Newfoundland to New Orleans: Falling in Love Again
by: Alana Levandoski, recording artist/songwriter

I was standing on the marina in Canso, Nova Scotia after a full day of performing at the Stan Rogers Folk Festival. It was an odd weekend for me because I was walking around in a "breakup daze". And looking back, it gets me thinking that blessings come through brokenness in a very mysterious way.

There I was, heartbroken on the marina, listening to a bunch of wonderful folks playing music together with such joy on their faces. An idea dawned on me. Through all of my comings and goings around the world as a performer, I had also allowed the music biz to break my heart. I had fallen out of love with music. So I made the decision that I would drive from Newfoundland to New Orleans on a quest for music.

Much planning, gathering and detailing went into my trip. But as with anything else, you can plan all you want and the variables still vary!

The story of how I ended up on the road in my 1995 Passat Wagon, is long and interesting but for the sake of brevity, I will tell you simply that I found myself driving across the great Canadian Shield and sleeping in the back of my car next to RVs in Wal-Mart parking lots.

I finally arrived at Gross Pt National Park after 5 days of straight driving, with an hour to spare before getting onstage to perform at the Grand Opening of the Trails, Tales and Tunes Festival. It was also the official grand opening of a four month journey that would see me down red dirt roads in PEI, canoeing my instruments to off the grid cabins in Nova Scotia, at kitchen parties, staying in people's garden sheds, on schooners, guesting at Berklee College of Music's advanced lyric writing class, scraping and painting a farm house in New Hampshire for a mountain dulcimer player, meeting wonderful players and writers in North Carolina, searching for wonderful venues in Tennessee, writing in Muscle Shoals, AL, visiting lean-to shack juke joints in Mississippi and dancing my bum off with Cajuns in Louisiana.

I am working on a number of projects all connected to this adventure, including a memoir, and I wrote a lot of songs! Colin Linden and I are brewing up a project together after years of pondering what we might do if we collaborated. In the meantime, I am working in Alberta, continuing the adventure and looking back on a year of great loss, thankful for what I've gained... because I've fallen in love again... with music.

Alana Levandoski is one of Manitoba's most acclaimed songwriters. Her second album Lions and Werewolves was produced by Ken Nelson (Coldplay), she has released albums through Rounder Records, EMI and is a touring veteran having been around the world with artists such as Bruce Cockburn, Blue Rodeo, Carlene Carter, Tanya Tucker and more. Alana actively co-writes with some of the world's most respected songwriters and recently guested as a professional songwriter at Berklee College of Music.

To read more information about Alana and listen to some of her music, visit her website http://www.alanalevandoski.com/