Folk Roots Radio Episode 190: feat. The Oh Chays & More New Releases

This week’s Folk Roots Radio features an interview with Kelly Authier and Mike Authier who together are The Oh Chays. Kelly and Mike joined us to chat about their music and play a couple of songs at the Folk Music Ontario conference this past October. You can listen to the interview again here. As usual, there’s a lot of new music on this week’s episode – plus, as always, our mystery theme and guilty pleasure.

Our mystery theme this week was all about ‘heaven’. I’m not sure what heaven means to you, but to me, it’s a real place and very much in the here and now. It’s the place where I’m most at peace with the world and at the moment that would definitely be when I’m out for my early morning walk with my dog friend Abby on the farm where I live. And it’s a time when I can take in the dawn, celebrate the sunrise and just spend time in contemplation. It’s a very beautiful thing. It’s not for me to think about heading off to somewhere else to spend eternity but then again it’s okay for us all to have our own ideas about where heaven is. I hope you know where yours is.

We were asked to play some music by Queen as this week’s guilty pleasure which left me with lots of scope to pick something to play. I elected to play “Heaven for Everyone” from the 1995 album “Made In Heaven” rather than dipping into something more obvious such as “Seven Seas of Rhyme’ (early Queen), ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (epic Queen), ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ (disco Queen) or ‘Radio Gaga’ (late Queen).

‘Heaven for Everyone’ was written in 1987 by Roger Taylor for his solo project band The Cross. It originally appeared on the 1988 album ‘Shove It’, with Freddie Mercury on backing vocals. Two versions of the song were actually recorded, one version featuring Freddie Mercury on lead vocals. After Mercury’s death in 1991, Heaven for Everyone was reworked using Mercury’s lead vocals and it appeared on the 1995 posthumous album ‘Made in Heaven’. Heaven for Everyone was the first single from the album and reached No 2 in the UK in 1995.

In the last few months before his death, Freddie Mercury recorded many of the vocal parts that made it on to the Made in Heaven album, leaving explicit instructions that the rest of the band complete the songs for release after his death. Queen guitarist Brian May has recently gone on record to say that he believes that Made in Heaven was quite possibly the best album Queen ever made. It’s certainly one of my favourites, and is very respectful of Mercury’s vocal legacy – certainly much more respectful than a revolving door of vocalists to fill his shoes.

Thanks to Julie for suggesting we play music by Queen as this week’s guilty pleasure. If you have a guilty pleasure you’d like to share – that song you still love though you think other people would find it unfashionable (believe me, they won’t), get in touch. We’d love to play it for you. And, if you have a good story about why you love that song, so much the better.

Well, that’s just about all the time we have for today. 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’ll see you next week!

You’ll be able to listen to this show again on Mixcloud by following the link below.

Folk Roots Radio – Episode 190 by Folk Roots Radio on Mixcloud

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

Godley & Creme
H.E.A.V.E.N. (feat. Jimmy Chambers, Jimmy Helms and George Chandler)
Goodbye Blue Sky (2008, Polydor)

Ryan Bingham
Southside Of Heaven
Mescalito (2007, Lost Highway)

Ange Hardy
Heavens Waits
Bare Foot Folk (2013, Story Records)

Devon Sproule
Don’t Hurry for Heaven
¡Don’t Hurry for Heaven! (2010, Black Hen Music) CDN

Antony & The Johnsons
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
I’m Not There (Soundtrack) (2007, Columbia)

Lindi Ortega
Heaven Has No Vacancy
Cigarettes & Truckstops (2012, Last Gang Records) CDN

Blue Rodeo
One Light Left In Heaven
The Things We Left Behind (2009, Warner Music) CDN

Anne Lindsay
Acacia Blossoms as Snow in Spring
Soloworks (2014, Self)

Kaia Kater
When Sorrows Encompass Me Round
Sorrow Bound (2014, Self) CDN

Jayme Stone
What Is The Soul Of Man (feat. Margaret Glaspy, Bruce Molsky. Brittany Haas, Julian Lage, and Joe Phillips)
The Lomax Project (2015, Borealis Records) CDN

Kevin Breit
Dance With Delilah (feat. Rebecca Jenkins)
Ernesto And Delilah (2015, Poverty Playlist) CDN

Same Latitude As Rome (Peter Boyer)
The Early Days
Early Days (2015, Self) CDN

Queen
Heaven For Everyone
Made In Heaven (1995, Hollywood Records)

Annie Sumi
Reflections
Reflections (Demo) (2015, Self) CDN

The Early Mays
Everything
The Early Mays (2014, Self)

The Oh Chays
Big Old World
Big Old World (2014, Self) CDN

Interview: The Oh Chays recorded at the Folk Music Ontario conference in October 2014.

The Oh Chays
Do Say Think (Live)

The Oh Chays
Dirk’s Lullaby
Big Old World (2014, Self) CDN

The Oh Chays
Righting Your Wrongs (Live)

The Oh Chays
Piece of Me
Big Old World (2014, Self) CDN

Michael Reinhart
Horizon Lline
Echo (2013, Self) CDN

Tannis Slimmon
Do What You Do
In And Out Of Harmony (2013, Self) CDN

Spuyten Duyvil
Hot Time in the Old Town / Preaching On the Old Camp Ground
The Social Music Hour, Vol. 1 (2015, Self)