Thousands of Career Miles and Still Counting by Ben D'Andrea well have started in the West It's impossible to doubt Diane Lines In her 22-year career, the singer and pianist from the North Shore has performed on six continents. It isn't surprising that when she got called by the Arts Club Theatre to join the cast of the musical revue Tapestry, it was long distance: Lines was backpacking through Eastern Europe where she wound up traveling through Croatia. "I just sort of kept going south, where the wind took me." Lines says, adding that she didn't meet up with a lot of tourists. Tourists were also in short supply Diane Lines in her role in Tapestry, the Arts Club musical revue based on the music of Carole King. Shows will run through July and, possibly, August Call the Arts Club box office for more details, 687-1644. Photo: David Cooper. in 1992 when Lines performed in Cambodia as part of a U N tour. The 36-year-old Lines recalls that fighting was still going on. and travelling through Cambodia meant being accompanied by military escorts. The show for the Canadian troops took place on July 1, which turned out to be the hottest Canada Day--42 degrees-- Lines has ever experienced. But the show at "Camp Canada" was a great success, she says. "The troops were so appreciative and so wonderful." Born in Banff. Lines moved to the North Shore with her family when she was ten. and her career might Vancouver neighbourhood where she grew up and put on her own shows. She admits, however, that her earliest performances weren't always w e l l received. "I'd write plays and little musicals, and I'd force the neighbourhood children not only to come and seem them, but also to pay." Clearly. Lines was determined, and. she got the early training and support she needed from her piano teacher. " M r s . Mabie," she says, "was a very eccentric and wonderful woman." What Lines developed under Mabie's guidance was a love for all kinds of music. A strict classical training. Lines says, might well have driven her away, but Mabie taught everything from Beethoven to Brubeck. A n d on some days, instead of giving a piano lesson. M r s . Mabie taught her how to tap dance. When she was 17, Lines spent a summer in England at the jazz school established by C l e o Laine and John Dankworth. and the following summer she used the music scholarship awarded to her at West Vancouver Secondary to study jazz at the Banff School of Fine Arts. Eventually, Lines settled on pop and rock music rather than jazz. "I have a r o c k ' n ' r o l l heart." she says, and is particularly drawn to the music of piano players like Elton John. B i l l y Joel and Carole K i n g . In fact, one of L i n e s ' biggest successes of the last several years was the Rock and Roll Show at O ' R y a n ' s Cabaret, in which she performed for two years. Off and on during the mid-80s, Lines did much of her career travelling while performing with a band on several cruise ships. "I'd come home for spells of time and then go out again for six-month trips," she says. Her longest trip started in Los Angeles and went through the South Pacific Islands, Australia, A s i a and then back across to Vancouver for a trip up to Alaska. Although performing on the ships was no vacation. Lines was delighted to open for entertainers like Flip Wilson. Tennessee Ernie Ford and Bob Hope. Meeting Bob Hope was a when she calls herself a gypsy soul. p r o f i l e real eye-opener for Lines. " W h e n he wasn't on stage, you'd swear he was 120 years old. A n d the minute he got on stage he was dancing and singing and funny. He's an old vaudevillian." In recent years. Lines has played keyboard for Gary Fjellgaard. winner of the 1992 Juno award for Country Male Vocalist, and she appears on his most recent album. Under Western Skies. She has toured the West and Ontario with Fjellgaard. This summer. Lines is performing at the Arts Club Theatre in the musical revue Tapestry, based on the music of Carole K i n g . "It sounds corny." she says, "but Carole K i n g has always been one of my heroes. I used to watch a video of her playing and think, that's how women should play the piano. M a n y times women have such a soft approach to the piano and it's a percussion instrument. K i n g would dive in with such gusto, so I've always tried to play like that." Indeed, throughout the show. Lines maintains a driving style at the keyboard, and she doesn't hold back when she's singing centre-stage either. Her rendition of one of K i n g ' s best-known songs, "I Feel the Earth M o v e , " marks one of the show's peaks. Her delivery is powerful and pays an impressive attention to detail: She sings the line," I feel the sky tumblin' down." while her long arm traces a beautiful arabesque down through the air. Lines isn't new to the Arts Club. She appeared there in 1994 in the Jessie-award winning All Grown Up. Lines also has a long-running professional connection to the North Shore: she's had the house gig at the Park Royal Pub for the last two years and w i l l be returning there after Tapestry closes. Hers is a career in full swing, but she has also found time to get her pilot's licence and scuba-diving ticket and to take university courses in history and sociology. "I had an aunt who lived to be 96, and she always told me, 'Diane, life sn't' a dress rehearsal. Do it all."'~~ Ben D'Andrea is a freelance writer living in Burnaby.