Four-time Juno Award nominee and 2015 Polaris Prize contender, Elizabeth Shepherd; her husband and manager, Johan Hultqvist; and their eldest daughter, Sanna, hit the road on a cross-country tour. Photo: Courtesy of Elizabeth Shepherd via Facebook
It?s 7:30am, and we?re still at the Edmonton Ramada hotel. We should have left half an hour ago. Johan, my husband and manager, was wearing out the carpets in the hallways from 5 a.m. till five minutes ago, pacing back and forth with our baby strapped to his chest, so I could rest. Alma?s not yet sleeping through the night, and we only settled into our hotel room at 1 am, after I?d finished playing a two-set, evening show.
Now Johan is loading the van with microphones; cables; a keyboard amp; boxes of CDs; suitcases; a cooler full of purees, grapes and baby carrots; a stroller and two diaper bags. I’m still frantically trying to fold the peapod?a baby-sized camping tent. It?s not cooperating. I?m in tears. In my current state of sleep deprivation, the crumpled green mass on the floor seems like cosmic retribution for my decision to take two kids under six across the country on an album launch tour. I?m a singer-songwriter?a jazz chanteuse with a love of dance music and soul?and I live in Montreal with Johan, and our two girls: Sanna (5) and Alma (7 months). We spend about three and half months of the year on the road in our two-vehicle caravan?one van for my quartet band and one for my family of four. We?ve toured across Can...