Beverly Glenn-Copeland – Beverly Copeland (1970, Canada)
I know we just had two spotlights from Canadian artists, but I think we need a bit more Canadian content before moving on. More importantly though, now (as always) is the perfect time to celebrate and support our brilliant trans artists. And so, our next spotlight is on number 478 on The List, submitted by myself (buffyleigh).
I didn’t learn about Glenn Copeland – who records under the name Beverly Glenn-Copeland[1] – until we were compiling The List roughly a year ago. Other Mastodonians, as per usual, were more informed than I, many of them knowing Glenn from either the 2019 documentary Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story, or from his 25 years of acting on the Canadian children’s show, Mr. Dressup (I of course watched that show as a kid, but, what can I say, I only had eyes for Finnegan).
I can’t remember why I first stumbled upon Glenn’s debut album, but I was absolutely blown away by his voice. It’s just so emotive and captivating, with a fantastic classical range (Glenn was trained in the German vocal tradition of Lieder singing, and studied classical vocals at McGill University). The album was an instant purchase for me (as was his newest, the 2023 The Ones Ahead), and I immediately added it to The List. But, as I am unfortunately wont to do, I then failed to check out the rest of Glenn’s discography, and have only been listening to his first and last albums since.
Until now. As I’m writing this, for the first (and second) time I’m listening to Glenn’s most well-known album, Keyboard Fantasies (1986), which is incredibly different from his first and last albums. While the debut lives in the realms of dark folk and modal jazz, Keyboard Fantasies is exactly what it says on the box – beautiful, dreamy keyboard-focused new age/early techno electronic music. Created with a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer, a Roland TR-707 drum machine, and an Atari computer, Glenn self-released the album on cassette in a small run (100 or 200 tapes). It then took nearly 30 years for the album to gain attention.
In 2015 or 2016, Ryota Masuko, owner of a specialty Japanese record store (SHE Ye,Ye Records) in Niigata, somehow stumbled upon Keyboard Fantasies and emailed Glenn to ask if he had any copies left. Glenn sent Ryota all he had and, via promoting on their website and in their shop, Ryota quickly sold all of them. And those copies reached the right hands, as Glenn was soon contacted by various record labels, snowballing into a flurry of activity including the album reissue (which Swedish pop musician Robyn wrote the liner notes for), an international tour, the aforementioned documentary, a remix album called Keyboard Fantasies Reimagined (that includes contributions from artists such as Bon Iver, Arca, and Jeremy Dutcher!), and features in many prominent magazines, etc.
If I had clued in sooner, I perhaps would’ve added Keyboard Fantasies rather than the debut album to The List, given that it has such a great story behind it. But, perhaps not; the debut is and remains an absolute stunner even alongside the somewhat cult-status Keyboard Fantasies, and it encapsulates this beautiful soul so well. But the beauty of The List is that it serves both to highlight fantastic individual albums and to urge those who are curious to dig further into the artist’s discography. And so, here we are, and, after a bit of a delay, my digging has now commenced.
And I hope your digging will now too, if you aren’t yet familiar with this artist! In addition to checking out the various sounds Glenn has put out into the world (see also his tracks on last year’s stunning TRAИƧA compilation!), learning more about him is really an absolutely lovely rabbit hole to go down, so I highly recommend spending some time doing so. Though I’m just getting started myself, so far I’d point to the 2021 Quietus article/interview and the 2023 Walrus article/interview, and also Vinyl Me, Please‘s 2021 “Beverly Glenn-Copeland Primer”.
Happy listening/reading.
- Given the name Beverly Glenn at birth, in 1970 Glenn added “Copeland” to his name as an homage to American composer Aaron Copland, presumably after the release of the debut album. ↩︎
