Information/Write-up
Dierdre “Dee” Higgins emerged from Montreal’s fertile 1960s folk scene, a clear-voiced young singer whose earliest appearances were in the coffeehouses and small clubs that orbited the Yellow Door, the New Penelope, the Fifth Amendment, and the patchwork of downtown rooms where folk, blues, and emerging folk-rock met. Her first professional work took shape in The Seaway Singers, a Montreal-based trio led by singer-manager Gerry Dance and active around 1966–68. The group, featuring Higgins, Bill Hill, and Dance, moved fluidly between maritime folk, contemporary material, and the softly electrified folk-rock sound then beginning to circulate in Canada. Their 1967 album for Point Records documented a tight harmony group with Higgins already standing out for her warm, bell-like lead tone and easy phrasing, and the trio became a familiar presence on CBC programming, including the campus-circulating series Let’s Sing Out.
By 1969 she had begun working as a solo artist, appearing in folk-festival circuits and, most significantly, on the 1970 Mariposa Folk Festival roster, where RPM noted that “Dee Higgins performs a wide variety of contemporary folk.” That Mariposa listing is one of the earliest press confirmations of her solo identity and places her firmly among the cohort of young Canadian singer-songwriters who were transitioning from the 1960s folk clubs into the more structured recording industry of the early ’70s.
Her first commercial single, “The Song Singer” b/w “Long Way Home,” appeared on Polydor in 1970, marking the start of a brief but meaningful early recording run. In 1971 she signed with RCA Victor Canada and recorded Love Is Still Around, produced by Dennis R. Murphy and featuring the exceptional American multi-instrumentalist David Bromberg alongside a roster of top Toronto session musicians. The album, recorded at RCA Toronto and released as LSP-4554, balanced Higgins’ contemporary folk writing with a few carefully chosen covers, including James Taylor’s “Something in the Way She Moves” and the traditional “Sad Girl’s Lament.” Her songs were arranged with a gentle, roots-based sensibility that suited her natural voice: Bromberg added guitar, midnite guitar, and autoharp; Pat Godfrey anchored the piano work; Dennis Pendrith and Terry Clarke provided the rhythm section; and Eric Nagler, Carole Marshall, Michael Malone, and Ollie Strong deepened the textures with banjo, cello, recorder, and steel guitar. Murry McLaughlin and Keith McKie contributed guitar to “Giving Love,” and the entire project benefited from the careful ear of Murphy and the string arrangements of Jim Ackley. Released just as Canada’s singer-songwriter wave was cresting, the album stands as her defining studio statement.
By the late 1970s Higgins had relocated to Nashville, where she worked as a staff writer, demo singer, and session vocalist—a common but rarely documented path for Canadian performers looking to develop careers in the American country industry. Her songwriting and vocal work during this period led to a second phase of recordings on 16th Avenue Records, beginning with the 1983 album From the Heart. That release, together with a sequence of 1980s singles including “One Thing For Certain,” “Baby I Would,” “Is It Love Yet,” and later “Heartbreak Avenue,” shows her shifting naturally into Nashville’s polished country-pop sound. These recordings, made after more than a decade of performing, reveal a voice that had matured into something smoother and more rounded, but still carried the clarity and softness that distinguished her early work.
Despite a steady presence in studio circles and a sporadic release schedule into 1990, Higgins maintained a low public profile, and much of her later career exists only through discographical traces, copyright filings, and the surviving records themselves. She appears to have retired from recording by the mid-1990s after a long, quiet career rooted in songwriting, session work, and the small-label country world that existed alongside mainstream Nashville.
Taken together, Dee Higgins’ work forms a distinctive arc across nearly three decades: Montreal folk harmonies in the 1960s, contemporary folk songwriting in the early 1970s, and mature Nashville-crafted country-pop in the 1980s. Her albums are rare, her singles scattered across multiple labels, and her paper trail minimal, but the recordings she left behind reflect a quietly committed artist whose career bridged two countries, several musical eras, and the long-standing tradition of Canadian performers who built their craft in the folk clubs at home before carrying it south into the studios of Music City.
-Robert Williston
Musicians:
Dee Higgins: guitar, piano
David Bromberg: guitar, midnite guitar, autoharp
Pat Godfrey: piano
Dennis Pendrith: bass
Terry Clarke: drums
Murry McLaughlin: guitar on 'Giving Love' (courtesy of True North Records)
Keith McKie: guitar on 'Giving Love' (courtesy of True North Records)
Eric Nagler: banjo
Carole Marshall: cello
Michael Malone: recorder
Ollie Strong: steel guitar
Rick Newell: recorder (courtesy of Daffodil Records)
Dennis R. Murphy: tambourine
Production:
Written by Dee Higgins except ‘Something in the Way She Moves’ (James Taylor); and 'Sad Girl's Lament (traditional)
Arranged by Dee Higgins, Dennis R. Murphy, and David Bromberg
String arrangements by Jim Ackley
Produced by Dennis R. Murphy for Sun - Bar Productions
Recorded at RCA Studios, Toronto, Ontario
Engineered by Mark Smith
Artwork:
Cover photo by John Reeves
Thanks to Al Mair (Blythwood music)
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