A young folk artist whose musicianship and songwriting skills had gained widespread recognition across Canada by the early 1980s, Stan Rogers was well known and celebrated for his traditional-sounding songs of Atlantic Canada, the Great Lakes and the prairies. Returning home from a festival in Texas in 1983, Stan lost his life in an airplane fire at the age of 33.
About a dozen years later a group of folks got together in Canso, a small and remote fishing town on the south coast of Nova Scotia, where they put on a folk music festival to honor Stan and his music. Fans came, the festival was successful, and it has become an annual event which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.
Neither Sue nor I were very familiar with Stan’s music when the festival came up on Sue’s trip-planning list so we did a little more research and some listening and quickly worked it into our itinerary.
We arrived in Canso on Thursday afternoon, found our on-site camping spot, and got ourselves settled just before a heavy rainstorm rolled in. Fortunately, in anticipation of the change in the weather this first-night opening show had already been relocated from the outdoor Mainstage to Canso’s hockey arena, which was on-site. The opening show featured a succession of performers backed by a very talented house band, each playing one of Rogers’ tunes. I can’t imagine a better way for us to become acquainted with Stan’s work. Awesome! It also gave us insight into the artists at this year’s festival, nearly all of whom would be performing again through the weekend at the nightly Mainstage show and/or at daytime workshops.
A couple of the artists were already familiar to us – Matt Andersen we had seen with our nieces near Boston in the fall, and The Irish Descendants we saw on George Street in St John’s, NL. And as the evening unfolded we realized that a LOT of Stan Rogers tunes were also familiar to us – we recognized about half of the tunes played during the show as songs we’ve heard at various music events we’ve been to in our travels through Atlantic Canada.
The festival workshops brought together two or three performers in a smaller, more intimate setting to share their music, usually for about an hour, with each performer playing a song in rotation. These were great! The hardest part was choosing which ones to see – the workshops were scheduled on the hour and ran simultaneously on five stages.
One of the workshops titled À midi and featured Kristen Martell, an anglophone with Acadian roots who recently released an album of original songs written in French. Kristen shared the stage with La Famille LeBlanc, two parents and three daughters from New Brunswick playing, singing and dancing in traditional Acadian and Celtic styles with traditional instruments (piano, fiddle, concertina, whistle, bodhran) to traditional and original tunes.
In a workshop called The Cover Story, Adrian Sutherland, a folk/rocker from Attawapiskat First Nation on James Bay in Ontario, entertained us with folk songs in his native Cree language and a very fun cover of Neil Young’s Heart of Gold which ended with a reprise of the first verse translated into Cree. Aaron MacDonald caught our ears with an original song in an remarkable style, creating a sound that both rhythmically and tonally reminded us strongly of the Mad River Valley’s own Chicky Stoltz, our good friend from back home.
The Woodshed workshop was all about guitars. Jake Lauzon and JP Cormier displayed virtuosic flat-picking skills with their incredibly duet of the classic bluegrass reel Salt Creek. Malcolm MacNeill, a young player who was the guitarist in the opening night’s house band, must be an old soul because his playing of traditional and original tunes reflected a depth of experience well beyond his years. Workshop leader Lloyd Spiegel, an Australian artist who also had a mainstage slot that night, let loose his solo acoustic blues skills and had the whole gang jamming to Howlin’ Wolf’s Killing Floor.
Starting at 7PM on the Mainstage we had five or six acts, from 30 minutes to an hour or more each – a four- or five-hour show of awesome live music, every night! Having received excellent advice from the volunteer staff, each afternoon we’d find time between workshops to set up our lawn chairs for the evening’s show, wander back to camp to pack up a several layers of clothing to don as the temperature fell throughout the evening, grab some dinner and return for the show.
Mainstage highlights included Friday’s opening act Cassie and Maggie, two sisters from Nova Scotia in sparkling pants (seriously, like disco balls) who apparently began performing at Stanfest as children, now all grown up and award-winning writers and performers of foot-stomping Celtic and Gaelic influenced folk tunes. Chuck Brodsky gave us a sampling of some of his 14 albums of baseball-themed folk songs that ranged from hilarious to heartfelt and profound. Stan Rogers’ son Nathan has a band called Dry Bones which showcases his strong voice and guitar playing (both of which can be very reminiscent of his father). Stan’s singer/songwriter wife Ariel Rogers also had a slot at the indoor show in Thursday, accompanied by son Nathan, and they were later joined by daughter and sister Beth Rogers for the Mainstage Finale on Sunday night (which was a highlight in itself).
Matt Andersen performed Saturday night with his band, making his way from traditional folk to totally rocking out, inviting some of the other festival artists to join in with his band, and eventually morphing into an incredible jam.
On Sunday, The Lee Boys from Miami FL ripped it up with a very funky set featuring outrageous bass guitar and pedal steel, also including a moving version of Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come.
For those interested, here are more Stanfest pix, here are some campground and Canso pix, and here are some signs from Big Spruce Brewing, a festival sponsor.
