2014 Canadian Folk Music Awards

The 10th annual Canadian Folk Music Awards last night at the Bronson Centre in Ottawa was a magnificent celebration of Canadian folk music. In fact, the past three days – with Thursday and Friday evening concerts at the Bronson Centre featuring some of the nominees and a folk-festival-day’s-worth of workshops, sessions and song circles at and nearby the Ottawa Folklore Centre – was a magnificent celebration of Canadian Folk Music in many of its forms and genres.

In addition to the award presentations, the evening included stellar performances by Lynn Miles, Finest Kind, The Good Lovelies, Laura Smith, Lennie Gallant, and De Temps Antan.

Laura Smith with Bill Garrett & Paul Mills

The Canadian Folk Music Awards recipients (in order of presentation) were:

CHILDREN’S ALBUM OF THE YEAR

Fred Penner – Where in the World

PRODUCER OF THE YEAR

Tom Terrell and Karl Falkenham – City Ghosts by The Modern Grass

INSTRUMENTAL GROUP OF THE YEAR

The Andrew Collins Trio – A Play on Words

VOCAL GROUP OF THE YEAR

The High Bar Gang – Lost and Undone: A Gospel Bluegrass Companion

Lynn Miles

INSTRUMENTAL SOLO ALBUM OF THE YEAR

Jayme Stone – The Other Side of the Air

SOLO ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Lennie Gallant – Live Acoustic at The Carleton

ENSEMBLE OF THE YEAR

The Fretless – The Fretless

CONTEMPORARY SINGER OF THE YEAR

Matt Anderson – Weightless

THE OLIVER SCHROER PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES AWARD

Tanya Tagaq – Animism

Harvey Glatt

UNSUNG HERO AWARD

Harvey Glatt

FRENCH SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR

Julie Aubé, Vivianne Roy and Katrine Noël – Mon Homesick Heart by Les Hay Babies

FOLK MUSIC CANADA INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR AWARD

The Black Sheep Inn (Wakefield, Quebec)

ABORIGINAL SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR

Amanda Rheaume and John MacDonald – Keep a Fire

WORLD SOLO ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Quique Escamilla – 500 Years of Night

Shari Ulrich

ENGLISH SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR

Shari Ulrich – Everywhere I Go

YOUNG PERFORMER OF THE YEAR

Kacy & Clayton – The Day is Past & Gone

THE SUE GOLDBERG AWARD FOR TRADITIONAL SINGER OF THE YEAR

Mélisande – Les metamorphoses

NEW/EMERGING ARTIST OF THE YEAR

The Bros. Landreth – Let It Lie

WORLD GROUP ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Moustafa Kouyaté & Romain Malagnoux – Les frontiers imaginaires

TRADITIONAL ALBUM OF THE YEAR

Còig – Five

Shelagh Rogers and Benoit Bourque

CONTEMPORARY ALBUM OF THE YEAR

The Strumbellas – We Still Move on Dance Floors

Congratulations to all of the recipients, to the other nominees, to MCs Shelagh Rogers and Benoit Bourque, to all the volunteers who worked behind the scenes, and to the Canadian Folk Music Awards board for their outstanding work.

All photos courtesy of the Canadian Folk Music Awards.

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--Mike Regenstreif

Bernie Finkelstein – True North: A Life in the Music Business

True North: A Life in the Music Business

By Bernie Finkelstein

McClelland & Stewart

294 pages

berniefinkelstein.com

 

“This is not a history of the Canadian music business,” notes Bernie Finkelstein right at the beginning of True North: A Life in the Music Business. However, both casual readers and those intimately familiar with it will learn much about the history of the Canadian music business and how it developed into an industry by reading this entertaining, anecdotal autobiography by an artists’ manager and independent record company proprietor who has been one of Canada’s most significant music business movers and shakers since starting out as a Toronto rock band manager in the 1960s.

Finkelstein was born in Toronto in 1944. His father was in the RCAF and stayed in the air force after the war, so Finkelstein grew up as an air force brat moving from base to base, in Canada and overseas. Usually, the Finkelsteins were the only Jewish family on any particular base. It was such an unusual event for the son of a Canadian serviceman to celebrate his bar mitzvah at the synagogue in Nottingham, England, the event made the front page of the local newspaper.

Back in Toronto by high school time, Finkelstein dropped out just as the music scene in the downtown Yorkville Village began to explode. Hanging out in Yorkville clubs, the young entrepreneur was soon managing Kensington Market and the Paupers, two of Toronto’s most significant rock bands of the era. By the end of the ‘60s, he had shifted his focus to managing such singer-songwriters as Murray McLauchlan and Bruce Cockburn – whom he still manages more than 40 years later, one of the longest-lasting artist-manager relationships in pop music history – and to establishing True North Records, which quickly grew to be one of Canada’s most significant independent record labels. (Finkelstein sold the record company in 2007. Among the buyers was Ottawa music business veteran Harvey Glatt.)

I should note that I’ve known Finkelstein for the better part of four decades. Working as a Montreal concert producer, and as an artists’ agent, in the 1970s and early-‘80s, I occasionally had business dealings with his company. As a journalist and broadcaster, I’ve interviewed and written about many of his artists, and Finkelstein and I once served together on a Juno Awards advisory committee. Reading the book, I smiled at many “oh, yeah” episodes I knew about, and learned about a lot of things I didn’t.

As he details in the book, Finkelstein was very much at the centre of the action in establishing a viable music business in Canada. He was among the industry figures who fought for, and achieved, the Canadian content regulations, which were essential for opening up the country’s airwaves to homegrown musicians. Later, when music videos became an important tool in music marketing, he was instrumental in setting up and chairing VideoFACT – now Much-FACT – which provides funding for Canadian music videos and websites.

Much of the book is devoted to anecdotes about Finkelstein’s many business dealings on behalf of his clients and about many of the records he released on True North over the years. Among the funniest stories – although it may not have seemed so at the time – is one about his having to fight back after client Murray McLauchlan was banned from performing at the CNE because the talent booker confused him with McLean and McLean, a brother duo known for their raunchy material.

Although he has wound down much of his day-to-day involvement in the music business, Finkelstein still keeps his hand in as Bruce Cockburn’s manager. But, whether it’s fulfilling that role or acting as a record company chief, what comes through loud and clear in the memoir is that, throughout his long career, Finkelstein has always been motivated, first and foremost, by his passion for the music and for the artists who make it.

More than almost anyone I’ve ever known in the music business, Bernie Finkelstein has always been a mensch.

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Ottawa Folk Festival (and hangin' out with Ramblin' Jack Elliott)

It’s been two weeks, but I finally have a chance to make a couple of comments about the Ottawa Folk Festival (it’s been a very busy two weeks at work).

As I noted in my preview post earlier this month, this was a transitional year for the festival with a new artistic director, Dylan Griffith, and a new management team headed up by Ana Miura. Overall, I think, they did a very admirable job. Although some of the music was a departure from the standard folk festival fare, the festival managed to retain the all-important folk festival spirit – particularly during the daytime and most particularly during heavy rains that wiped much of Sunday’s programming (and most of Sunday’s crowd).

I quite liked Arrested Development, the hip hop group that headlined Friday night’s main stage concert. Their collaborative arrangements, their lyrics and their messages did not seem at all out of place at a folk festival. And seeing them interact with other artists on Saturday workshop stages confirmed that for me.

I don’t think, though, that Arrested Development brought in the hip hop audience to the festival. Looking around, it seemed like the kind of mostly middle aged and older folk who have been going to folk festivals for decades. If there was an increased number of young people this year at the festival, I think it was on Saturday.

To me, the heart and soul of a folk festival is the daytime workshop stages and there was something I wanted to see on at least one stage at just about every hour on Saturday (and scheduled on Sunday). At the last minute, I was asked to sit in as host of the Canadian Spaces session on Saturday afternoon because Chopper McKinnon, the long-time host of CKCU’s Canadian Spaces show was having cataract surgery. I had a great time with Lynn Miles, Chris MacLean, Jon Brooks and Meredith Luce.

I was really looking forward to spending some time with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott at the festival – off stage and on. I was scheduled to host an hour-long “conversation” with Jack on Sunday afternoon.

Jack was only scheduled at the festival on Sunday, so it was a pleasant surprise to meet up with him at lunch time on Saturday and spend a half-hour or so reminiscing. I was also happy to see Jack looking fit and strong as he had triple-bypass surgery a few months back and had just turned 79.

I mentioned the rain on Sunday. Well, the indoor stage was pretty much the only daytime stage that was viable on Sunday, so the schedule was re-jigged so that some of the highlights from the day’s workshop sessions could happen. My “conversation” with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, originally scheduled for noon to 1:00 pm was rescheduled for 1:00-2:00, so I got to spend an extra hour catching up with Jack in the green room.

Our actual on-stage time flew by. It was meant to be an oral history session looking at Jack’s long career. We covered a lot of ground, but I almost felt like we were just getting started when the time was up. Jack and I both had a great time doing it and the feedback from the hundreds of people packed into the indoor hall was tremendous.

The Sunday night main stage concerts were rescheduled for either the indoor stage or the dance tent. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott’s took place in the dance tent and was one of the best shows I’ve seen him do in decades.

Rather than the thousands that would have been expected, Sunday’s crowd was probably in the hundreds thanks to the day’s steady rain and heavy showers. But the festival staff and volunteers did a great job of making what could happen, happen; and the audience pulled together beautifully. There was great stuff going on all day on the indoor stage, and in the food court tent, and all the artists scheduled for a Sunday main stage concert got to go on.

In addition to the artists I’ve already mentioned, some of the many others I really enjoyed included Clarksdale Moan, Carolyn Mark, Jenny Whiteley, Kim Beggs, Lau and the Old Sod Band (who were incredible troopers in the food court tent during the Sunday rain; as was Arthur MacGregor leading singalongs).

I also really enjoyed seeing Harvey Glatt receive the Helen Verger Award in recognition of his many decades of leadership on the Ottawa folk music scene (not to mention many other musical genres). The award was exceptionally well deserved.

Dylan Griffith pulled the 2010 festival together in about half a year. I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do with a full year.

Pictured: Mike Regenstreif in conversation with Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Sunday, August 15, 2010, at the Ottawa Folk Festival; Canadian Spaces with Lynn Miles, Meredith Luce, Chris McLean, Jon Brooks and Mike Regenstreif, Saturday, August 14, 2010 at the Ottawa Folk Festival. 

--Mike Regenstreif