Music grad's career hits the ground running
Music program alumna Melanie Hankewich (Belle Plaine) is beginning her career in full stride. CBC Radio 3’s Grant Lawrence named her his discovery of the 2010 Regina Folk Festival. She was voted Regina’s Best Singer in 2010 and 2011 by Prairie Dog Magazine and was awarded the additional title of Best Solo Act in 2011. Her uncommonly beautiful voice causes audiences to sit up and take notice wherever she performs.
Kelley Jo Burke of CBC’s SoundXchange recently said, “If Patsy Cline and Blossom Dearie had a love child she would sing like Belle Plaine. Belle’s voice is old timey and jazzy. It has twang, crystal bells and swing… all of a sudden your cheatin’ heart has a very dry martini in hand, and you’re hearing something both timeless and brand new.”
Belle Plaine’s first full-length album, Notes from a Waitress, is a throwback to the vocal jazz of the 1960’s - think Peggy Lee, Julie London. Smart lyrics paired with a smokin’ band.
Born and raised on a farm in Saskatchewan, Belle Plaine is a true prairie girl. A performer by the age of five, she began classical voice lessons at six. From that early age, she knew she wanted to write songs and perform. When she moved to Edmonton in 1998 to study jazz at MacEwan University, her focus shifted toward a more technical aspect of music. After graduation she worked in a Calgary recording studio and occasionally sang jingles for commercial radio, but the work felt meaningless. “I gave up on music, I’d lost touch with my own voice,” she recalls. “I had years of education, but artistically I felt drained.” After two years at the studio, Plaine enrolled at the University of Victoria as an environmental science major. Science was not the right choice, but she fell in love with Victoria’s vibrant arts community and she began to sing and write songs again.
Soon after, an itch to travel carried her to Sydney, Australia, where she waitressed and played gigs with random musicians, working on pub shows, garage demos and back-up vocals.
In 2006, she returned to Saskatchewan with notebooks filled with words and melodies, and a desire to develop a stage persona. When she happened to drive by the village of Belle Plaine, the name stuck, and she adopted it as her own. Melanie Hankewich began to perform full-time as Belle Plaine in early 2010. “It just feels good to sing for people. It’s what I do the best, more than anything. It’s about time I’m doing it for a living.”
Belle Plaine's album, Notes from a Waitress is available for download on iTunes January 29, 2012
