Shirley Eikhard Obituary

Shirley Rose Eikhard was a Canadian singer-songwriter.

Eikhard was born in Sackville, New Brunswick to her mother June Eikhard and her father Cecil Eikhard.

Eikhard’s mother began her musical career with her husband, Eikhard’s late father, in the 1950s.

Eikhard’s parents were both members of a small local band, the Tantramar Ramblers.

Her mother, June, released her debut album, Canada’s First Lady of the Fiddle, in 1959, and was the first woman to participate in the Canadian Open Old Time Fiddlers’ Contest.

At age 13, Eikhard successfully auditioned for the Songwriter’s Workshop at the 1969 Mariposa Folk Festival where she played alongside Joni Mitchell, Ian & Sylvia, and Bruce Cockburn.

At age 15, her song “It Takes Time” was recorded by Anne Murray and became a hit in Canada.

In the early 1990s, Eikhard performed with Gwen Swick and Cherie Camp in the trio The Three Marias.

Eikhard sang the theme song to the movie The Passion of Ayn Rand, “Love Is, Love Is Not”.

In 1995, Eikhard recorded a new album, If I Had My Way, co-produced with her long-standing keyboard player Evelyne Datl.

She also contributed the theme song to a new Warner Brothers film, Something to Talk About.

In the late 1990s, she started to record and perform jazz, releasing the albums The Jazz Sessions (1996) and Going Home (1998), headlining her own concert special in 1998 as an episode of Bravo!’s Live at the Rehearsal Hall.

In 2020, Eikhard was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame for “Something to Talk About”.

Eikhard was born on 7 November 1955 and died of cancer in Orangeville, Ontario on 15 December 2022 at age 67.