Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Named after a character in an old western movie, Shiloh remembers sitting beside her dad in the pick-up, a road-pop between his knees and a cigarette dangling from his mouth, as he drove the family from their Alberta ranch to their new homestead in British Columbia. Shiloh jumped out of the truck and onto a horse – riding through the glorious backcountry for what seemed like about five minutes, gulping in all fresh mountain air she could hold. Due to bar room antics and whiskey driven madness, the new ranch was soon history and Shiloh and her mother moved to a trailer park in town. At 14 she took a job as a waitress in a truck stop diner to pay to keep her horse at a local ranch. It didn’t work for long, so she soon developed another vice – songwriting. She stole her brother’s guitar and hit the road, moving from town to town looking for the next great drama. Vancouver stopped her in her tracks, stuck in a dead-end job with dreams as wide as a Western sky. Before long, producer John Ellis (Be Good Tanyas, Jeremy Fisher) spotted her at an open mike session and offered to produce her debut CD “For my Smoke,” a collection of songs combining images of the beauty, darkness and determination that have brought her this far. Shiloh’s gone as far west as she can without hitting deep water, but she’s not done yet. Not by a country mile.