Singer/songwriter returns to
stage with rhythms of Africa

Evelyn dacob
SPOTUGHT FEATURE

; NN MORTIFEE is sit-
ting cross-legged on
the floor of her West

Vancouver studio, laughing.

The reporter, who is being affec-
tionately torn to shreds by Mor-
tifee’s black cat, wants to know
how many times she has an-
nounced her retirement in the past
25 years.

With a quick shake of her head,
one of Vancouver's best-known
singer/songwriters tosses back her
thick brown mane and cracks a
girlish smile.

“*Let’s see. Two major times
anda couple of small times in be-
tween.’

The first major time was in 1976.
Mortifee had just landed a major
deal with EMI Studios in London
and had a major world tour in the
offing when she dropped
everything and took on what she
considered to be a much bigger
life mission: a three-year spiritual
journey to Lebanon and India,
where she met and worked with
Mother Theresa.

Then, 10 years later, ‘‘the
angst’ returned.

This time when Mortifee came
back she had to form her own
company because no one in the
music business would take a
chance on an on-again-off-again
singer.

“They all warned me that they
would never work with me again if
{ left,’’ Mortifee explains, looking
as young as when she graced the
Queen Elizabeth stage in Jacques

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“They thought that if she did it
once she'll da it again, which of
course she did.”

This time in 1986 Mortifee
walked into her assistant’s office
and dumped a deal with WEA Re-
cords, producers of her 1985
album, Bright Encounter.

It was the first time in her career
that she felt she had sold out to
the industry.

“Doing that album I literally
went into a crisis,’’ she reflects,
surrounded by African statues and
her own artwork,

“t started to fall apart
psychologically. The pressure of
my work in the world and this
compulsion and longing for heal-
ing for the planet overwhelmed
me.

‘looked at my life and said,
it’s all a sham. I'm totally discon-
nected. | said, | have to stop, |
have to close the company, ! have
to fet my deal with WEA go. I’m
out of control. i'm not going in the
right direction.

“Shortly after my marriage
ended. From full speed throttle
ahead { just stopped.”

What most would recognize as a
mid-life crisis, Mortifee went
through what she calls a
“breakthrough” — an extended
inner journey.

She discovered that all the work
she had been doing to save the
planet was merely covering up her
own need to heal.

“In the music industry there’s a
strange poison that can come in
called ambition which is fed by
feelings of inadequacy,” she inter-
jects, waving her hands in the air.
“41 built my whole life to fend off
the horror of insignificance.”

She calls it “the death of Ann
Mortifee."’

Listening to Mortifee is like hav-
ing an audience with a New Age
swami. She’s so comfortable with
herself it makes others feel stightly
stiff.

See Mortifee page 38 band Jabula will appear in concert Sunday at the Arts Club Theatre.

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NEWS photo Mike Wskefleid

ANN MORTIFEE says her career is blossoming. After a lengthy hiatus from the stage, she and her

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