BeatRoute Magazine Alberta print e-edition - March 2016

MARY GAUTHIER
american songwriter breaks from teaching for shows
hard sometimes to really have a grasp
on time and place,” Mary Gauthier tells
“It’s
BeatRoute over the phone from Banff. “I
played 170 nights last year, so I kind of lose track
of where I am once in a while.” Gauthier is currently
teaching at a retreat at The Banff Centre, along
with her tour mate, Texas songwriter Sam Baker.
“It’s amazing here, all these fantastic musicians of
all styles from around the world getting together,
collaborating and listening to each other. These
players really are thoroughbreds, they’re just outstanding,
and to be able to come to a place like
this, you’re really fortunate to have something like
this in Canada.”
Gauthier describes the history of government
support for the arts in Canada as, “an enlightened
view of society. The U.S. could learn a lot from
you. The American government just really doesn’t
view the arts as a responsibility.”
It may be this larger view of songwriting as an
art form that found Gauthier approached by Yale
University to write a book on the subject. “They
commissioned me to write this book examining
the motives for songwriting, not so much the craft
of it, but the deeper meaning behind it as an art
form.” But separating songwriting as an art form,
from the songwriter as a “craftsperson,” Gauthier
argues, is like comparing a fine dining experience
to a cheeseburger from McDonald’s. “They both
have their place, but where the craftsperson
writes to a specific formula with an end result in
mind, being mass appeal and a hit, the artist goes
into their writing without the benefit of knowing
where it’s going. The artist listens to the song, and
to what the song is trying to say.”
Gauthier identifies an escapism at play in
songwriting for the masses, often some caricature
of modern life, showing us some sweeping ideal of
the lives we’re “supposed to live.” Gauthier asserts
by Michael Dunn
that for the artistic songwriter, there’s no escape
at all, just a further plunge to find the deeper
truths. Those artists require that their work carry
significance to themselves, first and foremost.
With her manuscript deadline set for December
of this year, Gauthier is content to take some time
away from the road so as to fix her attention on
the task at hand. “I’m always writing songs, but a
book is about 5,000 times harder than writing a
song,” she admits. “Each chapter takes me about
100 hours, so I’m really lucky Yale has paid me to
write it. It allows me to concentrate on it, and it’s
an opportunity to be published.”
While she’ll be spending less time on the road,
she and Baker have a tour of Scotland set for September,
and their time at The Banff Centre has introduced
them to an excellent accompanist who’ll
join them there. “Her name’s Polly Virr, we met
her here. She’s an excellent cellist from England.
She plays so beautifully and sympathetically to the
songs, it’s like she’s playing what we’re trying to say.”
While she hasn’t any immediate plans for a
new album, Gauthier maintains that she’s always
writing new songs, and sees the long-term benefit
of her collaborative experiences. “I’ve always felt
very welcome here in Canada, it’s a great environment
for a singer-songwriter, and there are
audiences here that really care, that really want
to listen. These kinds of workshops are a valuable
experience to teach and to listen, and to hopefully
expand my skills as I mature as an artist.”
Mary Gauthier co-headlines with Sam Baker at The
Ironwood Stage and Grill on March 10th, and then
again at the Calgary Folk Club on March 11th. She
plays solo in Edmonton at the Blue Chair Café on
March 12th, and then she will reuinite with Sam Baker
and Eliza Gilkyson for a show at the Banff Centre
on the 13th.
Mary Gauthier is also working on a book exploring the motivations of songwriting.
MO KENNEY
no rivalry with Joel Plaskett to be seen here
The bouncy and brutally honest folk songs
of Mo Kenney have established her as a
young musical icon in Canada, and this
maritime singer-songwriter from Dartmouth,
NS has just been nominated for a JUNO for her
2014 album In My Dreams.
“It’s really surreal,” she says with a laugh, “it’s
great to be recognized. When I started making
music, I definitely wasn’t thinking about winning
awards, I wanted to do something I enjoyed while
also being successful.” In My Dreams is a masterfully
balanced 10-song album — a follow up to
her critically acclaimed self-titled debut release
in 2012. In My Dreams sees Kenney exploring
themes of heartache and heartbreak, but also
a few new beginnings. The album’s release has
definitely fulfilled Kenney’s ancillary goal of “also
being successful,” having led to numerous awards
including being hailed as among the “Best of Halifax”
by the city’s street mag The Coast, as well as
high praise from the East Coast Music Association
among others.
“I was writing as soon as my first record was
released, and a few of the songs were from before,
like ‘Take Me Outside’ was written when I was 18,
so when I wasn’t touring and I was at home I was
working on [In My Dreams],” Kenney revealed to
BeatRoute from her home in Nova Scotia.
Kenney isn’t afraid to bite off a cliché or two
in her lyrics and musical style, but she takes a
refreshing folksy approach to using the basics
– bluesy guitars, drums and bass — to produce
widely accessible ballads with clear hooks to hang
her witty lyrics.
What Kenney sings, and how she sings it, is
by Michael Grondin
Mo Kenney opens for Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls ahead of JUNO Awards ceremony.
photo: Paul Wright
unique to her experiences and her point of view,
she says. Her songs “are very relationship-based,
love-based, lack of love-based, and there’s some
love songs as well as some mean songs directed at
exes,” says Kenney.
Kenney’s success has been in no small part due
to Nova Scotia singer-songwriter Joel Plaskett,
who has played an integral role — as Kenney puts
it — in both the production and design of of her
two albums. “Joel and I ended up writing a lot of
songs together, mostly just half finished tunes,”
says Kenney.
Kenney and Plaskett are both nominated for
the same prize at this year’s JUNO Awards, something
that Kenney describes as an honour. To be
nominated in the same category is something
both she and Plaskett can be excited about as
friends who have worked together to make music
they are both proud of.
“There’s no rivalry between us. I’m happy to
be in the category with him. We’re really good
friends, and Joel has had such a big hand in my
record anyway that it’s both of us achieving
this together,” she explains. Kenney usually
plays as a three-piece, often with Plaskett’s
famous The Emergency, however she will be
flying “solo for these dates,” she says, “just me
and my guitar.”
Mo Kenney performs on March 3rd at the Commodore
in Vancouver, on March 5th at MacEwan
Hall in Calgary, on March 6th at Union Hall in
Edmonton, on March 7th at O’Brians Event Centre
in Saskatoon and on March 8th at the Garrick
Centre in Winnipeg.
40 | MARCH 2016 • BEATROUTE ROOTS