Nancy Laberge

Alberta Singer-Songwriter Nancy Laberge is really cooking something up!

After spending some time in Nashville, Tennessee as a songwriter, Nancy Laberge soon figured out that if she wanted to survive in the music business she needed something to fall back on and that is when she decided to become a professional chef. This has enabled her to support the dream and continue to write music and sing her songs.

Her journey as a singer-songwriter has certainly been serendipitous Nancy is a very private person particularly when it comes to her childhood, as it is a time in her life that she has tried to forget. But one day a new friend in the business, Steve Thomson, who is associated with her music activities asked her to write him a letter detailing her life story so he would be better able to support her career. She wrote the letter and told him everything, even the stuff she tried to forget. “I figured I had to put my trust in someone and from all indications Steve seemed like the right person he was very taken by my story”. Over the past year after really getting to know him he is now her manager, handling many areas of her artistic career. “In my letter I mentioned that I was very sick when I was a child but through the help of the Shriners I was afforded an operation which saved my life. This really struck a chord with Steve and he asked me if he could get more information on this period of my life. So I checked through some old boxes and forwarded him some clippings and he immediate came back to me saying ‘your story has to be told’!

As it happens Nancy composed a song entitled “Holy Moly Christmas”. Nancy’s Publisher Billy Meshel, who Steve shares a long time association, sent the song to him saying “This song is a smash hit!” Steve saw the connection with Nancy’s childhood “I have never used this private and much appreciated support that I received from the Shriners as a vehicle to help my career until now as it was pointed out that I owed the Shriners not just a lot but my life and this is how my renewed association with the Shriners evolved”.

Steve spoke with Shriner’s in Toronto and they were touched, and put him in contact with the appropriate people at their head office and now Nancy is donating 100% of the sales from her first International single release “Holy Moly Christmas” to the Shriners Hospitals for Children stating “I am so excited to be doing this, I hope they make a million!”

The details have now been worked out for a tour and the launch of her recording career with stops in many of the cities where Shriners Hospitals are located including Chicago, Sacramento, Los Angeles and Montreal as well as Toronto, and her home town Calgary. Eventually Nancy hopes to visit every Shriner’s Hospital in all 22 cities in North America ... “I plan on singing my song to the kids when possible and sharing my story and heck I’ll even bring the cookies.”

As a songwriter Nancy is always working on perfecting her song writing skills, believing that the best way to do this is through collaboration. This is evident with many of the songs on Nancy’s new CD release Write From The Heart where she has teamed up with fellow songwriters Troy Kokol, Patti Jo Lennox, Joni Delaurier and her friend Amy Bishop, who incidentally was Nancy’s co-writer on her first International release “Holy Moly Christmas” scheduled for release Christmas 2014. A strongly motivated songwriter Nancy is hungry to learn and to also share her own writing skills with other songwriters. She is the founding member of TheSongsmiths, a Calgary song writing group designed to give local songwriters a forum to collaborate on song writing and share their musical experiences. Nancy also regularly attends song writing workshops as she is doing this month in Nashville at the Gretchen Peters Performing Songwriter Creative Workshop.