Maria Dunn- Live at Festival Place, Sherwood Park, AB 2023 January 28

My horrible snapshots notwithstanding, it was a beautiful evening of folk music in Sherwood Park last evening as Maria Dunn (finally, after two-years of pandemic delays) celebrated the release of her now Juno Award-winning album, Joyful Banner Blazing (my review of the album is here.) Dunn and her large band complete with horn section and…

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Fervor Coulee’s Favourite Roots Albums of 2022

I have no idea how many roots albums I bought, received for review, actually wrote about, listened to through a brief flirtation with a streaming service, and sampled via Polaris Music Prize jury membership, as well as other industry-provided downloads during 2022. But when I review other lists, I see a lot I am familiar…

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Suzie Vinnick- Fall Back Home review

Suzi Vinnick Fall Back Home SuzieVinnick.com Over the last decade, Suzie Vinnick has become one of Canada’s favourite blues artists. Albums including 2018’s Shake That Love Around and 2011’s Me ‘n’ Mabel placed her on my roots radar, and Fall Back Home continues this string of impressive development. Given pandemic time to reflect, Vinnick has…

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pd adams This Curious Wonder review

pd adams This Curious Wonder Lake Front/PaulAdams.org Thirty-five years in the making, This Curious Wonder examines a world that pd adams has observed with both distress, wonder, and joy. Paul Adams is a poet and songwriter with a series of instrumental albums to his credit. This Curious Wonder appears to be his first lyrical effort,…

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John McCutcheon- Leap! review

John McCutcheon Leap! Appalseed/FolkMusic.com I’ve told this story before. In 2011, due to in-law connections and good fortune, I was able to travel to Chicago from Red Deer for a Chicago Blackhawks game. I got to see Teemu Selanne play for the Ducks and Fernando Pissani the ‘Hawks, but the game itself is rather unmemorable.…

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Steve Dawson & the Telescope 3- Phantom Threshold review

Steve Dawson & the Telescope 3 Phantom Threshold Black Hen Steve Dawson has been creating and recording innovative folk roots music for twenty-five years, and during that time—and notably the last decade—has seldom repeated himself. With the release of Phantom Threshold, he has paired with Jay Bellerose (drums and percussion), Jeremy Holmes (basses, including URB),…

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Bill Scorzari- The Crosswinds of Kansas review

Bill Scorzari The Crosswinds of Kansas BillScorzari.com Weird Ass Americana. That’s my jam. Whether going back years to Mary Gauthier, Sam Baker, Roscoe Holcombe, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and every bluegrass band recording prior to 1980, up to and including Willi Carlisle, Melissa Carper, Otis Gibbs, and Scott Cook, a scan of my CD shelves will…

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Willi Carlisle- Peculiar, Missouri review

Willi Carlisle Peculiar, Missouri Free Dirt Records An unusual album, Peculiar, Missouri is also one of the freshest and most honest folk albums I’ve encountered the last decade. Inspired by the Ozark region we love, Willi Carlisle embraces the traditions of Guthrie, Phillips, and McCutcheon and bring the methods they mastered over decades screaming into…

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Cheryl Cawood- Bullet in the Cabin Wall review

Cheryl Cawood Bullet in the Cabin Wall CherylCawood.com I like a roots music album without pretension, and that is what I found within Cheryl Cawood’s Bullet in the Cabin Wall. Cawood’s brief bio reads hard—with roots in Harlan County, KY, it would appear Cawood has experienced no luck and hard luck in love and marriage,…

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Kim Beggs- Steel and Wool review

Kim Beggs Steel and Wool http://www.KimBeggs.com With five previous albums, Kim Beggs has established herself of one of Canada’s great true-folk (as opposed to nü-folk, pop-folk, dance-folk, folktronica, post-punk gnarr folk…) artists. She remains unjustly underappreciated, in my opinion. Long based in the Yukon, Kim Beggs writes and sings straight from her gut and heart…

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