Judy Lander - The Old Man

Описание: Title: Lander, Judy - Lady of Ginger
Format: LP
Label: A&M SP 9000
Year: 1970
Origin: Winnipeg, Manitoba → Toronto, Ontario, 🇨🇦
Genre: pop
Inquiries Email: [email protected]
Release Type: Albums
Buy directly from Artist: N/A
Playlist: Ontario, 1970's, Manitoba, Pop, Canadian Women in Song, MOCM Top 1000 Canadian Albums
Written by Murray McLauchlan
Arranged by Ben McPeek
Engineered by Henry J. Saskowski (A.E.S.)
Mixed by Phil Sheridan

From Prairie Choir to Weill: The Journey of Judith Lander
by Robert Williston
Judith Lander grew up in Winnipeg, in a household steeped in art, education, and social purpose. Her mother, an early feminist and educator, was both the first Jewish and first female president of a major Canadian art gallery. With a doctorate in English, she taught hundreds of women art history from the 1940s to the 1970s, urging them to leave their kitchens and claim a life of the mind.

As a child she was “kicked out of choirs,” told she had no voice—until her bat mitzvah lessons revealed the rich “foghorn” tone that would define her. Choir director Sara Udow recognized the gift, training her privately until her voice grew into a full mezzo. By her teens she was winning prizes at the Manitoba Music Festival and singing folk songs on CBC Winnipeg, blending classical discipline with storytelling instinct.

At eighteen she left the prairies for Toronto to study Radio and Television Arts at Ryerson (now TMU). There she met contralto Portia White, whose mentorship reshaped her life. When White died in 1968, Lander composed “Lady of Ginger,” later recorded for her debut LP. She performed it in the documentary Think on Me, which aired on Vision TV and possibly Bravo or CBC, a luminous farewell to her teacher.

The album began as a CAPAC project before A&M Records entered. A small box of cassettes and reels arrived from CAPAC—songs by emerging Canadians. From it came discoveries: Murray McLauchlan’s “The Old Man,” Joe Hall’s attic tapes, and two songs by Lander herself. Another favorite, Milton Nascimento’s “Bridges,” recorded with Doug Riley on organ, was rejected for not being Canadian-written. Lander respected Ben McPeek but rebelled, fighting for her mix and personally re-editing “Mon Pays,” a rare act of creative control for a young woman in 1970.

A companion French album by Renée Claude mirrored much of the material, forming a bilingual bridge between Canada’s two solitudes. Lady of Ginger placed Lander at the crossroads of art song, pop poetry, and the new Canadian songwriter movement.

Afterward she appeared in The Jews of Winnipeg (1973) while starring in Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris in Boston, then in Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill in New York, where her “Surabaya Johnny” became a career landmark. In the mid-1970s she turned to composition and dance-theatre, creating Diary with Lynn Taylor-Corbett, later performed by the Joffrey, American Ballet 2, and the Hubbard Street Dance Company of Chicago.

In recent years Lander has focused on teaching in Oakville and Toronto, guiding students—including First Nations teens from northern Canada—through her holistic vocal technique. “Every song,” she says, “must be lived, not merely sung.”

Her journey has come full circle: in 2025 she was invited by award-winning filmmaker Larry Weinstein to lead a Kurt Weill workshop for graduate students at the Glenn Gould School.

Judith is alive and well and living in Toronto at the Performance Arts Lodge (PAL), where she continues to teach and inspire new generations of singers.
-Robert Williston

Read the complete biography here:
https://citizenfreak.com/titles/286871-lan...