am riddled with shame and guilt and all those other pointless emotions, but that’s the truth of it. I don’t think mom will last very long. And whoever really knows these things. I certainly don’t. But I do know my mom. I know the OLD her. She wouldn’t want this for herself. She said so on many occasions. I feel like she’s made up her mind to get going. And I don’t blame her one single bit.”
At first, Arden used Facebook as an outlet and found a voracious audience of readers. Last year, Arden published Feeding My Mother — Comfort and Laughter in the Kitchen as My Mom Lives with Memory Loss.
It was a continuation of her Facebook feed, but it wasn’t her first foray into the book world. Over the years, Arden has published her memoir (Falling Backwards) and a pair of selected journals (If I Knew, Don’t You Think I’d Tell You and I’ll Tell You One Damn Thing and That’s All I Know). She also wrote a monthly advice column for Elle Canada.
Her music career continues, though on a smaller, more intimate scale. She released her 14th album, These Are The Days, in March, and has stops Friday and Saturday at the 315-seat Charlie White Theatre, part of the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney.
Arden will also speak at the venue on Sunday as part of the Winspear Speaker Series. All three events are sold out.
She is a strong writer, but Arden’s appeal has blossomed with her open and honest discourse on Facebook. Her real-person personality (Arden often inserts her wants and worries into her posts) has won over a massive audience of readers, some of whom — by their own admission — had previously paid little attention to her as a musician. Her first post about her parents netted 4,500 comments within a matter of days.
She now has 171,376 followers on Facebook, which isn’t a huge amount for a performer in Canada — Sarah McLachlan, by comparison, has more than 1.5 million — but Arden’s followers are more genuinely engaged and devoted than most.
In October, cyber-software company McAfee named Arden the most dangerous Canadian celebrity, in terms of links provided to online search results that could compromise a user’s security. A strange honour, to say the least. But it means users are searching for her.
Arden’s writings have helped readers navigate the ups and downs of daily life, but she has grown through the process as well. “I had two choices: Either row this boat further out to sea and just abandon myself and feel sorry for myself or make my way back to shore and look after my physical body,” Arden said in an interview with the Toronto Star.
“That’s what came first … I don’t drink alcohol anymore. I’m eating better. I’ve lost a lot of weight. I exercise. I got out of a 10-year relationship … I asked for help. I reached out to my friends. I really went after work hard and fast. I feel better now than I did 20 years ago. I’m a much better version of myself.”
Arden admitted in a September post on Facebook that she has abused alcohol for much of her adult life, and has begun to move past it.
“That part of me, that broken-off piece that wanted to extinguish chances and miss opportunities and foil plans is gone,” Arden wrote. “She finally figured out that she was worthy of so much goodness and grace and forgiveness and mercy.”
She will enter the world of broadcasting on a scale that’s new even to the experienced Arden, who has co-hosted the Juno Awards and occasionally fills in as a guest host on CTV’s daytime talk show The Social. Much of her prior experience in radio and television — hosting Being Jann, an hour-long talk show on CBC Radio, in 2011, and serving as a judge on competitions Canada Sings and The Launch — was music-centric.
She is clearly moving in a new direction. She admits to being more at home alongside Arlene Dickinson of Dragon’s Den on their weekly podcast The Business of Life, whose content ranges from travel stories and practical advice to tips on romantic relationships.
“I don’t try to [get my music] on the radio any more — I don’t try to cater to anything,” Arden said in an interview with the Globe and Mail. “The biggest tool, the biggest thing that I’ve had to my advantage, and I see it clearly now, is just being myself. For me, as an artist, what I realize now is that my uniqueness is what has propelled me forward all these years. I’m stumbling along trying to do the best I can, but God, I just have to be me.”
