Album Notes

When you hear singer/songwriter, Michael McKenna's soulful vocals, you can imagine his voice wringing sincerity even from the weakest material. Fortunately, there is no wringing required in this case. Hard Choices, McKenna's debut album is a lyrically fearless and musically engaging playground, for vocal performances that you won't forget.

Although McKenna has literally had his head in the clouds for years, in his secondary occupation as an Airline flight instructor, his first love is music and his songs are remarkably grounded and accessible. Served with a healthy side of originality, McKenna's classic vocals and universal lyrics build an easy rapport with the listener.

Hard Choices is a ten song musical journey that takes you from the epic lyric and production of "The River Knows Your Name"(John Hiatt) through the torrid rhythm and guitar storm of "Down In The Fire" to end with the title track, a close, wrenching ballad about love at a crossroads.

Creating recorded interpretations of songs that he had been performing in live venues for years was a challenge for McKenna when he began the process of completing Hard Choices. After cutting demos with a couple of producers and collaborating with other songwriters, McKenna finally paired with producer Roman Klun (Sarah McLachlan, Gino Vanelli) to complete the project. Some of the album's strongest songs were created during the recording process which took place at Highland Studios near Toronto, Canada. Klun has succeeded at finely balancing McKenna's classic qualities with the cutting-edge, to take this recording well out of the safe zone. There is plenty of headphone candy here. Guitar-great, Bill Dillon (Robbie Roberston, Bob Dylan), adds immeasurably to the flavour of the album, contributing unique sounds to the tracks as he pushes the melodic, textural and percussive boundaries of the guitar. One sound you won't be able to place comes courtesy of the guitorgan, an instrument of Dillon's own invention. The world-class complement includes, Mark Zubek whose able musicianship and co-production underpin the rich, layered aesthetic masterminded by Klun. McKenna who wrote much of the material on piano and guitar contributes to the tracks throughout.

McKenna is in his element on stage and is understandably excited about presenting the fruits of his labour in a live forum as he has been doing prior to the album's release in Spring '04. He looks forward to the immediate connection with his audience and the opportunity to groom a new set of songs for his follow-up. Michael McKenna sounds like a veteran on his debut and promises to add to Canada's recent bumper crop of music success stories. Pick up the album and the only Hard Choices you'll have to make are which great songs you're going to listen to over and over!