Country music is overwhelmingly associated with the American South and Southwest regions. Around the world, street acts and major concerts that feature banjos and cowboy hats are also likely to feature American flags on merchandise and stage design. 

Still, country music is a North American tradition that stretches back over a century for the US, Canada, and parts of Mexico. In fact, American country singers owe quite a bit to their southern neighbors—from cowboy boots to wide-brim hats to certain acoustic guitar maneuvers.

The same goes for Canadian country music. The sector has its own unique traditions which date back over a century, related to musical preference and lyrical content. Shania Twain may be the poster child for Canadian country sensations, but she represents the union of the Canadian and American country music scenes. 

It seems like people don’t understand that making a career as an artist is the same as getting a business going. We go back to my favorite subject that I should open a restaurant.

Imagine that you hear about a new restaurant that should be really good and you want to get a reservation to eat there in a couple of days. You go to the restaurant's homepage and there you have the menu, some pictures of what it looks like, but it’s missing the address where it’s located and there are no contact details or instructions on how you book a table?

There are links to social media everywhere, but it seems kind of strange to send a message on Facebook or Instagram to book a table if it doesn’t clearly say so. And you don’t know really who is behind the social media accounts it could be their PR agency. After looking through you find info at address in one of the corners and you send it to that address.

Award-winning singer-songwriter, recording artist, published author, and ELMNT FM radio broadcaster Christa Couture releases her realistic but celebratory single and accompanying lyric video "To Us" on Friday, November 26th, on all major platforms. It was recorded at each player’s home, pandemic style, with the Henhouse Express band: Steve Dawson, Gary Craig, and Jeremy Holmes. For more information please visit any of the links below or her website.

Christa Couture understands, through challenging life-long experience, what it feels like to face adversity. Proudly queer, disabled, and Indigenous (mixed Cree and Scandanvian), Couture survived childhood cancer, which led to the amputation of her left leg; her two sons died as infants; her marriage ended in divorce after that; and most recently, thyroid cancer threatened her career as a singer.

It’s interesting to see how technology or trends are dictating how the artists write songs. The past year's songs have been very long. The majority has been close or over four minutes. Sometimes even though the radio usually doesn’t take long songs people have released up to five to six minutes. Why you ask is it a trend? Not really it was that many believed that to keep the listener you needed to make a longer song.  If they finally got in there and listened to your song, then you should keep them as long as possible. Also, short songs were always under scrutiny by Spotify.

Originally from Vancouver, the now Toronto-based Ian Lake, is a National Theatre School of Canada alumnus. He’s played Macbeth at the illustrious Stratford Festival; played the lead role of Guy in the Mirvish Theatre’s Toronto production of the hit Broadway musical Once; and garnered a massive role in the upcoming second and third seasons of the popular Netflix drama Locke and Key. Now, as he steps into the Canadian music landscape, Lake stays true to his nature, revealing his personal stories of love, struggle, and lessons learned, in his songs.

JUNO nominated and drummer for several Grammy and Latin Grammy-nominated releases, Toronto-based drummer, composer, and producer Marito Marques’ new track “Manjerico” bridges cultural gaps through collaboration with traditional Portuguese cante alentejano group "Os Vocalistas,” and MARO (from Jacob Collier).

“Manjerico” — pronounced (‘Mun-Juh-rEE-co’) — is the latest to land from the multi-talented artist’s newest LP, A Ponte.

Check out “Manjerico”  here:

Drawing melodies from original compositions and lyrics that are 200 - 400 years old, the vocals are inspired by genre cante alentejano — which is listed in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. Marques’ timeless tunes, modern style, and decision to produce the album by collaborating with both Portuguese and Canadian musicians, makes it accessible to both international Portuguese communities, and the greater public.

Sabrina Fallah is a rock singer, songwriter and guitarist from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She grew up listening to Michelle Branch, Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, Simple Plan, etc. Her influences are Green Day, Bon Jovi and Billy Idol. She has been told that when she sings with her raspy, edgy, and powerful voice, she sounds like Joan Jett, Pat Benatar, The Cranberries and Melissa Etheridge.

Check out “Hurt” on YouTube here:

The single “Hurt” is a currently a featured song on Cashbox Radio and you can request it at cashboxradio.ca/request-a-song-on-cashbox-radio/

For inspiration to o write this column today, I just randomly went through my recent emails. This is just of one of the many I receive on a regular basis, but many of them have the same theme.  Since so many make the same mistakes, I thought I would use this one as an example so I will hide whoever sent it and any other personal information.

- My name is “insert artist name here*-  I'm one half of *bandname*, Indie Folk duo.
My new single "*single name*" comes out on October 20th, and I'd love to send it over to you to check out prior to its release.  Getting in touch with anyone at your publication about my music would be beyond a dream.

Nanaimo, BC’s multi-award winning and JUNO nominated Canadian artist David Gogo knows the blues, and so does his songwriting, his guitar, and his sharp-witted lyrics that relate as easily as they break your heart. And nowhere is this more apparent than on the roots rocker’s newest album and single of the same name, Silver Cup.

Check out more on David Gogo here on YouTube here: youtube.com/davidgogoblues

‘All of my life has been the same, and I ain’t never, never gonna change,’ Gogo whiskey-sips over a slide guitar on “Never Gonna Change,” a lead track from his 2021 release, Silver Cup. It’s a set up to an old-fashioned, yarn-spinning story of life from the hard side of the tracks, and the commitment to leaning into what’s created of you.

“I was listening to my vinyl albums, going down rabbit holes on the internet, reading biographies of musicians, and playing my many guitars and just feeling the energy of so much great music,” Gogo says of the album and song’s inspiration.

Dubbed by Maverick Music Magazine as the “very epitome of world music: no boundaries, no rules,” NY Times and BILLBOARD charting Canadian supergroup Sultans of String have released their brand-new single, “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” — available now!

The song features the four core Sultans, as well as incredibly talented and inspiring special guests Tara Salah Moneka and Ahmed Moneka, and arrives ahead of this November’s upcoming album, Sanctuary.

Check out the YouTube here:

Originally written by Sonny Bono, and sung by Cher and Nancy Sinatra, this is a new take on the song that speaks to people from the perspective of marginalized voices; it is a benchmark of how the world has changed with the Black Lives Matter movement, and the thirst for equality around the world.

The a new single from Canadian singer/songwriter/producer Rosita Stone is “Love To The World.” Currently “Love To The World” is making waves in foreign territories, and is only now being serviced to AC radio stations in Canada, and has already received accolades internationally.

Love to the World Rosita Stone

How exciting and enduringly accessible can roots music be? Highly prolific Canadian roots and jazz duo Q&A have a very tasty, home-cooked answer for you with the veritable buffet of songs they’re serving with their new album, Demo Listen Derby — available now via Sonic Peach Music.

Check out  You Never Let Me Down - Q&A - (Official Music Video) from the album "Demo-Listen Derby" here:

The playful play on words of Demo Listen Derby headlines a joyful, 15-track ride that shifts gears thrillingly and effortlessly from jazz to blues to country to bossa nova to cajun and back again. Packed from front to back with original songs written by the duo, this is a collection rich and diverse in theme and flavour.

I’m fascinated every time that there is a change in the industry it’s always inundated with people that think they actually have something important in the industry to say, but in reality, probably would be better off doing something else and have nothing to do with what is the new reality in the business.

I had a long conversation with a school the other day that educates students to prepare to work in the music industry. I have bumped into these students many times and are quite fascinated over how little they know about the industry. Most of the things they talk about are things that were relevant at least twenty years ago, or so basic that you can pick it out of any schoolbook or online.  In theory, students from this school are driven because they are interested in the business, but you have to just tell them to forget everything they learned and start all over if you hire them.

Two acoustic guitars (one plugged in, one not), some smooth but earnest vocals, and one cozy living room is all Mike Green, and his longtime friend, Tim Palmieri (Lotus, Kung Fu), needed to create the new single, “No One’s Gonna Love You Like I Do”.

Watch “No One’s Gonna Love You Like I Do” here:

The first single from their Living Room Session EP, the song tells the story of a guy who knows he’s not the girl’s type, but he’s going to pursue her anyway and give it all he’s got. The rhythm is steady and, at times, passionately emphatic — and Palmieri adds some deft fingerpicking and beautiful wailing notes. The bridge alternates between exuberance and lament, and the song ends on the slow and full-hearted declaration, “Somehow…we’ll figure it all out…no one’s gonna love you like I do.”

During the pandemic, we have opened up too many digital meeting points so now everybody thinks they can export music. People are throwing around words like “export ready” and think they know what they are talking about.

Sorry, I can already tell you that most of these people have no clue what they are talking about. Just because they got a meeting online with a dude on the other side of the world, they think they are ready to send anything, anywhere.

Most of them also act like parents to the artists. Tell an A&R that the artist will have their parents along and they get a grim look on their face. You know that whatever you say to the parent they still think their kid is the best that hit the music industry since Elvis Presley. Their kid is unique and just great. What you actually see is a kid that can sing ok but has no other talent whatsoever. Same here with the exporters. They come up with hopeless cases with no songs that can play ok but don’t even how to conduct a soundcheck in the right manner.

All Photo Credits Fiona Lawson/Studio 22 Photography

The COVID-19 pandemic took away a lot of things we took for granted, gathering with our friends for meals or drinks or sporting events and a host of other social functions. But most of those were brought back, with certain restrictions and rules we had to follow.

But live music, played by live musicians to live people was one of the last things to be reinstated. I have been playing live music for most of my adult life so this is the longest stretch i have gone without playing out. Finally, after more than a year I got to do what I've always done, play to a live audience with a bunch of other singer/songwriters.