"I’m the one who can’t be told," sings veteran Canadian country and roots singer/songwriter Joanne Mackell on her new album Brand New Lonesome. When it comes to her career it seems she’s a woman who knows her mind.
"When I first started there would be the chick singer in the band, and if you didn’t have a strong personality you were dominated by people telling you what to do. Fortunately I have a very strong personality."
Mackell began her musical career in an all-female rock band called Otherwise. "People would constantly come up to us and ask if our boyfriends bought us our amps," she says. "If we had equipment trouble guys would walk up and say, ‘Did you check the plug?’
"I recently put my record up on [music website] CD Baby and they asked for influences, other artists I sounded like, and I said Bob Dylan and Dwight Yoakam. I was hard-pressed to find a comparable woman." Country is a very male-dominated genre and Mackell, as an openly gay woman with what she describes as her "big butch voice," is a musical rarity.
