What exactly is a torch folk vocalist?
This new category of singer was coined by a mystery reviewer at one of my performances who diagnosed my music "Torch Folk" and it just stuck.

Tell me about yourself and your music.
OK. It took me years to find my voice, I was an imitator as a child. I can sound like many different vocalists if I want to. When I slowly found my voice I got a direct connection to my Self. If I don't sing for a long time I don't notice anything until I begin to sing again and then it is like I am being reintroduced to mySelf that I forgot who I am. So singing is so essential.

What would an audience member expect to hear at a live performance that's different than the album?
I think it’s more about what they feel, people are moved to tears (hopefully it's not because they are in distress or embarrassed for me...kidding... ) People tell me they experience great emotional feeling from my performances. Chris Shillock, who I am performing with on May 20th at the Acadia theatre says, "LeNor has a voice that plunges you into the depths of dark waters. She has a soul that lifts you out again, cool and clean."

After a few slow songs to start off your album, "Healer: With a Twist!" definitely turns it up a notch. What's the song about?
It is about a human tendency some people have to keep people just sick enough to need to be taken care of. Or let them get well but not all the way so that they remain dependent on the healer. It happens in psychiatrists' offices and in relationships.

But there is an underlying experience that I am using for the energy to sing the song with that has to do with a profound spiritual visitation I experienced. Hence the beginning of the song: "Spirits come then they and leave us - to our own devices. Once in a life time, they paint your bones with White. Spirits come and they lead us to our own demise, once in a life time."

The guitar work on this album is fantastic. Is that a twelve string? How long have you played? Tell me more about the instrumentation on the album.
Thank you! Yes, it is my 12 string 1982 Guild I bought new on Van Nuys Boulevard. I inadvertently learned to play guitar from master guitar player, Zeke Zeleznikar. I learned to accompany myself. I became serious about guitar playing in 1996. Credit for the mix, which really lets the sound flower, goes to Willie Murphy. He did an extraordinary job for the 1982 12 string Guild that I play.

What is your songwriting style? Start with lyrics, a riff or rhythm?
My lyrics are holographic in that you can super impose them over all most any situation and they seem to talk about what ever it is you point them to.

I start with overflowing emotion and if I am very lucky, I sometimes hear in the interface between two chords an entire song - Sometimes I am practicing my own music and I hit the wrong chord or I am on the wrong fret or something and I hear a chord that I have heard countless times before in a new context in relation to the song I was trying to play. In this way you can hear a chord you have heard thousands of times from a new perspective and it will enable a melody to emerge from it. If lyrics do not accompany the new melody it becomes very difficult to superimpose them from a different context of time....

I don't really claim to have "written" any songs on purpose they all emerge by accident. Chords that I find beautiful are like umbilical chords. They are nearly all ways attached to images the lyrics talk about the images that the (umbilical chord) seems to have attached to it.

If I have no image I will lay down a recording of complete gibberish as a structure for consonants and vowel placement. I place words over the structure because the gibberish is true to form, it's so basic and automatic.

What would you say has been your biggest inspiration to sing?
Pain and Hell - But I was groomed by my mother from the time I was 2 years old to make up songs and sing them to guests. I liked to entertain because I got attention, and it was really hard to come by.

I get a voodoo kind of vibe from certain tracks and the album artwork
– why do you think that is?
Maybe we misunderstand voodoo and maybe we don’t really know what that is. But I think the idea of a healer who is almost too dangerous to be used is intriguing...and is being overlooked as a real phenomenon in our culture.

The actual CD cover says "In case of emergency break glass" across the front. There is a sinister idea behind that. The picture of me on the cover could be anyone but it depicts a powerful healer, who is frozen and contained behind a glass case. S/he is only to be used for emergencies. S/he will create emergencies if s/he has none to deal with.

"Strange Sorcery" also is not so strange, the idea that with out a dream we die has been stated over and over again. “Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind, aint life unkind?” Ruby Tuesday

You can hear this mythical torch folk singer yourself at the following upcoming gigs:
March 25th
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Performances on the Edge, 9:30 PM ($12)

May 20th
Acadia Café, An Evening of Poetry and Song with Christopher Shillock / Tabatha Predovich and LeNor Barry, 9:30 p.m. ($6)

You can purchase Healer: With a Twist! here