Episode 209: Stephen Fearing & The Once

This week’s Folk Roots Radio features two interviews – Stephen Fearing joins us to chat about his songwriting workshop and concert, taking place on Friday September 25 in Waterloo ON. And later, we catch up with Newfoundland band The Once at this summer’s Hillside Festival. As always, there’s a lot of new music on the show, and we continue our run down of the nominations for the 2015 Canadian Folk Music Awards.

This week we focus on the five nominees in the Solo Artist of the Year category – and what a stellar group of musicians and albums they’ve picked. Five albums that are sure to make it into many people’s end of the year long-list. Step up Amelia Curran, Michael Jerome Browne, Lizzy Hoyt, Catherine MacLellan and Oh Susanna.

Monsoon are Jonathan Kay, Andrew Kay, & Justin Gray with George Koller and others. They’ve been nominated in the Instrumental Group of the Year category alongside Coastline, the Lemon Bucket Orkestra, Natalie MacMaster & Donnell Leahy and Shane Cook & Jake Charron. We’ll be looking at the nominees in other award categories at the 2015 Canadian Folk Music Awards on future shows.

Stephen Fearing will be in Waterloo ON on Friday September 25 for a day-long songwriting workshop and a solo evening concert. The songwriting workshop takes place at The Button Factory, 25 Regina St. S.in Waterloo. The evening concert takes place at First United Church, 16 William St. W., Waterloo at 8:00 pm. Check out all there details HERE.

Newfoundland’s The Once have been making quite the name for themselves for their live shows and their recorded work. Their latest album – their third, and first on Nettwerk is “Departures”, and quite a departure it is, featuring much more of their own original songwriting alongside some choice covers. The album has garnered some rave reviews, and they’ve just come off a world tour with Passenger (English folk-rock singer-songwriter Michael David Rosenberg). We caught up with Geraldine, Phil and Andrew at the Hillside Festival for a feature-length chat. We only had time to play half the interview on this week’s show but you can find the full interview on the website HERE.

Lots of new music on this week’s show. Windsor-based singer-songwriter Glen MacNeil has released a great debut album “Where The Heart Remains”. We’ve already taped an interview with Glen – we’ll bring that to you on a future show.

Anne Lindsay will be bringing “Soloworks” to the Paul Morin Gallery at the Alton Mill Arts Centre on September 24. The gallery has fabulous acoustics and a view to die for, looking out over the mill pond. “Soloworks” is a fabulous album and crosses many borders, featuring songs and tunes composed by Anne for violin, nyckelharpa (a Swedish keyed violin – you learn something new every day), piano and voice, and a cello tune played by Amy Laing. This should be a fabulous evening.

After crossing paths on the folk circuit for over thirty year, Allan Fraser and Marianne Girard got together to become Fraser & Girard, and they’ve released a great self-titled album. They are playing a free show (donations accepted) at the CrossCurrents Café at Bolton United Church, 8 Nancy St, Bolton ON on Friday, September 25 at 7:30 p.m. For more information check out crosscurrentscaledon.com or the venue’s Facebook page. Fraser & Girard will be joining us for a session in the studio very soon.

In this week’s trivia section, September 19 is International Talk Like A Pirate Day – a holiday created in 1995 by John Baur (Ol’ Chumbucket) and Mark Summers (Cap’n Slappy) in Albany Oregon, just because they could, and it was fun to talk like a pirate for day. Well, the holiday is still going and, apparently (according to Wikipedia, anyway) it’s been officially recognized in both Michigan and California. If you’ve listen to this week’s show, you’ll know that pirate-speak is not one of my strong points, well not on live radio, anyway! Maybe you can do better? Give it a try.

Well, that’s all we have time for this week. Check out the full playlist with artist links below and share your love for all the great folk and roots music out there. Thanks to all the artists who share their music with us, and thank you for listening. We have a lot of great music to bring you on future shows. I hope you’ll join us! You can listen to this show again on Mixcloud by following the link below.

Folk Roots Radio – Episode 209 by Folk Roots Radio on Mixcloud

Nicolas & The Iceni (Theme)
Lucy She Rises (Demo)
Roll Right (expected 2015)

Amelia Curran
Somebody Somewhere
They Promised You Mercy (2014, Six Shooter Records) CDN

Michael Jerome Browne
I Heard Somebody Call
Sliding Delta (2015, Borealis Records) CDN

Lizzy Hoyt
The Pantheon
New Lady On The Prairie (2014, Self) CDN

Catherine MacLellan
The Raven’s Sun
The Raven’s Sun (2014, Self) CDN

Oh Susanna
I Love the Way She Dresses
Namedropper (2014, Sonic Unyon Records/Sony) CDN

Monsoon
Mosaic
Mandala (2014, Self) CDN

Lambchop
National Talk Like A Pirate Day
OH (Ohio) (2008, City Slang)

Fraser & Girard
Dance Hall Girls
Fraser & Girard (2015, Self) CDN

Lindsay Straw
When I Was Not But Sweet Sixteen
My Mind from Love Being Free (2015, Self)

Anne Lindsay
The Cold Told A Tale
Soloworks (2014, Self) CDN

Stephen Fearing
The Golden Days
Between Hurricanes (2015, Lowdenproud) CDN

Interview: Stephen Fearing discussing his upcoming songwriting workshop and concert in Waterloo ON.

Stephen Fearing
As The Crow Flies
Between Hurricanes (2015, Lowdenproud) CDN

Glen MacNeil
The Island Is Where The Heart Remains
Where The Heart Remains (2015, Self) CDN

Red Moon Road
Beauty In These Broken Bones
Sorrows And Glories (2015, Self) CDN

Harpeth Rising
Good Ideas
Shifted (2015, Grimm Rising)

Sarah Eide
Borderland
Borderland (2015, Self)

The Once
Into The Life
Departures (2014, Nettwerk) CDN

Interview: An extract from an interview recorded with The Once at this summer’s Hillside Festival.

The Once
We Are All Running
Departures (2014, Nettwerk) CDN

Jenny Ritter
Turn Your Thoughts
Raised By Wolves (2015, Fiddlehead Records) CDN

Sugar Brown
Meet Me In The Country
Poor Lazarus (2015, Self) CDN

Martin Harley And Daniel Kimbro
Cardboard King (Live)
Live At Southern Ground (2015, Del Mundo Records)

Lindi Ortega
Run-Down Neighborhood
Faded Gloryville (2015, Last Gang Records) CDN

Lee Palmer
Rockin’ This Chair
Like Elway (2015, Self) CDN