'I'm ready': Former Calgarian Lindi Ortega finds her voice again after long absence from spotlight

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Roughly six years ago, Lindi Ortega decided her music career was over.

It was not the first time she had contemplated quitting the business. After releasing six acclaimed records and touring non-stop, a stint in Nashville had left the Toronto native impoverished and burned out in 2015. She decided to throw in the towel and even penned a song called Final Bow to mark the occasion. Luckily, she felt a renewed burst of creativity after getting married and moving to Calgary. That eventually led to 2018’s ambitious concept album, Liberty. But while she was touring that album, another crisis struck. This time the barrier seemed permanent. Unbeknownst to her, the in-ear monitors she had been using on stage were faulty and made her vocals sound distorted. She over-compensated and damaged her voice. For the first time in her life, she began feeling pangs of anxiety whenever she stepped on stage. One night before a show in Edmonton, she had a panic attack.

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“I was realizing that I couldn’t sing properly anymore,” says Ortega, in an interview with Postmedia from her home in Creston, B.C.

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“Just knowing I was struggling with my voice was giving me anxiety to perform and be on stage. I got to the point where I got so in my head about it, which happens, that I was just terrified to perform in front of anybody, which was just so bizarre because I had never had that fear whatsoever. Suddenly, I was just brutal with anxiety.”

She didn’t want to step away from her career, but eventually realized she wasn’t performing at the level her fans were used to. She moved to Creston with her husband and painted houses for four years.

“It was real blue-collar kind of stuff and I was just not a musician,” she says. “I was just a whole different Lindi. I had my little painting overalls on and made a full-time job out of painting.”

She was finally led back to music after another period of darkness, which included the death of her father and a divorce in 2022.

“When things happen in life that are terrible, my outlet for getting through happens to be music and writing,” she says. “So, suddenly, I was very much inspired to write again and I just couldn’t stop. Before I knew it, I had tons and tons of songs and I realized I had better do something with the songs … I had better start figuring out how I’m going to perform again. So then I started seeing vocal coaches and trying real hard to fix my voice every day. Now I’m here.”

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Her first time back on stage was performing for children in Creston. Slowly but surely, she began getting back on stage. On Saturday, she will perform at Hgh Line Brewing in Inglewood. Meanwhile, her friend Mike Meadows — a producer and drummer who has played with Willie Nelson, Shawn Colvin, Hayes Carll and Kris Kristofferson — invited her to record at his studio in Austin, Texas. They have completed two albums. From the Ether will be released in October and is full of ghost-inspired songs.

“I’ve always had a fascination with ghostly spirits, creatures, whatever you want to call them,” she says. “I thought my apartment was haunted. I had some really weird scenarios happening when I was living there. That spurred the idea of writing a ghost record. It’s about all different kinds of ghosts. Now I think I’m just haunted. I think they follow me.”

That includes the suitably haunting The Ghost of You, the album’s first single that will be released in September. The song occasionally recalls Tom Waits, one of Ortega’s musical heroes. In fact, early this year Ortega and 17-year-old Texas wunderkind Jack Barksdale recorded and released two Waits covers. Ortega sang lead on 2004’s How’s It Gonna End, while Barksdale sang lead on the 1987 classic Yesterday is Here. Ortega was often considered a country artist during her career, albeit more in the traditional outlaw flavour rather than radio-friendly mainstream fare.  

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“I never really thought that I was country,” she says. “I always thought I had country influence in the songs that I wrote. But I would never say that I was a full-on country artist. I think my music has always spanned multiple genres. Some of my records are a little more soulful, some of them have a little bluesy bent, and some of them have a little jazzy bent. I’ve always been a not-quite-a-one-laneway person. I understand people need a lane to put things in for context. So, yeah, a lot of my early stuff was very country-leaning. On this record, I’ve decided to be a little experimental and really got into beats and percussive elements, but organically. We were sampling things that were actual organic sounds and turned them into beats.”

Ortega says her voice has more-or-less returned to its past strength. Even when she wasn’t making music, Ortega kept a presence on social media but admits it was hard when her fans would ask when she was making her comeback. Many refused to accept that the artist who had released such brilliant albums as 2011’s Little Red Boots and 2013’s Tin Star, been nominated for three Junos and won praise in Rolling Stone and the New York Times, had called it quits.

“Now, when people ask me when stuff is coming out or when am I touring I say ‘I want to do it all,’” she says. “I want to get right back to where I was: perform everywhere, be everywhere, do everything, make all the records. I’m ready.”

Lindi Ortega performs at High Line Brewing on Saturday, Aug. 31 at 8 p.m. Visit https://www.showpass.com/lindi-ortega-highline-brewing-calgary/ for tickets.

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