Corlynn Hanney

Corlynn Hanney sang behind Leonard Cohen at the Isle of Wight, recorded in Los Angeles with The Groop and sang on Canadian television commercials, then spent decades teaching Vancouver's rock and pop singers how to use their voices. Born March 3, 1945, she was a third-generation Vancouverite who grew up on the city's East Side in a musical household. Her parents ran Noah's Ark, a pet store downtown, and the year she was born her father launched his boat, the Balandra, which carried the family on early sea voyages.

She went to John Oliver High School and earned a Bachelor of Music at the University of British Columbia, where she sang with the UBC Chamber Singers. Her professional career began in Vancouver television, singing on the CBC shows The Let's Go Show and Up Up and Away and with the Numerality Singers. She then joined the Jimmy Joyce Singers, appearing on The Tim Conway Show and The Smothers Brothers Show and working with Nancy Sinatra and the Muppets.

In Los Angeles she became a member of The Groop, a folk-pop vocal group with Jeffrey Comanor, Susan Musmanno and Brian Griffiths. Their self-titled album came out on Bell Records in 1969, produced by Toxey French with a band that included Larry Knechtel, Joe Osborn and Jim Gordon, and the group's 'A Famous Myth' was used in Midnight Cowboy.

Hanney and Musmanno then went on the road with Leonard Cohen in 1970 as backing singers in his band, The Army. They sang with him at the Isle of Wight Festival that August, a set later released as Live at the Isle of Wight 1970, and their voices are on Songs of Love and Hate (1971). Through the following years she worked steadily as a session singer, singing behind Tom Jones, The Fifth Dimension, Al Martino, Ann Mortifee, Shari Ulrich and the Payolas, and on commercials for Pontiac, Datsun, Kodak, Kraft and Air Canada and in campaigns for milk and the lotteries.

She wrote songs for most of her life. 'It Oughta Be Me' won the West Coast Songwriter's Competition, and by her family's account 'Heaven In Your Arms' reached No. 6 on the Canadian charts. In 1987 she released a single on Meander Records with 'Circumstance', which she wrote with pianist and arranger Bill Sample, backed with 'Heaven In Your Arms', credited to Hanney and Peter Clarke, with a 1985 publishing date. Sample produced the A-side and arranged both.

Hanney married Miles Ramsay, and as her family grew she turned more of her time to teaching. She built a reputation teaching non-classical voice to rock and pop singers, from her home studio and at ICA, Capilano College's jazz studies program and Vancouver Community College, where she helped create or expand the vocal departments.

Choirs were the other constant. She sang for several years with Elektra Women's Choir, was a founding member of the Little Mountain Singers and spent more than twenty years with the Phoenix Chamber Choir, touring in Canada and abroad. Cypress Choral Music published her Christmas pieces 'Christmas Angel', 'Carol of the Stable Dog' and 'Child of Wonder' in arrangements for several voicings. In 2004 she released Shine, an album of her own spiritually based songs.

Her children Sara and Josh Ramsay both followed her into music, Sara as a singer and vocal teacher and Josh as the singer and songwriter of Marianas Trench. Diagnosed with Lewy body dementia in 2012, Corlynn Hanney died on December 15, 2020, at 75.

-Robert Williston