If it's true that Canada is a nation of troubadours and folk singers — and you'll get no argument here — then this was the year their undersung achievements were celebrated with more than a passing nod at the annual Juno awards, where roots music has been more or less an afterthought tacked onto accolades for commercial success in pop music.
In early December, the Canadian roots music community gathered at the Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec for the inaugural Canadian Folk Music Awards, an event that, its organizers hope, will bring recognition and some respect to what they believe is our national artistic pastime.
Recipients of the first CFMAs are Alpha Yaya Diallo (Best World Artist-Solo), Les Amants du Saint-Laurent (Best Album-Traditional), Jimson Weed (Best Album-Contemporary), Lynn Miles (Best Singer-Contemporary and Best Songwriter-English), Ian Robb (Best Singer-Traditional), JP Cormier (Best Instrumental-Solo), Beyond the Pale (Best Instrumental-Group), Genticorum (Best Ensemble), Karla Anderson (Best New/Emerging Artist), Steve Dawson and Jordy Sharp (Producer of the Year), Creaking Tree String Quartet (Pushing the Boundaries), Harry Manx (Best Solo Artist) and Nathan (Best Vocal Group).
The 2005 roots music diary yields the following items of interest, in no particular order:
We're listening: The arrival in Canada in December of subscriber-based digital satellite radio in the form of Sirius Canada and Canadian Satellite Radio/XM, which, in time, will expand the broadcast universe wide enough to encompass the worthier among the thousands of Canadian independent musicians plying their trade outside the commercial music industry infrastructure, and for fans of narrative-based music shunned by private radio. With at least 10 roots music-centred channels in the U.S. portion of the Canadian pay-radio signal packages, things are already looking up.
Legendary: The announcement a few weeks back of the induction of folk poets and legendary songwriters Leonard Cohen and Gilles Vigneault into the third annual Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, to air Feb. 6 on CBC. Cohen and Vigneault will join earlier country/folk inductees Gordon Lightfoot, Hank Snow, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Bob Nolan.
Successful: The recent phenomenal success in the mainstream record retail market of Newfoundland's Great Big Sea's The Hard and the Easy, an album of traditional Maritimes shanties, seafaring and work songs that actually surfaced on commercial radio play lists and pushed sales of the album into the platinum stratosphere late in 2005.
Returned: The return of Gordon Lightfoot to his perennial Massey Hall concert series last May, after an artery in his stomach exploded nearly two years ago, prompting copious surgery and fears of his imminent demise. The folk world was set right again with his reappearance on the concert stage.
Memorable: Two other perfectly memorable roots music concerts in 2005 that displayed to maximum effect the fine art of song — Texas songwriters Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, Guy Clark and Joe Ely at Massey Hall in November, and Dolly Parton at The Molson Amphitheatre in September.
Standouts: Among hundreds of fine roots recordings released in 2005, two stand apart for their bravery, character and musical smarts: Edmonton cowboy-songwriter Corb Lund's nervy evocation of modern Prairie life, Hair In My Eyes Like a Highland Steer, and Ry Cooder's Chavez Ravine, a richly textured, literate and politically resonant chronicle of Latino life in Los Angeles during the Depression.
Coming soon: And in the immediate future, look no farther than the first weekend of February for the fourth annual Winterfolk Festival, the enduring and popular celebration of local folk and country artists, to be staged as it was last year in a close cluster of clubs, restaurants and pubs on the Danforth. Among this year's featured acts are The Bebop Cowboys,Cindy Church, DALA, David Celia, David Gillis, Greg Hobbs, Gregg Lawless, Heather Dale, Jason Fowler, Jenny Whiteley, Jory Nash, Lynn Harrison, The Marigolds, Michael Brennan, Russell de Carle, Sarah Siddiqui, Steve Payne and Wendell Fergusson. Go to http://www.winterfolk.com
