Folk

Valdy, born Valdemar Horsdal in Ottawa, Canada has been part of the fabric of Canadian pop and folk music for almost 40 years. A man with a thousand friends, from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island to Texas to New Zealand, he’s a singer, guitarist and songwriter who catches the small but telling moments that make up life.

Remembered for Play Me a Rock and Roll Song, his bitter-sweet memory of finding himself, a relaxed and amiable story-teller, facing a rambunctious audience at the Aldergrove Rock Festival circa 1968, Valdy has sold almost half a million copies of his 13 albums, has two Juno Awards (Folk Singer of the Year and Folk Entertainer of the Year), a total of seven Juno nominations and four Gold albums to his credit.

Valdy’s recent CDs include “Contenders”, a collaboration with friend and fellow singer/songwriter, Gary Fjellgaard, with whom he has an absolute blast touring, and a solo release, “Viva Valdy: Live at Last”, a two-CD package, one live, one studio, with a total of 25 tunes, and a lyric booklet.

One of Canada’s most influential songwriters, Valdy’s composition A Good Song was recorded under the title Just a Man by the venerable Quincy Jones ( he sang lead on the recording!). Play Me a Rock and Roll Song has been recorded by a few artists, including John Kay of Steppenwolf.

Along the way, Valdy has taken his music to a dozen different countries, from Denmark to Australia and been an often-invited performer at the prestigious Kerrville Festival in Texas. His past television appearances include Canada AM and Open Mike with Mike Bullard. Valdy has also been a panelist on Front Page Challenge, and played a lead role in an episode of The Beachcombers original series.

Resonant, acoustic chamber folk with an otherworldly edge, and a lyric presence that cuts deep. Prism-clear vocals and strings; A combination of vocal agility and power.

Raine’s new album, Night Sky, tips between the earthly and the otherworldly; it is anchored in relatable lived experience, while reaching into the space just beyond, thinning the veil between here and there, affording safe passage to the rough and beautiful places. Raine’s ethereal voice and lyrics are at the forefront of these powerful and relatable tunes, written both in English and in French.

Raine was the recent recipient of a 2018 Canadian Folk Music Award for Emerging Artist of the Year.

“Raine Hamilton’s new album Night Sky is a warm, sweet stringed folk serenade to life’s beauty – the pain, joy and vibrance of our shared human experience.”
-- Mitch Mosk, Atwood Magazine

The O’Pears are a Toronto-based contemporary folk trio made up of Lydia Persaud, Jill Harris and Meg Contini, three songwriters who weave stories that stir the spirit and capture the timeless character of folk music. With beautifully blended harmonies, insightful songwriting, and a playful love of performing, they make perfectly balanced vocal performances look effortless. Winners of the 2018 Folk Music Ontario Stingray Rising Star Award, these women know how to turn an audience of any size into a gathering of friends. In 2018, The O’Pears are giving audiences even more to love with their second full length release.

Their sophomore album Stay Warm illuminates the comfort, darkness, and complexity of the winter holiday season. This isn’t a commercial Christmas album with charming cover songs, blinding tinsel, or any assumption about “the most wonderful time of the year”. Instead, Stay Warm flickers with the glow of family reunions and new love while taking in the chill of blowing snow, drifting hearts, and seasonal solitude. A cappella covers of winter classics are sprinkled between original songs that examine the many ways that the holidays can bring rest, joy, and cheer while also inspiring feelings of loss, grief, and nostalgia. Taken as a whole, Stay Warm is a balanced offering – musically and emotionally – from a trio that mixes tight a cappella and rootsy instrumentation.

The O’Pears 2016 debut album Like Those Nights, captured the trio’s soaring harmonies and seamless blend, evoking the profound intimacy of Nick Drake, the sister-like connection of The Staves, and the dynamic harmony of Crosby, Stills, and Nash. They toured that collection of songs to high acclaim at renowned Canadian festivals including Summerfolk, Wolfe Island, and Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival and garnered radio play across Canada, including on the CBC. In 2017, they toured across Europe, performing in centuries old churches. Since then they’ve toured to Qatar and joined the ranks of performers at the 2018 GroundUp Music Festival in Miami, Florida. Their engaging performances and absolute musicianship have earned them performances alongside Joey Landreth, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, Lionel Loueke, Weaves, Royal Wood, Good Lovelies, Michelle Willis, and Coco Love Alcorn as well as direct praise from David Crosby who called them “fantastic singers”.

Each member of The O’Pears is a distinctly talented musician with a stand-alone voice, style, and stage presence and together they are breathtaking. Their latest release proves that The O’Pears continue to bring a strong, honest voice to the modern female perspective.

The original Allen Family reunion was formed in 1980 with Jane, Joe, Julie and John P. Allen. They brought their family sound of beautiful bluegrass music to many festivals in the early ’80s. Today, the band has reunited blending three of the original members with their children: John’s daughter Beverly, and Julie’s son Paul — the sixth generation of Allens on the family farm west of London, Ontario.

John P. Allen is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame group Prairie Oyster, and has played with a long list of Canadian music icons over the past 40 years. John plays fiddle and mandolin. His brother Joe is a red-hot banjo player and has performed for many years across North America as an outstanding trumpet player. Joe’s twin sister Julie plays the stand-up bass and is an integral part of the vocal harmonies. Beverly plays the autoharp and shares the lead vocals with her cousin Paul on rhythm guitar. This family band is sure to leave you with a smile and a sweet sound in your ear.

There’s a reason, beyond their dazzling musicianship and wildly entertaining live shows, that The East Pointers have connected with audiences right across the globe, making new, original roots music the hippest, most vibrant thing going.

The reason? The East Pointers - fiddler/singer Tim Chaisson, banjoist Koady Chaisson and guitarist Jake Charron – write about real life, sketching out its joys and sorrows in vivid strokes. That palpable authenticity makes their instrumental tunes practically cartwheel and infuses their lyric-driven songs with poignancy.

And it’s why listening to The East Pointers’ brilliant and hotly anticipated second album What We Leave Behind – produced by superstar East Coast-bred songwriter/producer Gordie Sampson – is akin to meeting up with an old friend.

As a follow-up to 2015’s internationally acclaimed, JUNO Award-winning debut Secret Victory, What We Leave Behind shares stories previously unheard but framed by a familiar context. The album reflects on the traditions of Canadian Celtic music, where it comes from, and what it means to the people, but also strides in new directions. With a captivating balance between their traditional-sounding instrumental tunes, and catchy radio-ready songs, The East Pointers reach out with open arms to a wide range of listeners, inviting them to discover a new love of folk music.

Never before have The East Pointers so deftly leveraged the whole spectrum of human emotion, drawing inspiration straight from the world they live in. That’s especially evident in a pair of striking new songs featuring Tim Chaisson’s lead vocals: the trembling first single ‘82 Fires’ and the melancholy ‘Two Weeks,’ co-written with Sampson amid recording sessions at Nashville’s famed Sound Emporium last winter, where What We Leave Behind was cut.

‘While in Penguin, Tasmania we spoke with an older gentleman, a lifelong resident, who said that there were 82 wildfires currently on the loose in Tasmania, the most in over half a century. It hit home the severity of what we were all experiencing.”, says Koady Chaisson. “It was a restless few days for us. Small human decisions about where to live or whether or not the show would go on didn’t matter, Mother Nature would always have the final say. Being in the middle of that brings an immediacy about it, you can feel powerless."

The plaintive ‘Two Weeks’ meanwhile, documents a passage depressingly common in the bands’ home province of Prince Edward Island and played out the world over in economically challenged communities: the need to leave home and travel far away from friends and family to find work.

“When I played that song for my mom, she said ‘That’s going to hit home for a lot of people,’” Koady Chaisson explains. “Many families are forced to split their time, with at least one member having to go out west - usually to Alberta - to make ends meet. It’s so hard. I did it, though luckily not for long, but there are people in my community going through it month after month, year after year.”

The flip side of What We Leave Behind - and indeed, of The East Pointers’ electrifying concerts – are scorching instrumental tunes that yank the freewheeling, Celtic-goosed past into the present, defying anyone to sit still in their chair.

“Traditional music has always been at the core of what we do as a band,” adds Jake Charron. “There's something powerful about a style of music that has been passed on for generations around the world.” A new take on this tradition is evident in the spry ‘Party Wave,’ inspired by a thrilling surfing experience the band enjoyed in New Zealand, one of many countries The East Pointers visited during 10 months of touring last year. The tunes, written this past year on the road, take you on a journey, building with excitement before transforming into a full-on dance party.

Rounding out the album, the mournful ‘John Wallace’ - about a 19th century shipwreck off the coast of Prince Edward Island - and the mournful ‘Hid in Your Heart’ uphold the band’s devotion to documenting real life, tragedy and all.

What We Leave Behind carves a new path for The East Pointers, as they continue to blur the lines between traditional and popular music and develop a devoted fanbase around the globe.

Sweat flies and floorboards tremble – Union Duke is a Toronto folk quintet with an explosive live show. Bridging soulful indie rock with bluegrass and country, the group belts out soaring harmonies with three, four and even five voices. The songs are irresistible, the perfect fit for the heatwave of the dance hall or the cool breeze of the park. These five guys have been making a commotion in one way or another since they were kids, and years of making music together have brought them to this: a heartbreak of twang and a bootshake of rock and roll. Union Duke is two fifths city, two fifths country, and one fifth whiskey.

For their third record, Golden Days, Union Duke recorded live off the floor to capture the raw, joyful energy of their concerts. Then they brought in Grammy award-winning mix engineer Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire, Basia Bulat, Timbre Timber) to bring the mixes to life. Golden Days will take you back to your warmest memories: nights by the lake, passing a bottle around the fire, or singing with your friends at the top of your lungs. It also looks forward, reaching for those long, lazy summer days that will keep you going through the winter. It’s a record of pain and struggle, lessons learned – and of laughter between friends, tenderness between lovers. One minute you’re following banjo music rambling down a country lane. The next minute you feel the pulse and pound of the amplifiers.

The band works hard, travelling back and forth across the country playing to fans young and old from coast to coast. They’ve played sold out shows where crowds know all the words. They’ve performed at countless festivals including TURF, Mariposa, and Summerfolk, topping the list of must-see acts. Their enthusiasm is infectious, and they leave every audience smiling – maybe the golden days aren’t so distant after all.

JIMMY RANKIN FROM NASHVILLE TO NOVA SCOTIA WITH NEW ALBUM, MOVING EAST BRINGS THE PARTY TO THE KITCHEN

New Joel Plaskett-produced album, national tour coming in September

Now this is big news. One of the true originals in Canadian music has moved from Nashville to Nova Scotia, and is celebrating with music only he could make. Jimmy Rankin's new Moving East is pure East Coast, a homecoming album featuring true stories, tall tales and bittersweet ballads, and the classic folk-rock sound that Rankin helped pioneer.

Just at a time when people are searching out authentic cultural voices, strong stories and well-crafted songs, Rankin has made an unapologetically East Coast folk-rock record, with a raw, unsentimental and current edge.   “I’m putting the party back in the kitchen” quips Rankin.

It's called Moving East because that's exactly what Jimmy's done. He's moved back to Nova Scotia after seven years living and working in Nashville. Hooking up with fellow Nova Scotian Joel Plaskett as producer, he's made an album appealing to young and old alike, with songs running the gamut from gritty pub tunes to soulful ballads all featuring great storytelling, and fine songwriting.

One of the most famed Canadian songwriters, Jimmy Rankin wrote such classic Rankin hits as “North Country,” “You Feel The Same Way Too,” and the Juno winning single “Fare The Well Love,” voted the #1 East Coast song of all time by CBC listeners across Canada. His own hits include “Followed Her Around,” “Morning Bound Train,” and “Cool Car.”  Jimmy’s the guy who wrote “Mull River Shuffle” a Cape Breton anthem with an all-ages cult following, jamming dance floors and mosh pits at parties, weddings and raves as the last big song of the night.

Says Rankin “With Moving East, I was trying to distil the fabric of Maritime culture into a musical collection replete with life’s highs and lows, and breathe life into stories that capture a feeling, a moment in time, live off the floor and organic.”  It’s an album full of classic Cape Breton storytelling, unashamedly celebrating his moving back, and making the music he loves. Now that’s a homecoming.

Bow. Feet. Vox. A trifecta of talent, keeping tradition feisty.

While Verch is perhaps best known for playing traditional fiddle styles from her native Ottawa Valley, Canada, her performances extend into old-time American and Appalachian styles and beyond, for a well-rounded tour-de-force of North Americana sounds. Verch tours with world-class musicians as a trio, featuring acoustic guitar, mandolin, bass and clawhammer banjo in addition to Verch’s vocals, fiddle and foot percussion.

One might suspect a performer with as many talents as Verch would pause to take a breath, or need to somewhat compartmentalize her skills during a live performance. But on stage, Verch is almost superhuman, flawlessly intertwining and overlapping different performative elements. She stepdances while fiddling. She sings while stepdancing. Sometimes she sings, steps and fiddles all at once, with apparent ease and precision. Verch is - as they say - a triple threat in performance, her live show a beautiful companion to her music: versatile, robust, and masterfully executed.

In a darkened bedroom, lit only by the amber glow from an old floor model radio, two young brothers aged 6 and 12 lay in their beds, listening to the country music broadcasts from the Grand Ol’ Opry, and practiced their harmonies. Two years later, the youngest one was playing the definitive 8-year-old’s version of “Desolation Row” on his ukulele. He soon abandoned that instrument to teach himself the flute, violin and guitar.

Within ten years, and barely out of high school, Garnet Rogers was on the road as a full-time working musician with his older brother Stan. Together they formed what has come to be accepted as one of the most influential acts in North American folk music.

Since then, Garnet Rogers has established himself as ‘One of the major talents of our time”. Hailed by the Boston Globe as a “charismatic performer and singer”, Garnet is a man with a powerful physical presence – close to six and a half feet tall – with a voice to match. With his “smooth, dark baritone” (Washington Post) his incredible range, and thoughtful, dramatic phrasing, Garnet is widely considered by fans and critics alike to be one of the finest singers anywhere. His music, like the man himself, is literate, passionate, highly sensitive, and deeply purposeful. Cinematic in detail, his songs “give expression to the unspoken vocabulary of the heart” (Kitchener Waterloo Record). An optimist at heart, Garnet sings extraordinary songs about people who are not obvious heroes and of the small victories of the everyday. As memorable as his songs, his over-the-top humour and lightning-quick wit moves his audience from tears to laughter and back again.

“Garnet Rogers is capable of awe-inspiring and unpredictable stuff – and that includes more than just music”

Resolutely independent, Garnet Rogers has turned down offers from major labels to do his music his own way.

Archie first became interested in folk music during the Skiffle era of the late 1950’s and such performers as Lonnie Donegan and Johnny Duncan. Later, the recording of the Weavers at Carnegie Hall also had a profound effect on his approach to music and his political outlook.  During the TV folk boom of the 1960’s and 70’s he appeared regularly with his younger sister Ray on magazine programs and the BBC Hootenanny series.  He was based in Edinburgh at the time in the contemporary company of musicians such as Robin Williamson, Clive Palmer and Mike Heron (who together formed The Incredible String Band) and was an early guitar colleague of Bert Jansch.

Archie’s first self-titled album was recorded in 1968 with the fiddle and mandolin of John McKinnon and whistle player John Doonan. During the mid 1970’s he formed a long-term partnership with Dundee musician Allan Barty, which was later grafted on to the revived pairing of Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy. As well as performing as a backing musician and arranger for the Makem and Clancy duo, he also produced a series of albums with them.  Meanwhile, Archie got involved in record production with the dynamic Scottish band Silly Wizard. During the 1980’s he turned his attention to freelance radio work and originated several series of documentary programs with his local station Radio Tweed.  He then returned to the recording studio during what he describes as one of his most creative songwriting periods.  It was around this time that he began a partnership with Canadian songwriter Garnet Rogers.  They toured throughout North America together, and Garnet produced two Fisher albums including the highly acclaimed Sunsets I’ve Galloped Into, which was released on Red House Records in 1996.

Following the success of that release, Archie toured throughout North America, playing with John Renbourn and Bert Jansch.  In 2008 Red House released Windward Away, a collection of introspective ballads that evoke the wild and rough beauty of the Scottish Border country.  While working on this album, Archie discovered a copy of an old recording he made in the late 1970’s while working with Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy.  Although several songs on this missing master had been recorded on other Archie Fisher albums, this missing master had never seen the light of day.  Because he believed these recordings represented an important period in his music, he felt they were worthy of formal release. Together Windward Away and The Missing Masterrepresent more than 28 years of Archie’s distinguished writing and singing career.

Seven years in the making, A Silent Song finds Archie combining original compositions with his interpretations of classic songs for a wonderful addition to his distinguished catalog.

Right through the '80s and early '90s, you'd have been hard pressed to find something more unhip to be associated with than....(ahem)......fo*k music.

Oysterband had little choice in the matter. Influenced by all manner of music, culture and style, they listened to anything and everything - but the heartbeat of the band was a deep-rooted love of the traditional music of Britain.

Not the invented tradition of twee choruses and dodgy ideologies that inspired a million fake-rustic cliches, a travesty that turned off the very people it was alleged to represent. But a tradition that dealt in integrity, passion, human experience and human emotion - songs that made you want to dance/laugh/cry/jump for joy/kick a few heads in. Hey, that could be folk music, it could be rock music... maybe it's just GOOD music. Whatever, it has helped the Oysters become one of the most irresistible bands of the last decade. And the one before that too.

They originally collided in and around Canterbury, a gang of like-minded mates and musicians who could jam and practice for free in a squat near the university. The ones who wanted to give it a go full-time were Alan Prosser, Ian Telfer, John Jones and Ian Kearey, and co-opting Russell Lax on drums they tackled Thatcherite Britain with a rare old vengeance in the mid-'80s: the rock end of Thatcherite Britain. Flailing distressingly in a laughable sea of new romance, postpunk apathy and pop pap, the music world didn't quite know where to put itself when faced with this sudden onslaught. Folk-rock - whatever that was - had long since withered and died and the Oysters, angry and loud yet still eminently tuneful, were way out on a limb.

STEP OUTSIDE, first release of new label Cooking Vinyl in '86, was born to grab attention on several levels (though maybe not as a PR event - on the day the record came out, the band were in Bombay doing something else entirely). Their treatment of the traditional standard Hal-an-Tow was a keynote track, a venomous statement of intent for a brave new dawn that clearly involved grabbing folk song by the scruff of the neck and shaking furiously. This, alongside some vitriolic social commentaries from their own pens, got up quite a few noses and dented the veneer of sweetness and light which was strangling pop and rock at the time (and a lot of folk and roots music subsequently).

At every turn since, they've steadfastly followed their own instincts, gloriously disregarding irrelevancies such as image, make-believe musical boundaries and media flavours of the month. Their own writing took a leap on 1987's WIDE BLUE YONDER, which included the classic, if seriously strange, Oxford Girl. It featured an electrifying cover of Billy Bragg's Between The Wars, and had a guest appearance from Kathryn Tickell on Northumbrian pipes some years before Sting had the same idea. lan Kearey left to be replaced on bass (and, increasingly, cello) by Chopper, who came to play a defining role on their next album Ride... and indeed their sound ever since. Ride - including a cheeky version of New Order's Love Vigilantes - left us in no doubt of the band's unconditional commitment to its own path.

A largely live album, LITTLE ROCK TO LEIPZIG, rounded off the '80s; while they entered the new decade veering off at an unexpected tangent, collaborating with the high priestess of English folk song, June Tabor, on their most successful album thus far, FREEDOM AND RAIN. They toured with Tabor too - a tense, fascinating amalgam between two highly independent and sharply contrasting spirits and styles which merged into an uneasy dream ticket for English music. "Imagine if Aerosmith and Madonna announced they were to tour together........!!" said Rolling Stone magazine, excitably. It was a refreshing diversion, but one that distracted the Oysters from the sense of purpose that had driven them for so long... and it confused their followers.

DESERTERS in 1992 saw that sense of purpose dramatically re-emerge, new drummer Lee joining to complete the current line-up and provide a harder edge still to a darker style of songwriting. The contrast between Deserters and the relatively jaunty Freedom And Rain again confounded the critics.

But by this time the goalposts had shifted again. Bands like The Levellers had been building a fervent following with an alternative indie approach that embraced many of the values pioneered by Oysterband. There was also an unexpected upsurge of young musicians taking their own inspiration from folk song and traditional instrumentation; and with their spectacular '93 album HOLY BANDITS striking a glorious balance between their own traditions and a very modern kind of rock, the Oysters suddenly found themselves talked of as godfathers of a new English style of roots rock. After years being regarded by the music industry as on a par with inter-planetary aliens, it came as a shock to them to discover they were now 'leaders of a movement'.

If anybody imagined this would mellow the band they were wrong. After a compilation album (TRAWLER) on which they rather novelly (and to Cooking Vinyl's initial horror) decided to re-record most of the old tracks to enable Chopper and Lee to put their own stamp on them, they came back in '95 with THE SHOUTING END OF LIFE, probably the most aggressive and political album of their career. It was an album of acute extremes, from the trailblazing title track to their raging treatment of Leon Rosselson's socialist national anthem The World Turned Upside Down.

In '97 they teamed up again with friend/producer Alan Scott for DEEP DARK OCEAN. It came, unpredictably, with a smile on its face, warm and melodic and, revealing an unexpected talent for quirky pop music, surprised in an election year by ignoring politics altogether (except in the sleevenotes: "Yes, we voted Labour but we didn't inhale").

HERE I STAND, co-produced with Alaric Neville, released during the last summer of the 20th Century, created another landmark with the formation of their own label Running Man. Happily, sales proved the Oysters' following were not fazed by the album's provocative (read "risky") mix of austerity, improvisation, tradition and outright pop; which proved surprisingly radio-friendly and promises well for the label's future.

But while marking time with an interesting remix of one of the Here I Stand songs, Ways Of Holding On, featuring ice-princess Emma Härdelin from Swedish band Garmarna, Oysterband were talking to their former label. Autumn 2000 saw the release of an ultimate Best Of Oysterband compilation, titled GRANITE YEARS. Covering the period 1986 to 1997, it weighs somewhat toward the later albums, partly because Cooking Vinyl have already licensed out a compilation from the early albums under the title Pearls From The Oysters (one the band had successfully avoided using for a great many years!), and partly because they reckon the band's writing has improved with time (and who are we to argue?). The compilation is Cooking Vinyl's idea, but as it contains many of the band's most-requested songs, they're happy too.

"In my time we've drunk away a century," sang John on I Know It's Mine (track 8 on Here I Stand). But a tie-up between Running Man and two linked German labels, Westpark Music and Pläne, made interesting new projects possible in the new millenium. RISE ABOVE (2002) may actually be Oysterband's best album : savagely pruned in the course of recording to its leanest, meanest form, the intensity and grandeur of traditional tracks such as Blackwaterside and Bright Morning Star were a significant extension of the band's aesthetic range. During the sessions they also picked up Irish piper James O'Grady, who played on five of the tracks, as a sort of "permanent temporary" addition to the line-up; and that has diversified and enriched the band's live sound.

THE BIG SESSION Vol. 1 (2004) and the DVD of THE 25th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT (2005) are the most recent fruits of these expansions (see elsewhere on this site), and with the highly successful inauguration of The Big Session Festival in 2005 as an annual Oyster 'signature' event, possibilities just seem to keep on opening up.

The most exciting time in Oysterband's considerable history could be right now.