Hilary Grist might have gone to medical school had it not been for Debbie Gibson, and she might’ve ended up as just another jazz noodler had it not been for a chance encounter with Norah Jones.
Now she makes music that combines Jones’ jazzy sophistication with the naïve pop whimsy of Regina Spektor, while dabbling in a variety of other styles like country, folk, cabaret, and orchestral.
On her third album, Imaginings, her “first child” with new husband Mike Southworth, Grist offers up her first fully-produced, fully-realized collection of work—one that sees her worldly sound enhanced with some elements that are distinctly Vancouver: Tim Tweedale’s unmistakable steel guitar and the Too Big To Care Marching Band’s unconventional brass embellishments, to name a couple.
The album kicks off with “Stick of Dynamite,” which introduces the uninitiated to Grist’s soft-edged vocals and flirtatious phrasing and features some funky vintage Wurlitzer. From there it moves through the quirky jazz folk of “About You,” the country strains of “Horizon,” and the cabaret stylings of “Back in Town,” before closing with the dreamy ballad “Save You for Last.” In addition to Tweedale (Headwater) and the Too Big to Care Marching Band, the huge array of guests on the album includes guitarist Dave Sikula (a Juno nominee with The Inhabitants), fiddlers Meredith Bates (Annie Lou) and Linda Bull (Plough); and backing vocalists Dawn Pemberton (No Shit Shirleys, Universal Gospel Choir) and members of the Parlour Steps, among many others. Film composer Don McDonald (“Kissed”) wrote the string arrangements.
So how do Debbie Gibson and Norah Jones figure into this, you ask?
Well, Grist was a straight “A” student with a knack for sciences and an eye on medical school when a then-16-year-old Debbie Gibson showed up on the music scene with an album she had written and produced all by herself. Suddenly, Grist, a grade 10 Royal Conservatory piano whiz, realized that a woman could have a career in music. Much to her parents surprise, the pre-med was shelved in favour of Capilano University’s well-regarded jazz studies program, which she attended as a Provincial scholarship student.
Five years later Grist emerged with both a music degree and a bitter distaste for jazz—or specifically, for the pretense that sees musicians constantly trying to outplay each other at the expense of artistic substance. She rebelled by spending two years listening to nothing but country music and, later, to Sarah Harmer. It was a chance encounter with a then-unknown Norah Jones that helped her reconcile her jazz studies with own musical vision. Seeing Jones, a friend of a friend, perform her first Vancouver show at Sonar, Grist rediscovered her love of the lyricism of jazz vocalists and realized she could blend this with her pop and country influences too. Since 2005, Grist, who was born in Quesnel and raised in Maple Ridge, has released two live-off-the floor solo albums, and toured Canada to support them.
Hilary's songs have been in high rotation and charted in the top 30 on campus radio stations from coast to coast and have also been featured on many CBC radio programs and local cd compilations.
Most recently, Hilary acted and played music in an independent film called "Every Second Tuesday" by notable Vancouver playwright/director, David King.
