Best-selling music biographer Charlie Rhindress presents the lives and music of Nova Scotia’s six most important and successful women singers: Portia White, Anne Murray, Carroll Baker, Rita MacNeil, Holly Cole and Sarah MacLachlan.

Rhindress draws on his intimate knowledge of Nova Scotia’s music and his interviews with many of the biggest figures in the Nova Scotian music scene to offer fresh insight into the lives and work of these six stars. His research included extensive conversations with the women he profiles, as well as their families, their friends and the musicians they played with and worked alongside.

He offers powerful new insights into how each of them was shaped by and contributed to Nova Scotia’s unique musical heritage.

Charlie Rhindress is a co-founder and former artistic director of Live Bait Theatre in Sackville, New Brunswick. All eight of his full-length plays have premiered at Live Bait. The Maritime Way of Life has been produced in all four Atlantic Canadian provinces and was nominated for a Canadian Comedy Award as best new play in 2000. It was also published in Marigraph: Gauging the Tides of Drama from New Brunswick/Nova Scotia/Prince Edward Island (Playwrights Canada Press), an anthology of Maritime plays. After premiering at Live Bait, Flying on Her Own was produced by Neptune Theatre, and Home and Away, a musical about hockey co-written with Dean Burry, played at Theatre Orangeville. In addition to his full-length plays, Charlie has written over thirty dinner theatres with Karen Valanne and two plays for teens, which have been produced throughout North America. Charlie has also worked as an actor in film and at theatres across the country. He has directed at a number of East Coast theatres and served as director and dramaturge on Cathy Jonesâ??s one-woman show, Me, Dad, and the Hundred Boyfriends. Charlie is the father of four incredible children.

Charlie Rhindress' profile page

Charlie's decades long career in the arts gives him a unique perspective on the struggles faced by these Canadian music icons on the road to "making it in the business." As a fan of these women and of the author who writes so lovingly about them, this book is a gift, a wonderful gift!

Bette MacDonald, Canadian comedian and actress