This is an accepted version of this page Jane Siberry (/ˈsɪbəri/ SIB-ər-ee; née Stewart;[1] born 12 October 1955)[2] is a Canadian singer-songwriter, known for such hits as "Mimi on the Beach", "I Muse Aloud", "One More Colour" and "Calling All Angels".

She began performing in folk clubs in Guelph, linking up first with singer Wendy Davis and then with bass guitarist John Switzer in a group called Java Jive.

[5][6] Assembling a backing band of Switzer, guitarist Ken Myhr, keyboard players Doug Wilde and Jon Goldsmith, and drummer Al Cross, Siberry recorded her second album No Borders Here (released in 1984) for which she mostly abandoned the folk approach in favour of electronic art-pop.

[6] This coincided with a growth in support of new wave and independent music within Canadian broadcast media, including the Toronto radio station CFNY and the video channel MuchMusic.

No Borders Here sold 40,000 copies and won Siberry a CASBY award for Best Female Vocalist,[8] as well as giving her first opportunity to play live in New York.

Many of the songs dealt with romantic collapse and miscommunication, partially inspired by Siberry's breakup with John Switzer (which happened during the writing and recording of the album).

[5] In spite of the efforts of both label and artist, The Walking was ultimately less of a commercial success than The Speckless Sky, with Siberry failing to make her mainstream breakthrough.

Siberry moved towards more simple and direct song forms, jettisoning electronic art-pop in favour of more acoustic styles drawing on country and western and Latin music.

[citation needed] Siberry's sixth album, When I Was a Boy, was completed in 1993 after a three-year writing and recording period during which she'd undergone changes in her personal life and in her musical approach.

[citation needed] Prior to the release of When I Was a Boy, Siberry performed in Edinburgh as the opening act for Mike Oldfield's premiere of Tubular Bells 2.

In contrast to the intricate studio production of When I Was a Boy, Maria (released in 1995) featured a more jazz-inspired direction with live acoustic instrumentation and approaches similar to Van Morrison's Astral Weeks.

The basic tracks to the album were recorded in three days flat[6] by a group featuring Tim Ray (pianist for jazz band Orange then Blue), Betty Carter's double bass player Christopher Thomas, top jazz session drummer Brian Blade and trumpeter David Travers-Smith (with Siberry playing electric guitar and singing).

[6] The first of these was 1997's Child: Music for the Christmas Season, a double album which combined Christmas standards and carols (such as "O Holy Night" and "In the Bleak Midwinter") and original Siberry songs containing religious imagery (such as "An Angel Stepped Down...")[citation needed] Siberry had also demonstrated the greater creative freedom she had as an independent recording artist via her other 1997 album, A Day in the Life.

This was her most unconventional release to date – although it did feature song excerpts, it was predominantly a sound collage representation of a typical day's experience by Siberry in New York.

The album was filled with recordings of yoga classes, phone messages and street sounds; and featured conversations and exchanges with a wide variety of people – cab drivers, friends, fellow students and Siberry's then-current musical collaborators Patty Larkin, Joe Jackson, k.d.

[citation needed] With Sheeba running into financial problems, Siberry left New York, returned to Toronto and reestablished her label as a one-woman operation (handling everything from songwriting to envelope-stuffing).

[5] To finance Sheeba, she also began to experiment with what were then seen as unorthodox promotional ideas, such as the weekend-long "Siberry Salons" (a concert-cum-seminar featuring two performances plus a workshop and dinner, which were hosted at intimate and unusual venues such as art galleries and loft apartments).

Sheeba now also sold soft toys and auctioned off collectible career-related items such as signed lyric sheets, her first guitar and even the pink bra which she had worn on the cover of Maria.

This was a predominantly acoustic record consisting entirely of cover versions in which Siberry explored traditional American and Celtic folk and gospel songs such as "Jacobs Ladder", "Ol' Man River" and "Streets of Laredo".

As well as providing another home for "Calling All Angels", the album included work with Nigel Kennedy, Peter Gabriel, Hector Zazou and Joe Jackson and featured "All the Pretty Ponies" (a children's song which Siberry had contributed to the Barney's Big Adventure soundtrack).

[6] In 2002, Love is Everything: The Jane Siberry Anthology was released on Rhino Records: a double-CD album combining material from her Duke Street, Reprise and Sheeba eras and summarizing the first twenty-one years of her career.

This time, Siberry performed her own interpretations of liturgical Christmas hymns by various classical and Romantic composers including Mendelssohn, Bach, Holst and Handel.

"[18] Early in 2006, Siberry closed her Sheeba office, then auctioned and sold nearly all of her possessions via eBay – including her Toronto home and her musical instruments.

[24] She had previously employed a flexible pricing policy, stating "I started feeling weird about holding back anything people wanted because of the money.

"[20] In March 2011, Siberry advised her fans through her mailing list that the third album of the "Three Queens" trilogy was almost ready (having been "nearly completed" several times before), and that she intended to release a fourth disc as part of the collection.

[26] Siberry's music is most commonly compared to artists such as Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, Toyah Willcox, Anna Domino, Suzanne Vega and Laurie Anderson.

[31] Siberry was the subject of two award-winning documentaries directed by Don Allan and produced by Bruce Glawson and Arnie Zipursky of Cambium Productions.

[33] It featured a concert taped at Montreal’s Le Spectrum club, with behind-the-scenes footage of the filming of the second version of her "One More Colour" music video directed by DEVO's Gerald Casale.

[41] The hour special won the Silver Medal for Popular Music & Variety Entertainment Special at the International Film & TV Festival of New York in 1987,[38][a] the Gold Hugo Award for Variety/Entertainment – Television Production at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1988, and the Gemini Award for Best Editing in a Comedy, Variety or Performing Arts Program or Series in 1988.

There’s a Lady on Stage[44] also featured Cherie Camp, Holly Cole, Laura Hubert, Molly Johnson, Sarah McLachlan, Maggie Moore, and David Ramsden.