kd lang: Carrying the Torch

Dave D.C. Norman is a freelance contemporary-music journalist.

With both Juno and Grammy awards to her credit, k.d. (Kathy Dawn) lang
deserves the attention paid to her in this book. Her story is a
remarkable one that Robertson has detailed from her humble beginnings in
Consort, Alberta, to her 1992 NBC “Saturday Night Live” performance.
He spends a great deal of time chronicling lang’s early years, from
her time as a child rollerskating in her father’s pharmacy to her days
as a high-school newspaper editor. These passages are particularly
fascinating because they reveal lang’s competitive spirit in all
aspects of her formative years, including her defiance of the
mainstream. Robertson also reveals her little-known love of sports, in
which she excelled in the late 1970s, and the emergence of the k.d. lang
persona. The photos are well researched and make good companion pieces
to the chapters.

While Robertson has packed quite a few facts into the text—sometimes
to the point of clutter—his approach might have been more balanced,
for this is more a hagiography than an objective biography of one of
Canada’s most prolific performers. As the reader is guided through
lang’s career, from country cow-punk to formidable torch singer,
glowing testimonials from her friends and associates abound, sometimes
excessively. In addition, the author seems reluctant to discuss some of
the more controversial aspects of her career, such as her fledgling
cinematic debut, her stance on beef, and her sexual orientation. There
is a fine line between admiration and fawning, and this book treads
dangerously close to the latter.