HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA | Thursday December 15, 2005
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA | Thursday December 15, 2005
Carmichael gets to the heart of the matter
Singer/songwriter stays true to self on acoustic-based Spirit Dance
By ELISSA BARNARD Arts Reporter
Love and Joni Mitchell played a part in Dave Carmichael’s new CD Spirit Dance.
) Montreal-born, Halifax-based singer-songwriter Dave Carmichael, seen here with an antique wooden carving of Louis Armstrong and his band at The Daily Grind, releases his third CD Spirit Dance tonight, 8 to 10 p.m., at Stage Nine, 1567 Grafton St. (JEFF HARPER) |
The rootsy and direct emotional songs with flickers of jazz, blues, bluegrass and country music were written during two key events in the Halifax-based singer/songwriter’s life.
Carmichael’s girlfriend Melissa Trottier, whom he’d only recently met in Ottawa, spent last winter in New Zealand.
"Here she was on the other side of the world and I felt a stronger connection than ever," says Carmichael. "Sometimes you meet somebody and there is an undeniable soul connection and you feel you have known the person forever and that’s where the song Forever came from."
This summer Carmichael was musical director for Joni Mitchell: River at Festival Antigonish. That meant learning 13 different tunings and 29 songs by Canada’s musical innovator.
"She’s just fearless. She has stayed true to herself throughout her career," says Carmichael. "Having worked on The River while I was getting ready to record inspired me to be true to myself and allow myself to come through."
Carmichael, who produced this CD with guitarist Jamie Robinson, decided not to tailor his songs to a particular radio station or audience. "I wanted to stay more true than I had in past albums to what I do live," he says. "It’s more acoustic than it is slick.
"In this day and age with digital recording there are so many options. Your palette is limitless. We chose to have a smaller palette and the initial idea was acoustic. Then we added some electric guitars and keyboards but always kept in mind that this was an acoustic-based album."
Though he played guitar at campfires and in high school, Carmichael only "woke up" to music as a career when he left his hometown of Montreal to study at Acadia University. A friend’s parents, originally from Quebec, had studied and met at Acadia and raved about Wolfville. Keen to avoid an extra year of study at CEGEP, Carmichael and his buddy headed to Acadia.
"It was there I realized I wanted not to be a businessman. I studied theatre and got into songwriting."
Nova Scotia is "home," says Carmichael. After living in Ottawa and Montreal for two years he moved back here to record his CD among musicians he knows and respects at Common Ground Studios (formerly Solar Audio).
Playing on Spirit Dance with Carmichael are Jamie Robinson; Tom Easley, upright bass; Geoff Arsenault, drums; Kim Dunn, keyboards and piano; Dave Christensen, clarinet; Andrew Watt and Chris Mitchell with vocals by Jill Barber and Trottier, who moved to Nova Scotia in May to be with Carmichael and now performs with his band.
"One of the main themes in the album is that of the inner world, the inner workings," says Carmichael, who named the album for his song Spirit Dance.
Home Boys (Carmichael, Campbell/Putnam), a powerful lamenting song about soldiers longing for home, grew out of a songwriters’ symposium during Nova Scotia Music Week in which trios of songwriters were sent to a hotel room to come up with a song.
"I’d always had a notion in my journals and notebooks of going home, especially spending so much time here and seeing people from Cape Breton or Newfoundland who have to leave here to find work. That was one level." On another level going home is like a "spiritual going home," he says. "You might call it heaven. I believe there is a sort of going home.
"At the same time there was all the trouble in world politics and Americans were being sent out to fight this war."
Carmichael brought in Rose Vaughan and Cathy Porter on Home Boys’ vocals and was also influenced by listening to British folk singer Kate Rusby. As Carmichael says, "I’m influenced by so many different styles of music that seep into my writing." Listening to Spirit Dance puts one imaginatively at a piano bar late at night, in a country music club, at a bluegrass festival. There’s a heartfelt clarinet, the soul of a troubadour, lively pop and rock edges.
The Spirit Dance CD launch is tonight at Stage Nine, 1567 Grafton St., 8 to 10 p.m., with Barber, Rose Cousins and Meaghan Smith giving a preview of their Friday performance on CBC’s Mainstreet for Friday’s CBC Radio Food Bank Day.