Canadian Music News
OTTAWA HOSTS CANADIAN FOLK MUSIC AWARDS THIS WEEKEND
OTTAWA — In Grit Laskin’s opinion, the Juno Awards just don’t cut it when it comes to folk music. That’s why the co-founder of Borealis Records, along with his business partner Bill Garrett and Roddy Campbell, publisher of the folk magazine Penguin Eggs, started the Canadian Folk Music Awards.
Their frustration stemmed from the limitations of the Juno categories for roots and traditional music.
“You ended up getting apples competing with bananas,” says Laskin. “You’d have a traditional Quebec band competing with Bruce Cockburn.
“It just made no sense. They’re two different genres, even though they’re under a large roots-folk-acoustic-y umbrealla. So we thought, ‘Let’s do our own thing.’”
Five years later, the Canadian Folk Music Awards, which will be presented during an untelevised gala at Dominion-Chalmers United Church in downtown Ottawa Saturday, have made great strides toward bringing acoustic music out of the kitchen, away from the campfire and off the festival field.
Nominees and winners receive media coverage across the country, attention that puts them on the radar of festival promoters, bookers and fans around the world.
To make sure the accolades go to the most worthy artists, the program is administered by a volunteer board of directors who round up knowledgeable jurors for each of the 19 categories and shower them with CDs submitted by artists. In the first year, there were about 275 submissions; this year, it’s up to about 450.
The 2009 crop of nominees is a wide-ranging bunch, including the singer-songwriter musings of Joel Plaskett, the moody roots of the Great Lake Swimmers, the fiery fiddling of the Sultans of String, the progressive beats of Buffy Sainte-Marie, the traditional balladry of P.E.I. singer Colette Cheverie, and many more.
Reflecting on the five-year history of the event, Laskin believes the awards have had the greatest impact on traditional music, citing the example of Quebec’s Genticorum. The French-Canadian trio is one traditional act that’s emerged as a success story after their CFMA win, going on to wider recognition in English Canada and a Juno nomination. At the CFMAs, celebrating the diversity of Canada’s musical heritage starts with encouraging traditional music.
“We felt that was important and it gets short shrift so many times. It’s part of the continuum of what folk music is, and we’re not afraid of the four-letter f word,” says Laskin.
“Without awareness of the early musics, your music is simply not going to be as rich. There are reasons that traditional ballads have made it through hundreds of years of people singing them to each other. The stories and the melodies are so honed, they move everybody because they’re about living, and the blood and guts drama of making your way through life and overcoming obstacles.”
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
Submitted by: admin | Wed November 18, 09 8:39PM