Two Timmins artists have picked up award nominations for their songs.
CC Harvey and Laurie-Ann Dredhart received nominations in two categories for the Canadian Gospel Music Association's 41st Covenant Awards. The winners will be announced in Langley, British Columbia, March 21.
Harvey's song Will Overcome is up for Rock Song of the Year. Harvey and Dredhart's This is the Battle Cry is nominated for Indigenous Song of the Year.
Harvey, a singer/songwriter, has been singing most of her life and has released a number of recordings over the years.
While she left music for a while, she had a yearning to go back and in 2016 she decided to do music fulltime.
“I think I’ve written over probably 50 songs in three years. I practise three to five hours a day,” she said.
Harvey and Dredhart met through church.
“It’s very hard to find someone that you can write with. So when I sat down with Laurie and I looked at her lyrics, I said there was a chemistry, an artistic chemistry between the two of us; I can’t explain it,” said Harvey.
Battle Cry is the second song they did together.
Harvey remembers Dredhart bringing over the lyrics and restructuring parts.
“And I go, ‘oh my goodness’, and the melody came just like that,” she recalled, snapping her fingers.
“Battle Cry is a song that came from Laurie’s heart. It’s a song about her granddaughter who was born prematurely….and she had water on the brain."
Will Overcome was inspired by Harvey's personal healing journey after being hurt.
"That song was written through pain, it was written through my journey of healing from wounds from words that were spoken to me,” she said.
While Harvey had a hunch Battle Cry would be nominated, she was surprised to see her song on the list as well.
The two are heading out west for the awards ceremony.
Harvey is hoping to be able to sing Battle Cry at one of the artist showcases.
"Because it resonates with me. When your back is against the wall, when you face challenges in life, when a loved one is sick and you don’t know what to do and you’re crying inside, your back is against the wall and all you have to do is pray. And so I think that song resonates with me, it resonates with a lot of people,” she said.
In Timmins, Harvey is also planning to perform a concert in the spring.
A 16-song digital album featuring her own songs, as well as with some with Dredhart, is also expected to be finished in a couple of months.
