Gypsy Melodies is Cornwall musician Roxanne Delage's latest project (2024)

A well-known Cornwall artist who’s had hundreds of live performances in Cornwall and area over the years — and many in far-away places — has just released her latest musical project.

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Gypsy Melodies – A Folk Opry, a 20-song soundtrack, is what Roxanne Delage calls “songs and stories of love and loss, and a long road home, dedicated to the memory of my dearest Gypsy Mamma who passed 30 years ago.”

The record is produced by Marc Muir, and there’s an accompanying 64-page book of lyrics, poems, stories, and photographs of what Delage said is a retrospective of the good times and bad during her long life – although she is just a very vibrant 60.

“Throughout my journey, I’ve had the privilege of playing with dozens of talented and generous musicians who have been instrumental (pun intended) in the honing of my music,” Delage said. “Their names are on each and every one of the notes of this project.

“Among the many, I met Marc Muir, a fabulous and well-respected Cornwall musician, a number of years ago. When it was finally time to put the music together for this anthology, I was drawn to him serendipitously. He understood the assignment and produced the soundtrack of my life as though he could read my soul.”

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Gypsy Melodies was written over a 15-year-span; Delage proudly said the entire production, from the music, to the artwork, to the graphics, to the social media, to the project management, was created locally.

“The talent in this community is inspiring to me,” she said. “I am home here.”

Delage, whose debut album, The Way I Am, was released in 2012, knows the area well – she’s performed fronting the Roxanne Delage Band, and as a duo, and as the Roxanne Delage Trio, and everywhere from Aultsville Theatre to the Glengarrian, the St. Lawrence Acoustic Stage to the Rendezvous, the Williamstown Fair to the OPG visitor centre auditorium.

When Delage several years ago took a major life detour and moved to the east coast, a lot of her performances went on in cities including Charlottetown and St. John’s.

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“While sharing testimony at a local event a number of years ago, a woman, who I had just met, explained to me the notion of living life wide or living deep,” Delage recounted “That you can set up roots in one place and grow your life deep like a majestic oak, or spread your seeds in the wind like rolling fields of dancing wildflowers. Neither is right nor wrong, better or worse, no more or less fulfilling. They are simply different paths.”

All the travelling started earlier in Delage’s life.

“We didn’t have a choice back then,” she said. “We followed. New town, new home, new school, new friends, new life. When it was time, for whatever reason, to pack up what we could in a box or two and head out on our next adventure – like the time, on a whim, we sold what little we had and moved to Alberta – we did.

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“By the time I was 10 years old, we’d moved as many times, if not more. But no matter where we landed, mother, who I most-lovingly refer to as gypsy mamma, would always do her best to make wherever it was, home. Eventually though, like a calling, we would find our way back to this community.”

Her mother, who was born and raised in North Glengarry, had a beautiful singing voice, Delage said, “a contagious laugh and she loved country music. She was a career waitress, and although the best damned waitress ever, dreamed about being a performer. She told me once that I was living the life she would have done, given the opportunity.

“She passed on the baton, and now I carry it like a torch, for both of us, to light the way. I am everything I am because of her, for better or worse, and for that I will be forever grateful. This project, as with everything I do, is dedicated to her memory.”

Visit www.gypsymelodies.com for more on the project.

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