Fran May is a fifty five year old woman who has worked as a corporate photographer for over thirty years. Although she was born in Vancouver, she now lives near Cambridge, England. After her husband died of cancer in 2007, she decided to create a music project, combining her singing and production ideas with her visual ideas. After two and a half years, the result is a CD of stunning songs and music for what she calls, ‘my own generation’.
Fran studied the market for women in the 40-60 year age range and storyboarded the concepts for the songs. She went out to find a producer/writer, to work with her, and for her, so that she could realize her vision. She says, “I found all the brilliance and experience I needed in Richard Newman. Together we wrote some of the best songs to be heard for a very long time”.
Fran believes that the music industry is still deciding what women are allowed to hear. As for older women, they have been written off already as any kind of potential market. However, all that changed when Enya and Susan Boyle emerged, women bought their music in millions. Fran says, “There has not been music produced for the 40 to 60 year old age group before now”.
Fran feels that there are a large number of women who would be interested in what she has to say. The songs are about relationships, love and loss. She says she uses some interesting symbolism of wedding dresses, questions what might have happened if the captain of the ship had been a woman, and the albatross had not been killed . . .
She has one album called ‘Pink Blues’ available on iTunes and CDBaby and www.pinkblues.net (where the whole of the tracks can be heard).
Her album called ‘The Beating Of Your Heart is not yet released but will be released in Spring 2011. She is not going to market this album herself and says, “It’s destiny is being negotiated with the music industry at the moment”.
Although she says she is not promoting her own work this time, it was Fran who contacted me through my website and we have struck up an email connection. She will be one of the International artists included in Art matters International Celebration of Women, March 19, 2011 in Abbotsford. For more details visit www.ragmag.net
Her father was pioneering electrical lines over the Rockies and she was one of eight children. When her dad was told they would all have to go live in the Peace River district, he did not think he would be doing ‘right’ by his family, as they would have had to go to elemental schools in log cabins, so they went off to live in NewZealand. After six months of looking for work, they were shipped off to England. Fran says, “I have been here ever since. One day soon, I will come to Canada to see where my roots lay”.
