Biography
Shirley Eikhard (born Shirley Rose Eikhard n Sackville, New Brunswick, on 7 November 1955; died 15 December 2022) was a Canadian singer-songwriter.
The daughter of a Canadian East Coast fiddle player, Eikhard was playing music at an early age and was signed to Capitol Records at age 14. At the age of 15 she wrote an instrumental song, "Pickin' My Way" that was recorded by Chet Atkins. Her work was soon being covered by artists like Anne Murray, whose recording of "It Takes Time" helped put Eikhard on the map. She released her first album in 1972 and garnered several Juno awards for her single "Smiling Wine." Eikhard was awarded Canada's Juno Award for Best Country Vocalist for 1972 and 1973.
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In 1982 she launched her own record label and began to take control of her music and career. She quit live performances in 1986 and concentrated on writing, her first love. Soon her songs were all over the radio, recorded by artists like Alannah Myles ("Kickstart My Heart," a collaboration with three other writers), Emmylou Harris (2 songs), and Bonnie Raitt, whose rendition of "Something to Talk About" won Eikhard a Grammy award. Recently Cher recorded a Shirley Eikhard cut on her Not Commercial CD, which was released exclusively via the Internet.
In 1995 Eikhard began to record again, cutting the album If I Had My Way. In 1996 she recorded The Jazz Sessions, which fulfilled her lifelong dream of working in the jazz tradition. She followed that album up with Going Home, which was distributed internationally by Blue Note Records, and which won the Best Jazz Performance award at the 1999 East Coast Music Association Awards. Two years of performing the songs live gave her the impetus to record The Last Hurrah, an excellent album of jazz-influenced songs all written by Eikhard. That was followed up with the 2001 release End of the Day, an album that was completely instrumental (with the exception of one track), and on which Eikhard played all the instruments, including guitar, piano, drums, bass, sax, percussion, and chromatic harmonica. Eikhard subsequent CD, Stay Open, edges slightly out of the straight jazz vocal territory.
In 2020, Eikhard was inducted into the Canadian Songwriter's Hall of Fame for her 1991 hit, "Something to Talk About".
Eikhard released her final album, "On My Way to You" featuring the "Anything is Possible" single, in October 2021.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.