productions. Even a full symphony orchestra could never reproduce some of these ethereal sounds. Vangelis is another composer of this genre whom we greatly admire. If one listens to his score to the film 1492, it is easy to recognize the musical influences that inspired us.
I am fortunate, however, that my songs and instrumentals have a special element that sets them apart, even from the work of Enya and Vangelis. My songs have the addition of what I consider to be the world’s most beautiful instrument: the classical guitar — my instrument, which my producer always insists we feature at every possible opportunity.
Peter was still able to tap into the magic that he had used to create the Seven Journeys: Music for the Soul and the Imagination album, and we were both intent upon making the best music of our lives. Nothing was too much work for either of us. When inspiration struck, I would obsess over a melody or lyric until I felt it was perfect, and when Peter was “in the zone,” he would stay up night after night, searching for the exact blend of sounds he had in his head. Much of this creative process involved trial and error as even subtle additions or subtractions of sounds can alter the final blend. Never had my guitar sounded so resonant, nor my voice so expressive. I loved the recording process, the way I could manifest a timeless piece of music from what had started out as one small spark of an idea, purely in my imagination. Nobody before had ever “gotten” my musical vision the way Peter did, and time after time he far surpassed my expectations.
The technology was extraordinarily complicated. The tools of the trade had become overwhelmingly complex, and not being very technical myself I could sympathize with some of my past arrangers who had used paper and pencil. The great Maurice Jarre had expressed his frustrations to me, and he hired young computer whiz kids to collaborate when needed. With Peter Bond I had a brilliant producer, engineer, and collaborator in every way, and we sensed that some predestined soul connection empowered our creative process.
My friend Ron Korb, a talented flutist who in 2016 would be nominated for a Grammy, came into the studio to add the sound of his Western and ethnic flutes to many of my songs, and at some points, Peter sang harmony lines, just as he had done on “Reflections” from Seven Journeys. His voice harmonizing with mine added a special colour that would have been difficult to replicate. We were off on another musical journey together, and the making of The Return … To Canada with Love consumed our days.
In November Michael and I played ten concerts from Oakville to Victoria, including a couple of appearances at the Zoomer show in Vancouver and a few dates promoted by my longtime friend, Ben Werbski. We enjoyed staying at Ben’s oceanside house, walking his Labrador dog along the driftwood-strewn beaches, and through the Emily Carr landscape of mossy, treed pathways and dark overhanging branches. Our new duo was off to a good start, we both took pleasure in the warm audience reception and scenic ferry rides, and Michael seemed to enjoy being back on the West Coast where he and his wife had once lived.
12
Canada, My Canada
Although I had not yet finished the work that needed to be done on the new album, I returned to Florida in December of 2012 to escape the Canadian winter. While getting settled in Palm Beach the previous year, I had been introduced by my film producer friend, Gene Mascardelli, to a smart and charming woman who ran estates, including those of Mariah Carey and Rush Limbaugh, and who was occasionally a private chef for celebrities, including Sean Connery. She helped organize my furniture and clothes, unpacked all my boxes, painted my house, and even stood in for me by completing an online driving course I had been required to take after inadvertently running a red light! The woman had been tremendously valuable in myriad ways, and before long we were chatting away as though we had known each other for years.
My sister and mother came down for the holidays, and we spent a happy Christmas day at my new friend’s Palm Beach Lakes home with her elderly mother and three orange cats. She had prepared a feast for us and regaled us with colourful stories, including one about her grandmother, who had survived the Titanic disaster. My mother was impressed, yet she later commented, “Liona, she is too perfect to be real.”
How could I have known that I was to be duped into lending money, supposedly to prevent their home eviction, to someone I had treated as a friend? I eventually recognized all the red flags, and my neighbours reported that she’d had associates of hers staying overnight in my house while I was away. The friendship came to a sad end, and I realized that many of the stories she had told me had been fabricated, including that of the Titanic. I, who had trusted her with the keys to my house, felt deceived and used, and this time there would be no clever astrological inventions to recover my considerable losses. Her deception hurt me much more profoundly than the loss of the money. Mother’s instincts, as usual, had been correct. Trying to be generous to someone I naively trusted had once again come back to bite me.
Fortunately, I am quite sociable, and I soon recovered from the awful sense of betrayal I had felt in the pit of my stomach. I was introduced to Skira, a classy and lively lady a decade my senior, who became a loyal and true friend. She had heartbreaking stories to tell about her family’s harrowing escape during the Second World War. The daughter of a Lithuanian baron and baroness, Skira never flaunted her title, even though I had sometimes heard her called “the baroness on the bicycle” in reference to her daily pedalling to the supermarket. Together we attended many cultural events, and I was introduced to the theatre guild, the society doyennes, the local characters and the political movers and shakers.
Another friend, Olivia Newton-John, was building a house in Jupiter Inlet with her new husband, John Easterling, and I watched the place develop from the basic framework into a beautiful yellow house. When I stayed with them a couple of times, Olivia and I shared our latest music, sang some folk songs together, waxed nostalgic about our former lives in California, and went clothes shopping at the local mall. Her happy life would be literally shaken to its foundations, however, when a year later, for reasons unknown her, her contractor blew himself to pieces in her living room, causing much grief for my heartbroken friends.
I too had a bad surprise when I learned that Edgar Kaiser Jr., the billionaire tycoon who had met me in Brasilia in 1977 and pursued me for a while with private jets and jewellery, had bled to death alone in a hotel room in Toronto after bladder surgery. What a tragic end to my songwriter friend, whose lovely gift of a hand-carved cherrywood music stand remains my most treasured possession. Sadly the beautiful love song he once wrote for me and sang accompanied by his guitar must have vanished when he passed away.
I occasionally participated in the glamorous social world that defines Palm Beach. For fun I attended a couple of dinners at the snooty Everglades Club, and a few society balls and concerts at Donald Trump’s magnificent palace, Mar-a-Lago, that had been built in the twenties by heiress and socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post. At the American Cancer Society ball, I ran into David Foster, Rod Stewart, and Rod’s strikingly tall wife, Penny, with whom I danced a couple of numbers. Somehow at Mar-a-Lago I always ended up chatting with “The Donald,” but back then I never would have guessed that a few years later he would somehow get himself elected U.S. president!
I had quite a busy social schedule, but a couple of friends, thinking that I might be lonely living alone, arranged dinner dates with two eligible Palm Beach bachelors. Both asked to see me again but, as the saying goes, “no cigar.” I had more fun taking myself off to performances and lectures at the Kravis Center or Society of the Four Arts, an active cultural centre located a five-minute stroll from my house.
I decided to trade in my gold Lexus for an efficient Kia Rio that fit more comfortably into my garage, and it became the perfect vehicle for errands and local forays across the bridge. I named my little black car “Tamarindo,” after a street in West Palm, and became quite attached to it, feeling no envy toward the matrons and tycoons manipulating their gas-guzzling Cadillacs, Lincoln Continentals, and Rolls-Royces around town.
In
