folk music

It has been a great year for Folk Festivals in this neck of the woods! Got to work in the record tent at the Calgary Folk Fest and as a garbage picker at the Canmore Folk Fest last weekend. Amazing music - fun to see Winnipeg bands (The Weakerthans and Wailin' Jenny's), Sarah Harmer and phenomenal guitar and drums. Canmore is a great festival - you get to see amazing workshops between the artists who all relax and get to know each other - and it always blows me away to look at the silhouette of the mountains while listening to such an amazing variety of music...

Does anyone know of a good way to share music on blogger?

I got a kick out of this very dramatic cover story from FFWD during my 18.5 hours in the record tent...which in itself was a hilariously dramatic place...the article was great at leaving you with no idea of what his music was actually like and wanting to go see for yourself!

FOLK FESTIVAL
by Mary-Lynn Wardle
The heart of the matter
Justin Rutledge explores the finer points of car-crash love
Preview
JUSTIN RUTLEDGE
Calgary Folk Music Festival
July 21 to 24
Prince’s Island Park
At least once in their lifetime, almost everyone will have their heart smashed into roadkill on the highway of love. And after that tender organ lies throbbing and bleeding, exposed and alone, its owner will usually seek a tranquil place distant from prying eyes, so that they mourn alone.

Luckily, for fans of honest melodic music, Toronto singer-songwriter Justin Rutledge did not seek that private place when his heart ended up crushed into Technicolor glory a few years back. Instead, he recorded No Never Alone, an album of what he describes as progressive country songs that has been taking music connoisseurs by storm.

Originally, there was only going to be one copy of No Never Alone. Rutledge was going to record a four-song demo and present it to Heather, the semi-truck of a lady who connected with his heart at 120 kilometres per hour.

"That’s all I wanted to do – make a demo and give it to her. She’s still out there. I think she’s coming to the (Calgary Folk Music) Festival," the 26-year-old singer says from Toronto, where he is house-sitting for a member of Blue Rodeo. "I just wanted to say thanks for putting all this stuff in my heart. It’s a very private record, but I’m glad that people got to hear it."

The story of Justin and Heather is one of those great romances where you can almost hear the Capulets and Montagues duelling in the background. They met near Hurst, Ontario, where they were planting trees together (Rutledge sucked at this – you got paid by the tree and he just wanted to smoke and enjoy the woods) and things got rolling.

Rutledge had been a bartender in downtown Toronto for about five years, and had also tended the taps in a pub in England for a year, meeting lots of people involved in music along the way. So, when Heather awoke the muse in Rutledge and songs started pouring out, he had plenty of help lined up to make his record. Mary Margaret O’Hara is one of about 20 people who contributed their talents.

But, in the middle of recording, Rutledge pulled the plug to follow the mercurial Heather to Canmore, leaving a fistful of unfinished tracks behind. At the time, he was working at the bar, paying off about $1,000 a month on his student loan (he studied English for three years at the University of Toronto) and saving money to live happily ever after.

"Luckily it didn’t work out," he says laughing. After only a month in Canmore the couple broke up, and since Rutledge had saved up some money he hit the road. He moved to Vancouver, blew all his money and then returned to Toronto, broke, and one year later finished the record.

"I just wanted to make this record and give it to this girl. That was my only intention – I didn’t want to get signed, I didn’t want to put it out, that stuff wasn’t in my head. My main intention was just to make one copy of it and give it to her. Then we broke up and I had to finish this record." The singer had invested about $2,000 into his recording when the British label Shady Lane helped him finish it. After a successful British release and tour, Six Shooter Records picked No Never Alone up for release in Canada.

While most people have responded enthusiastically to its pure and emotive sound, some reviewers have naysayed the album’s slow feel and consistently quiet tone. Rutledge bristles at the mention of this.

"I think that that’s the easiest criticism to make and that upsets me because it shows a tremendous lack of imagination to write that down. Of course it’s a slow album, and that’s the whole point. I think that anyone who’s going to criticize it for its lack of tempo should get out of the music criticism business. I love records with feel. I don’t feel a need to put on my quota of rock songs. So if someone is saying it’s too slow, they can fuck off."

Having met his goal of "wanting to make a standard modern country record" Rutledge has begun recording his next album, which he hopes to release next year. So far, NQ Arbuckle and Oh Susanna are two of the musicians who have dropped by to lend a hand. Of course after working through his heartbreak, Rutledge is in a different headspace now than he was for No Never Alone. "I couldn’t write those songs now. The new album is going to be a bit less sparse, but I still want to maintain that closeness and intimate quality. I find music songwriting really kind of painful at times. I’m not an extremely prolific songwriter so I spend a lot of time with the songs and I write in my head so I can’t really get away from them."

If the singer seems incredibly comfortable talking about how his heart was turned into roadkill and how gut-wrenching it can be to write it all down, it is just a continuation of the authenticity that connects his songs to the listener’s heart. "It can be comfortable. But I don’t know, I tend not to do that coy bullshit."

And as for Heather, how did she react after her ex-lover’s heart ended up limping along to its own version of Blood on the Tracks in Rutledge’s absolutely naked songs? "She said ‘thank you.’"