How Crooked House Road singer found her voice

Crooked House Road, pictured from left,  Joshua Skye Engel, Gram Whitty, Mirian Kay, Derek Gray and Shaina Silver-Baird.  JOEL ANDREW JOHNSON PHOTO

Listening to the soaring vocal harmonies of Mirian Kay and Shaina Silver-Baird on Crooked House Road’s debut CD, it’s hard to believe that one of the singers thought she was tone deaf when she was a child.

Silver-Baird said that she found the pitch in her voice and at the same time discovered herself as a singer while she was preparing for her bat mitzvah. 

Violin lessons, “finding the tones with my fingers and having the tones so close to my ear,” also helped her learn pitch, she said. 

Her Torah coach, Kim Doron, the children’s choir director and music leader at Toronto’s Congregation Habonim, encouraged her to sing when she heard her student imitating her tones. “I guess my bat mitzvah was like my first concert,” Silver-Baird said. 

“I ended up singing the whole service when I was 12.” Now, an actor in musical and straight theatre – the 25-year-old played Juliet in Citadel Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet last year –  Silver-Baird is also a songwriter. She wrote the 10 songs on Crooked House Road’s eponymous CD after “a big breakup,” she said. 

However, it’s not just a breakup record, and focuses on loss in general. In the opening track, Mountain, Silver-Baird remembers her father, Bill Baird, who died when she was 14. But there’s also much joy in this CD, released last May to critical acclaim, with its songs about family, her current partner and life in the city.   

Four songs on the CD explore different aspects of breaking up, including trying to make a relationship work despite the obstacles, the difficulty of letting go and the feeling of being taken advantage of. The lyrics of the CD’s final track, Goodbye My Friend, are “about losing love and losing the friendship that comes with it, but the music is uplifting, celebrating that goodbye,” she said. 

Three tunes based on Silver-Baird’s current relationship balance the sadness of the breakup songs. Back To Me looks at a long-distance relationship, Music Man is about falling in love, and she wrote Little Girl Heart with her partner’s young daughter in mind.

Silver-Baird workshopped the songs with different musicians, who collaborated on the instrumentation and arrangements. After some personnel changes, the band, named after a road in Haliburton, Ont., was solidified with co-vocalist/guitarist Kay, drummer Derek Gray, bassist Gram Whitty, and Joshua Skye Engel on electric guitar and mandolin. The band’s exhilarating sound, a fusion of folk music, gospel and blues, can be compared to the music of indie folk groups like the Civil Wars and the Lumineers. 

Earlier this year, Silver-Baird and her partner organized a benefit concert series at which Crooked House Road and other bands performed. CHR For Women supported organizations dedicated to helping women in poverty, including Redwood, a Toronto organization that helps women and children to live free from domestic violence. 

“The support from other musicians was overwhelming,” she said. Silver-Baird, who said she’s always called herself a feminist, plans to continue to work with Redwood. Still active with Congregation Habonim, Silver-Baird connected with her bandmate, Skye Engel, the music director of the Jewish Heritage School at Habonim when she was helping to lead children’s services at the synagogue during Rosh Hashanah. 

He asked her to sing with his band, Oozakazoo, and she asked him to join Crooked House Road. “It’s a fun group and the music is great,” he said.  Silver-Baird has also been training as a cantorial intern at Habonim with its spiritual leader, Eli Rubenstein. 

“I’ve done several weddings and been an assistant on a bat mitzvah,” she said. “We are working periodically on me learning the songs and prayers for the services.”   

Crooked House Road plays at Uncorked on Main, 72 Main St. S., Georgetown, Sept. 11, 8 p.m.; Bloor Ossington Folk Fest, Christie Pitts Park,  Toronto, Sept. 19, at 1:15; Humble Beginnings, 3109 Dundas St. W., Toronto, Oct. 2, 8 p.m. For more information about Crooked House Road and or to purchase their CD, visit www.crookedhouseroad.com. The CD is also available for download on iTunes. You can find the band on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.