Hawksley Workman

Hawksley Workman, a Canadian singer and songwriter, offers a life story that holds equal fascination whether accepted as literal truth or imaginative invention. Born and raised in Bay Lake, he later built a reputation both as a solo performer and as a producer in the indie rock field. The self-written account on his website presented a partly fabricated, semi-fictional version of his first twenty-four years, stirring widespread discussion, speculation, gossip, and curiosity among journalists and listeners well before his recordings reached a wide audience. That account listed early jobs such as cutting ice in remote Canadian regions, shining rental shoes at a tap-dance academy, and advancing to rank among the school’s leading dancers. It also contained a sequence of letters addressed to a wholly invented ideal partner and inspiration named Isadora—who dwelled underwater—and the same name was later given to his record label; these letters first appeared in the personals section of Now Magazine. Gathered together, they became the book Hawksley Burns for Isadora, issued in spring 2001 by Gutter Press, a Canadian publisher devoted to alternative and experimental literature. Whether or not large portions of the narrative are invented, the text conveys a person of strong instinctive drives and wide-ranging imagination, someone ready to turn his own existence into art and to do so with evident humor. On his debut album, For Him and the Girls, Workman performed nearly every part and captured the songs in his own home studio. The record appeared in Canada in 1999 and drew strong critical praise there and in the United Kingdom, where he toured extensively; an American edition followed in 2000. His second self-produced album, (Last Night We Were) the Delicious Wolves, came out in 2001 on Universal in Canada and the U.K., again with Workman producing and playing almost all instruments. He promoted the release with numerous Canadian concerts, a second U.K. tour that reached Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and a journey to Paris. His habit of elaborate storytelling moved onto the stage as well, where he recounted episodes that stretched from youthful circus work as a “mad-maker”—the person sent into the cages to enrage the lions before performances—to help support his family, all the way to a stage musical still in progress. Workman also played on and produced albums by fellow Canadian artists John Southworth, Sarah Slean, Tegan and Sara, the Cash Brothers, and Paul Macleod.