Vancouver born, Toronto based singer-songwriter Suzie Ungerleider, better known as Oh Susanna, took her time when producing her sixth album Soon The Birds. From start to finish, it took a whole year to complete.

"It meant that we could be a lot more open-ended about where we were going with things and then decide later," she told GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine.  "I have made records that I try to do things as live off the floor as possible. With that you have to either figure out what you are doing before you do it or just see what happens and go, oh that's cool. Let's keep it. With this process we could have a sketch of what the song is with my vocals and guitar and then add stuff on after. It really made it so that I could procrastinate longer but it helped me to balance the record and figure out the right players and production for each song. It was really interesting to do it that way. Sometimes it is hard to be in limbo for that long but I think it was a good idea."  She joins Matthew Barber on the He Said/She Said tour hitting Alberta this week.

"We have our own sets of music but are going to be singing with each other. He is a great piano player so he may play some piano with me. I am going to have a pedal-steel player with me so that will be a cool sound-scape going on. It will be very stripped down, both Matt and I are doing the troubadour thing where it is just us and the songs, very intimate."

She spends a lot of time on the road, including a recent tour of Ontario with Hawksley Workman.

"He is absolutely wonderful and talented. I like getting to put on shows where I am not quite sure what the audience is going to think of me. Hawksley's and my music is not that similar. People were really receptive and it helped me to have faith that people will be much more open minded about music than others will allow them to be. The people who do radio and marketing don't take a lot of risks. So I wasn't sure how it was going to come off to his audience, I felt very rootsy-country compared to Hawksley. People who like strong voices will be drawn to him and to what I do so it worked really well."

While many songwriters songs are based solely on their own experiences, Suzie's are often based on experiences of others as well, adding another layer to her music that fans can identify with.

"I do feel like I am trying to create an emotional journey for people, to me that is what music is for - to go through all the emotions we go through as humans and allow a safe place to feel them. It is important to me because I feel in daily life we are constantly repressing our feelings so we can get along. To have this cathartic release in feeling these feelings through telling stories about people, but not about myself. So I am kind of an actress for awhile, which is maybe a safe way to feel those feelings, as well, for me. I want things to move people and be moved myself, so it is important to make a record like that. It is a kind of strange feeling to do that in front of people and is an odd profession that way. You are trying to reveal yourself and be vulnerable but there is a lot of opportunity for rejection in this line of work that I do. That is part of it, to do it in spite of the fear."

The album includes the song Lucky Ones featuring Blue Rodeo's Jim Cuddy. The pair's friendship goes back several years leading up to the song's inclusion on Soon The Birds.

"I have known Jim for a really long time and we have done a lot of stuff together. We gradually started to sing together over the last five or six years. Some on his records - I sang on a track on the last Blue Rodeo album and he hired me as a backup singer on his last solo project. I have this thing that I do every year where I do an Oh Susanna and Friends concert where I invite guests and he is always willing to do it. One year I didn't ask him because I thought he would be too busy and he did it last year, and he was like why didn't you ask me?! He is very generous and excited to come and participate in things. I am flattered that he wants to be part of what I do and includes me in his musical projects. It feels like a very mutual, mutually supportive thing. I know him pretty well so even though he is a 'star' he is a human as well. It is fun to sing with him because we both have these strong voices, so it is fun to be belting it out side by side and belting it out like an old George Jones and Tammy Wynette kind of break up tune. He is perfect for those songs, I love his voice for that."

She looked back on her decade in the Canadian music industry. Mainstream radio doesn't really embrace her folksy, emotional style.

"Radio has never been something that I felt was attainable in a way. CBC and college radio has always been really supportive but mainstream radio I am not a big fan of myself. I didn't really think I belonged there. If you happen to be accessible enough or can cross over, so to speak, it can be great to gain more security and fans and the money flows more. That to me seems very difficult. Sometimes we have thought about trying to infiltrate the mainstream radio market, but that takes a lot of money and stuff I just don't have. Business is always an uphill battle and you have to just keep plugging away at it and doing what you do. It might be clichés but I have never been someone who is like, I am going to change so I can be more marketable. Sometimes it is good and sometimes I think, why couldn't I compromise a bit more? Like when I am feeling hungry, although if you see me you won't think I have any deprivation on the food front. The people that I have loved musically, either they have struggled a lot and I can relate to their path, or they have some lucky breaks. I am not at all unfortunate, I am lucky to be doing this and found this path. I do feel like I have a lot of opportunity but some things don't happen as easily. But my heroes, the ones that are mainstream that I love, were in a time in the 70's that was a different era for music and people were willing to take risks and not support the obvious thing."

Ungerleider now has an additional consideration to her career. As the mom to a five year old boy, she has to pick and choose when she can tour.

"It is tricky. In the past when I was single and had a very cheap apartment I would just take off and go and be a road dog and do whatever it takes. Now I have to be a lot more particular about what I do. In a way I think it is better for me. I have more sanity and love in my life provided by him and my husband. At first it is a little bit strange to feel like you are leaving something for awhile but it has provided a lot more balance for me. Kids will make you connect with your community. You can live somewhere for a long time and not know your neighbours but, when you have kids you are thrown in with all these other people. Which sometimes is not so fun but other times is great. They close off things in some ways, temporarily, but they open other parts. It is a little trickier, I have to be selective and figure out what is worthwhile for me to do. I have to figure out his schedule first. Luckily I have some very good grandma's in my life," she said, adding that her son has had an influence on her music.

"I think a lot of people would joke with me that I was going to get soft and not have so much darkness. A lot of people really like the darkness in my music. I don't think that is being lost, really. I am looking at things from a point of view of someone who now knows what it is like to be a parent, and you feel fragile in that position. I have always had a strong memory of what it was like to be a kid but now I see what it is like to be on the parent's side. It helps me to gain more insight into people's lives that I may have not known before. It also helps me enjoy singing because it is a precious thing that I can't do all the time. I have embraced my musical path in a way I wouldn't have before."