the voice Garnett Edwards debut disc realty shines Michael Becker News Editor michael@usnews.com THERE she was, Mary Garnett, Love Child, running wild in the streets of Edmonton, hopping on to cars, bending back the aerials, turning the metal into micro- - phones, making like a pint-sized Supreme. Pcople would come run- ning out of their houses and yell, “Get the hell off our car!” She’s had that big voice of hers ever since she can remember. Close your eyes when you tisten to First Stone, the CD released independently carli- er this year by Garnett Edwards and you'd swear you're .hearing a voice from the Mississippi Delta. [t's a deep blue timeless- ness — raw, raspy, and immensely soulful. By the time Garnett was nine or 10 she'd sing at outdoor Re-Ins and coftee houses in Alberta. She’d hep on a bus with her guitar with the dead strings. She'd leave people slack-jawed with her abiliry to even tune the thing up. “I remem- ber one time an older black blues guy gave me a pair of strings and tuned my guitar and T got mad at him, because I didn’t know it would go out of tune right away. I’d go, ‘That guy wrecked my guitar!” ” She’d sing her songs, like White Lightning, a song, she wrote at age 10. Ar the table in rhe West Vancouver Kitchen she shares with musical partner Doug Edwards, Garnett lets loose: “White lightning come down from the sky, white lightning come down from the sky, and if you don’t come down today, then you gotta stay away, like white lightning, I feel like moving to the beat of the rain ...” The voice is pain and beauty at the same time. When she would do this at age 10 at the Barricade Coffee House in Edmonten, peo- ple just didi’t know how to take the girl. “T was a little kid and everybody never took me serious, I remember my brother- in-law was a hippy and he said, ‘You've gotta take Mary down there ma. Mary’s as cool as those guys down there.” T got up there on a night when Bruce Cockburn was there. J started playing the stuff Twould write, like White Lightning. People all started standing up,” she remembers, About six years ago Garnett met West Vancouver musician Doug Edwards at the wedding of a mutual triend. In a business largely defined by here- today-gone-tomorraw transience, Edwards is a stalwart success. At 19, he was up, up and away with The Fifth Dimension. He toured with the group as a bass plaver in 1968-69. He was there for the Ed Sullivan Show and a gig at Caesar's Palace. Berwcen 1970 and 1973 he was a mem- ber of Skylark with David Foster. He co- wrote and recorded Wildflower then. The song has been very good for him. It has sold more than a million copies in its original version. He's won a BMI Millionaire Award for more than a million plays in the U.S. alone. The song has been covered by The O'Jays, Johnny Mathis and Tupac. Edwards has recorded with Olivia Newton-John (Don’t Cry For Me Argentina) and Terry and Susan Jacks (Which Way You Goin’ Billy). He’s produced Tom Keenlyside’s album Returning, Rick Scott’s Rick Around The Clock and Ann Mortitee’s Reflections on NEWS photo Mike Waketield WEST Vancouver musicians Mary Garnett and Doug Edwards have released a country-fiavored debut disc, First Stone. Crooked Walking. He has also been busy as a studio musi- cian, churning out thousands of advertising jingles over the years. Edwards is the United Buy and Sell guy, the Budget Brake and Muffler music man. When Garnett sang a song at their friend's wedding, Edwards was struck by what he heard. “I thought, ‘Man this girl has got a real- Iv unique, unusual voice.” The first thing I thought of was Rod Stewart, real raspy.” They talked and made arrangements to get together. Said Garnett: “I thought he was just jok- ing and coming on to me. I didn’t think he was really listening to me sing. [ thought, ‘Yah, right.” ” At the time she was recovering from the blow of losing a two-and-a-half month old child to crib death, “It really took me a long time to recover from that. | would hear people come up to me and say, ‘Well, [like your music’ and stuff. And I'd check it out and it would totally be a tie. So when I saw Doug, I don’t know, there was something kind of quiet and real about him.” They've been recording together even since. Country music radio and TV stations have picked up some of the tracks from the debut. Says Garnett, “We've gor some really good stuff I think. 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