Episode 192: Trent Severn

This week’s Folk Roots Radio featured another interview recorded at the Folk Music Ontario conference this past October. This time we talked to Emm Gryner, Laura C. Bates and Dayna Manning who collectively form Trent Severn, a wonderful folk super-group who share fabulous stories of Canadiana in gorgeous harmony and music. You can find the interview on the website here. As always, we found time for some new music plus our mystery theme and guilty pleasure.

This week’s mystery theme was all about… Trucks! Now I’m not sure about you but for me, it’s very much can’t live with them, can’t live without them. They’re massive, do untold damage to our roads and the environment and yet, as Jonathan Byrd said, we need them to bring just about everything to where we want it. Of course, we could all go back to a more sustainable lifestyle that doesn’t need so much stuff and we could use rail to move things long-distances but that’s not on the agenda in our fast-paced ‘just in time’ world. And trains? I guess they’re just a mystery theme from another time.

Lots of great new music on this week’s show. I’m looking forward to interviewing Gordie Tentrees about his new album “Less is More”. I had the chance to interview Yukon-based Gordie at the Eaglewood Folk Festival a few years ago. It will be nice to catch up while interviewing him again. On this week’s show we played “Somebody’s Child”, a song written after watching bombs go off at the Boston Marathon all the while wondering if his wife had crossed the finishing line. Powerful stuff.

There was nothing guilty about this week’s guilty pleasure as we played two songs, “When A Man Loves A Woman” followed by “Warm & Tender Love”, from the late great Percy Sledge, who sadly passed away this week. A truly timeless love song, When a Man Loves a Woman reached No. 1 in the US and Canada in 1966, and number four in the UK, and it was the first US number one to be recorded at the famed Muscle Shoals studios in Alabama. According to Percy Sledge, the song’s inspiration came when his girlfriend left him for a modelling career after he was laid off from a construction job. That’s harsh – but I guess good for inspiration.

Percy Sledge actually came up with the melody for the song, but signed away his rights to bassist Calvin Lewis and organist Andrew Wright who helped him with it, because, as he put it, he didn’t know any better at the time.

Warm & Tender Love was Percy Sledge’s second single – and second-biggest hit, reaching No. 17 in the US. Percy Sledge – a fine, fine R&B singer and a great loss for the world of music.

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.

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!

Mystery Theme: ‘Trucks’

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

Kate Reid
Truckdriver
I’m Just Warming Up (2009, Self) CDN

The Twangbangers
Truck Drivin’ Man
26 Days On The Road (2002, Hightone Records)

Pharis & Jason Romero
Truck Driver’s Blues
Long Gone Out West Blues (2013, Lula Records) CDN

Corb Lund
The Truck Got Stuck
Hair In My Eyes Like A Highland Steer (2005, Stony Plain) CDN

Jonathan Byrd
A Big Truck Brought It
You Can’t Outrun the Radio (2014, Waterbug) CDN

Rusty Ford
My Truck, My Dog, And You
My Truck, My Dog, And You (2012, Self) CDN

Erynn Marshall & Carl Jones
The Lohman Waltz
Sweet Memories… Never Leave (2015, Dittyville)

Spuyten Duyvil
Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?
The Social Music Hour, Vol. 1 (2015, Self)

Gordie Tentrees
Somebody’s Child
Less Is More (2015, Self) CDN

J.W. McClure
In The Jailhouse Now
Interpretations Of Jimmie Rodgers (2014, Self)

April Verch
I Heard the Bluebirds Sing
The Newpart (2015, Slab Town Records) CDN

Percy Sledge
When A Man Loves A Woman
The Ultimate Collection: When A Man Loves A Woman (1966, Atlantic Records)

Percy Sledge
Warm and Tender Love
The Ultimate Collection: When A Man Loves A Woman (1966, Atlantic Records)

David Celia
Speak to Me (feat. Catherine MacLellan)
Double Mind (2015, Seedling Music) CDN

Joel Plaskett
Broke
The Park Avenue Sobriety Test (2015, Pheromone / New Scotland Records) CDN

Trent Severn
Blue Nose On A Dime
Trent Severn (2012, Outside Music) CDN

Interview: Emm Gryner, Laura C. Bates and Dayna Manning who collectively form Trent Severn. You can find the interview on the website here.

Trent Severn
Mulroney Times
Trent Severn (2012, Outside Music) CDN

Trent Severn
Road Less Travelled
Trent Severn (2012, Outside Music) CDN

Peter Katz
Brother (feat. Royal Wood)
We Are The Reckoning (2015, Plaid Shirt Music / Fontana North) CDN

Natalie Prass
My Baby Don’t Understand Me
Natalie Prass (2015, Spacebomb Records)

Moors & McCumber
Best of Intentions
Pandemonium (2014, Self)

Tia McGraff
Crazy Beautiful
Crazy Beautiful (2015, Bandana Records) CDN

Kerri Powers
Fireworks & Cheap Repairs
Faith In the Shadows (2009, Self)

Bet Smith with The Currie Brothers
Loose Ends
Loose Ends E.P. (2014, Self) CDN