Nicky Mehta
Nicky Mehta is a Winnipeg singer-songwriter and a founding member of the Wailin’ Jennys, the three-voice folk group in which she sings the mezzo part and plays acoustic guitar, harmonica and ukulele. She wrote “Arlington,” “Begin” and “Away But Never Gone,” among other songs on the trio’s albums, two of which won Juno Awards.
She came to music later than most. After an honors degree in media and cultural studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, she meant to go on to graduate school but took a year off to try backup singing, first in Toronto, singing other people’s songs in subways and clubs, and then back in Winnipeg, where she took up the guitar at 24, began writing, sang backup for local singer-songwriters and formed her first band. From 1995 she fronted several groups there, among them the folk-rock band Good Blind Soul and the folk duo Wellspring. Her solo album Weather Vane came out in 2001 and was nominated for a Canadian Independent Music Award in 2002.
At the 2001 Winnipeg Folk Festival, shortly after that album appeared, Ruth Moody suggested that she and Cara Luft put on a show together. The three sang it at a small guitar shop in Winnipeg, jokingly billed as the Wailin’ Jennys; a second show sold out, offers followed, and the group became her main work from 2002 on. On 40 Days (2004), which won the 2005 Juno for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year, she sang lead and played guitar on her own “Arlington,” “This Is Where” and “Ten Mile Stilts” and added harmonica to Moody’s “Beautiful Dawn” and cajón to “Saucy Sailor.” “Arlington” was a finalist in the USA Songwriting Competition.
Firecracker (2006) carried four of her songs, “Begin,” “Starlight,” “Avila” and “Some Good Thing,” each with her on lead vocal and guitar. “Begin” was used in the film The Cake Eaters, directed by Mary Stuart Masterson, and in an episode of the television series Army Wives. Her songs “Arlington” and “Begin” were also on the trio’s Live at the Mauch Chunk Opera House (2009), made after Heather Masse joined. On Bright Morning Stars (2011), which won the 2012 Juno in the same category, she wrote and sang lead on “Swing Low Sail High,” “What Has Been Done” and “Last Goodbye,” sang her lullaby “Away But Never Gone” to her own ukulele, and wrote lyrics with Masse for Masse’s “Bird Song.” On Fifteen (2017), a set of other writers’ songs, from Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” to Hank Williams’s “Weary Blues from Waitin’,” she sang and played guitar.
Alongside the band she taught songwriting to teenagers through a Winnipeg Folk Festival program, mentored younger musicians through Manitoba Music, and composed music for contemporary dance with the band’s longtime sound engineer, Grant Johnson. She coordinated the Jennys’ partnership with the National Alliance on Mental Illness in the United States. In 2018 she published Away But Never Gone, a children’s book based on her lullaby, illustrated by Kimberley Slezak, and at that time she was working toward a second solo album.
