The much-delayed CanFolk Mixtape

[commodorified]

I meant to post this much sooner, and also to annotate it fetchingly and informatively, but it's been a bit mad around here, even before I got sick, and while I am much improved I'm still wheezy and achy and not at my most clever.

If you ask me about particular tracks, though, that will doubtless trigger comments - it's sitting down and doing the whole thing unprompted that's beyond me. So please do; I have Things To Say.

My definition of folk music is rather loose; my definition of Canadian considerably more strict.

CanFolk2015: 47 songs, one for each voter in the mixtape poll.

*blows smooches*

Sleepy Maggie: Ashley MacIsaac
Light Enough to Travel: The Be Good Tanyas
La Complainte du Phoque en Alaska: Beau Dommage
Sleep In Late: Big Sugar
You Can Come From Here: Bourbon Tabernacle Choir
The Coldest Night Of The Year: Bruce Cockburn
Logdriver's Waltz: Captain Tractor
Black Eyed Susan: Doug McArthur
Merlin: Doug McArthur and Garnet Rogers
Henry Martin: Figgy Duff
Summer Lightning: Garnet Rogers with Doug Long
Early Morning Rain: Gordon Lightfoot
I'se the B'y: Great Big Sea
Lukey: Great Big Sea
Dondaine: Groovy Aardvark
Cold Missouri Waters: James Keelaghan
Turn Of The Wheel: James Keelaghan
Hockey: Jane Siberry
Love Is Everything: Jane Siberry
Lay Your Burden Down: Jennifer Noxon
Slouching Toward Bethlehem: Joni Mitchell
Helpless: k.d. lang
A Case Of You: k.d. lang
Little Boxes (Petites Boites): Kate & Anna McGarrigle
C'est Une Jeune Mariée: Le Vent Du Nord
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen
Dance Me To The End Of Love: Leonard Cohen
The Highwayman: Loreena McKennitt
Temagami Round: Marie-Lynn Hammond
I Don't Sleep With Strangers Anymore: Marie-Lynn Hammond
Leonard Cohen's Never Gonna Bring My Groceries In: Nancy White
Old Man: Neil Young
Helpless: Neil Young
Gold In Them Hills: Ron Sexsmith
Save This House: Spirit Of The West
The Old Sod: Spirit of the West
Rolling Down To Old Maui: Stan Rogers
Fisherman's Wharf: Stan Rogers
The Nancy: Stan Rogers
The Assassin's Apprentice: Stephen Fearing
Sudbury Saturday Night: Stompin' Tom Connors
The Coal Boat Song: Stompin' Tom Connors
Billy In the Lowground: Stringband
Tugboats: Stringband
Fox - Tiriganiak: Tagaq
Carey - Universal Honey
Deeper Well: The Wailin' Jennys

Comments

[lenora_rose]

Somehow the first question that jumped to mind is why Captain Tractor's version of Logdriver's Waltz and not the McGarrigles' one?

I have two other versions of Rollin' Down to Old Maui - One is by Spiers and Boden, and very British, the other is by Dandelion Wine, a Winnipeg band that teeters between folk and filk, with a particularly heavy dose of Stan Rogers on the folk side. (I sometimes suspect that if you put Nathan Rogers and Dave Clement in a room together doing Stan tunes, Dave would probably out-Stan Nathan. It has happened, just not in front of me.)

[commodorified]

The McGarrigles one is lovely, but I adore the Captain Tractor one; they just grab it and make it theirs, and it really works.

Nathan, like Garnet before him, has has to really work to develop his own voice - physically as well as interpretively, lest they get stuck as unwilling tribute acts.

I was at a performance when Nathan was singing Stan songs, and he can absolutely do it, spot-on. He just doesn't. I've heard Garnet do it, too, but he used to literally look around for mics first.

[lenora_rose]

Nathan does a series of concerts deliberately about Stan (which yes, I've also been to, and wow) just so he doesn't have to while pursuing his own career. Which so far has included some stellar material that really deserves its own attention (and some meh, but even my favourite bands have a few of those.) I'm less familiar with Garnet's solo career.

[commodorified]

Coming back to this late, if you want to dip into Garnet's stuff, Night Drive is a heartstoppingly good album, and there's also a compilation called All That Is that's very good.

But first and foremost, listen to this amazing thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2BKqX0e1nM