By Cynthia Cheponis
The folk artist, who also plays guitar on most of the tracks, turned semi-professional nine years ago when she joined the local Writer’s Bloc songwriting group. Noxon has been involved with music since her high school days, but first worked as a painter and sculptor for 10 years.
“I decided I wanted to get into singing again, but this (being a professional musician) was not part of a grand plan at all,” she says.
The new disc, entitled “sweet,” is Noxon’s second. She released her first CD in 1998 and began preparing material for the new one immediately after.
Noxon is an independent artist, producing and releasing the disc all on her own.
To support what she calls her very expensive hobby, she also works part-time at the Ottawa Carleton Immigrant Services Organization teaching English as a Second Language to adults.
She says these experiences have inspired her in some of her songs. One of the tracks on the new CD is called “Literate at Last” and tells the story of an elderly man who never had the chance to attend school as a child.
“If I had one cause I was going to promote it would be literacy and freedom of expression,” says Noxon.
“I see these people (whom I teach) trying to maintain their independence even though they’re like kids again.”
However, she is not seen as a preachy artist. Dean Verger, owner of Rasputin’s, the restaurant where Noxon has performed, says her songs have a conversational feel to them.
“It’s like the same words that would be in a conversation appear in her music, so I don’t think of her music as evangelical in any way,” says Verger.
Chris White, artistic director of the Ottawa Folk Festival, says Noxon has a gift of putting herself in other people’s places and telling stories like the ones on her CD.
In addition to the literacy song, there is one about an immigrant family that struggles to survive in a new environment.
“The really nice thing is the way she looks outside of herself,” says White.
“People talk about singer-songwriters always writing in the key of ‘I’ but she’s really imaginative in putting herself in other people’s situations.”
He adds that Noxon’s love of language is what makes her so passionate about teaching other people.
Noxon says she is always on the lookout for stories that would make good songs and says she tries to imagine herself in the place of the subject to make the song seem real.
“I think there’s a challenge in being able to slip inside a different reality and speak in a different voice.”