By Mike Levin

Right out of high school, Peggy White started writing songs and spent the next 12 years on the road with country-music bands. Throughout the 1990s, she was a successful travel agent in Ottawa while raising two sons. Recently she’s taught herself Web design to generate income. Throughout, she’s never stopped writing songs and playing the guitar. Then why, at 50, is she still having trouble accepting that a career in music is possible?

She dances around that question, blaming her procrastination, her ego and a few other things. Then she lowers her eyes and the most unexpected answer comes out: “I’m a perfectionist. If I can’t do it the best, I won’t do it at all.” It still doesn’t make sense because in entertainment, perfect isn’t possible.

Peggy White at home in Almonte. Photo by Mike Levin.

She launched a solo career in 1998, and her 2003 release Fair is Fair did gangbusters on the American and European roots and alt-country charts. Falling, released last October, is even better, although not yet getting the same play. “You’d think that first one would have told me it was time, but I guess I’m still discovering who I am as an artist. That’s the confidence thing I have such a problem with,” says White, who now lives in Almonte.

She worries that the music she hears in her head may not be like the songs on her albums. She wonders whether she might have a better “fit with grit (style), like Lucinda Williams.” And she questions whether a tough youth that kept her from focusing on single elements of music “might be my downfall.” Peggy White has trouble trusting herself.  But with her sons now teenagers and talented musicians in their own right, things are starting to change.

“When I first started out in music I played in cover bands, and I tried to sound like other people. It took me awhile to realize I had my own voice, and I didn’t sound like anyone else. I never believed i was a good lyricist.” She feels she’s now her most honest, ever, and it could be a turning point, the new place where White stops the comparisons and accepts the approval of her fans and music contemporaries. Only now is she starting to accept this sincerity, in the same way Lucky Me (from Fair is Fair) has become her most successful song.

The track is about her grandfather suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and the lyrics are written from her grandmother’s point of view. “You know what’s best? When someone comes up to you and says ‘that song you did, that’s so my life.’  You only get that when something is honest, from inside. That confidence is coming back. It almost feels like I’m starting again,” White says.

She’s not new to the stage, having toured often, including two trips to Australia. Yet she’s never been totally comfortable in performance. “People have to see that you love what you’re doing. You can’t fake that,” White says. “It‘s still driving me crazy, all this second-guessing. Now is the time I need to make this effort for myself.”

This is why June 11 is so important. That’s the night she opens Westfest’s evening of Rootsy Women, a masterpiece of programming that includes The Marigolds, Madison Violet, Nukariik and Dala. “I haven’t done a big show in Ottawa for two years. I’m so excited because now I have so much more to offer.”

It’s difficult to chart the change in White – part confidence fatigue, part realization that she’s the only one who can fix things.  “Yeah, (being confident) it’s a conscious process. I know it means sending out those CDs because I know as soon as I send out stuff, stuff starts happening. I need a plan. I need to collaborate.”

Peggy White has always believed in her own talent; her entire solo career has been self-financed. But to create the full-time career she wants will require moving from belief to acceptance. “I don’t like to talk about my songs because I used to worry about what meaning people would get. Now I see that it’s a great journey.”

White plays Westfest’s main stage at 6 pm, June 11.