Calgary is the origin city of musicians who have gone on to make ripples and waves worldwide. Take Anne Loree, who still does shows. The Edmonton-born, Calgary-based songwriter picks up her guitar to unspool her writings from time to time, popping in local haunts to display her Humber College music education. Returning to these humble stages recalls the days when, immediately post-graduation, she sought a career in professional music like so many: serving at a restaurant. 

At a certain restaurant, Loree pursued a short-lived tryst with a chef that resulted in a broken heart and a roughly thirty-minute session at her electric piano. From that brief exorcism came “Insensitive,” one of the great Canadian breakup ballads, which Loree would go on to regularly perform in Calgary. One night, in the crowd, another Calgarian — one Jann Arden Anne Richards, a rising star in her own right — watched Loree perform the song and optioned it as the lead single for her sophomore album, Living Under June (1994). 

There’s a deep irony in the fact that Jann Arden’s most popular song is a) not written by her, and b) called “Insensitive.” Buoyed by its inclusion in the 1996 romantic comedy Bed Of Roses, with a music video that aired on Entertainment Tonight promoting the film, the lead single from her second album Living Under June topped Canadian and Australian Charts two years after its initial release, and peaked at #12 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Apart from Uncover Me (2007) and Mixtape (earlier this year), nearly her entire (extensive, mind you) discography is self-penned. Her writing, which has spanned multiple mediums, is deeply personal and, yes, extremely sensitive to the early tumult that inspired it. 

Within Canada, Arden had already established herself by the time “Insensitive” dominated global charts. While it netted her a JUNO award and catapulted her into a different echelon of fame outside our nation, it was actually her fifth JUNO win in nine nominations (in fact it was nominated for Best Video the previous year, but lost to Gogh Van Go’s “Tunnel of Trees”). Her debut record, Time For Mercy (1993) was released to critical acclaim, netting her five JUNO nominations and heaps of praise for her emotional intensity and unfailing emotiveness. Already, she had earned her place amongst Canada’s most notable artists, a position she would cement in the coming years with a string of successful albums and appearances across our media landscape. In 1998, a national poll by Chart magazine deemed her the Canadian celebrity most deserving of a talk show. She is a member of the Order of Canada, the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame, and her name is stamped on Canada’s Walk of Fame. What she means to Canada cannot simply be articulated in a blog post. 

And what she means to our city in particular goes beyond. While we can proudly catalogue a long list of artists to emerge from our city, she is one of the few to remain and rep Calgary at each turn. She’s made Janis Ian cry — with joy — at the Calgary Folk Festival. Her sitcom, Jann, is easily recognizable as being filmed in Calgary. In 2018, she was a special guest at The Grand to speak about her debut novel (The Bittlemores) for Wordfest. Between 1999 and 2005, her family-owned and operated diner on 17th Ave was a mainstay of our culinary scene. To this day, their sweet potato fries are sorely missed. 

But perhaps more than the visibility Arden has brought to Calgary is the identity of her writing, and how she has allowed the city to seep into her works. She was born in Calgary, but grew up and resides still in Springbank on her 14-acre acreage. Many of her earliest musical ventures were undertaken on our streets, busking or patrolling piano bars lookingfor an empty stage. There is a rural grit to her writing, a real-world sensibility that has not only endeared her to several generations of fans but captured a distinctively Albertan way of life. While they’ve mostly centred on the din of troubled relationships, between the emotions one can often find flashes of a prairie agrarian backdrop. “Waiting For Someone,” the second track off her debut, finds her alone on a country road without seeing another human for hours — an experience to which every Albertan with a driver’s license can relate. Living Under June’s “Demolition Love” is, in a way, a pean to the humble earth of Calgary’s surrounding nature. “Waiting In Canada” is about being in Canada, waiting. 

Her oeuvre features recurring images of the Albertan sky, the mountains, the soil. The Bittlemores, her aforementioned novel, is set on a farm ostensibly in the fictional Blackhills, but more spiritually set pretty much anywhere in rural Alberta. It’s a darkly comic fable and grotesque take on Southern Gothic, featuring skinny chickens, pallid pigs and benevolent (but also underfed) cows. But there’s an underlying flair of Northern Charm — think Flannery O’Connor, were she born somewhere between Cochrane and Banff, rather than Georgia. Beyond the hijinks (and violence), it reflects a coming-of-age shared by so many Albertans who come from an agricultural background. 

And so it makes sense that she watched Anne Loree at an innocuous bar in Calgary all those years ago. Here is where she began her rise, and as the sun has set and risen again through so many facets of her many-limbed career, here she remains. She’s a true Calgarian. Her tours across the globe always lead her back. She is very much around, sensitive to the city's pulse, fuelled to this day by the energy coursing through the city.  

Join Arts Commons Presents on June 25th, 2025 in the Jack Singer Concert Hall for Jann Arden's The MIXTAPE Tour, celebrating the release of her 16th studio album.