Who Is Linda Chorney?

May 1, 2014 | Jon D Auria

Linda Chorney with Mariachi Sol Azteca
photo: Scott Fadynich

Singer-songwriter Linda Chorney’s tale is one of unbending perseverance and extreme dedication to her dream, as her music career has endured ups and downs that would break most people in her position along the way. After releasing six albums on her own during her 34-year career and embarking on endless stretches of touring, it appeared that the Massachusetts native’s passion had finally paid off when it was announced in 2012 that she was nominated for the Best Americana Album for the 54th Grammy Awards.

If getting recognized by the highest honor in music for her album Emotional Jukebox wasn’t monumental enough, it was made even more historic by the fact that she was the first entirely independent artist to receive a Grammy nomination. Chorney was on top of the world in the weeks leading up to the event, until she was exposed to the hurtful politics of an industry that shuns those it can’t profit from.

“Honestly the Grammy nomination was in some ways a curse. The politics behind the industry slandered me and almost blacklisted me. The industry doesn’t like to lose control and because nobody profited off of my nomination, they saw me as a threat,” explains Chorney. “Record labels thought that it was my fault that their artists weren’t nominated. When people’s money and power is threatened, they go to great lengths to discredit whoever are in their way, so they buried me. But they didn’t know who they were dealing with because I had come too far to be buried.”

In the months after the Grammy Awards, Chorney went through an emotional roller coaster due to the backlash of the incident. Where one moment she thought she had reached the pinnacle of her career, the next she felt like an outcast. But if there’s one thing the 54-year-old knows, it’s how to move forward. So she decided to take a stand and chronicle her alleged scandal and expose the truth by writing her first book, Who The F$%# Is Linda Chorney. The often humorous and uniquely insightful book outlines Linda’s life in music and all of her ups and downs leading up to her Grammy nomination and all of the turbulence she experienced in the aftermath of that process.

“It was something I just had to do. The industry gatekeepers were very upset that somebody else got in and snuck past them. As a result they made up stories and tried to accuse me of cheating and so they lobbied the Grammy organization to change the rules so that an indie couldn’t get in again,” says Chorney. “This was explained to me from the inside from people who were happy to secretly fill me in on the corruption of the organization. It was so fascinating, so I had to expose it by writing a book about it all. It was hard putting it all down on paper because I had to relive memories from that time period. But like everything, I got through it all with humor.”

Linda’s Grammy recognition is far from the only impressive achievement of her long career in music. In 1991, she was invited to join Paul Simon and Jackson Browne to play in front of the late, great Nelson Mandela and a crowd of 250,000 people in Boston. And in what she claims to be her greatest achievement, Chorney was invited to Boston’s famous Fenway Park to sing the National Anthem for the 100-year anniversary of the baseball stadium during a Red Sox game in April 2012. When Chorney started playing piano at the age of four and guitar at the age of ten, she couldn’t possibly have dreamed that she would achieve the things that she has now.

“Music is my greatest passion. If I couldn’t express myself through my music and my art and my writing I would go nuts. I don’t really have a choice in that. My career started when I was 20 and I’ve made a living the whole time since I began and I haven’t been starving,” says Chorney. “I write lyrics that people can relate to. Mainly things people think but don’t have the courage to say and I put it to music to give it another dimension. People enjoy knowing they’re not alone in their thoughts and perspective.”

After living all over the East Coast and being on the road most of her life performing on all seven continents, Chorney recently moved to Tucson to be closer to her parents and to enjoy the sunny weather of the west.

This month marks her first two official concerts as a Tucsonan on Saturday, May 3 at La Cocina, 201 N. Court Ave., from 5-5:30 p.m. (during Tucson Folk Festival) and on Saturday, May 10 at Hacienda Del Sol, 5501 N. Hacienda Del Sol, from 7-10 p.m. Chorney will be premiering her new song “The Cantina” at these shows, which pairs her with local mariachi group Mariachi Sol Azteca. A music video for her new Tucson-inspired single will be completed this summer.

For more information about Linda Chorney, her upcoming shows and to purchase her albums and book, visit LindaChorney.com.