All in A Day Songwriters Night:The Namedropper Extravaganza!

In Person Music

Thursday

Oct , 2014

7:00pm

Eastern

Knox Sanctuary

120 Lisgar Street (at Elgin) • Ottawa

Add to my Calendar Map

I wanted to sing other people’s songs in order to do music in a way I hadn’t done before.

Oh Susanna

THE NAMEDROPPER EXTRAVAGANZA!

FEATURING OH SUSANNA, JIM BRYSON, AMELIA CURRAN, RON SEXSMITH, JOEL PLASKETT AND WHITEHORSE!

Writersfest closes with an another exceptional Songwriters night, curated by Alan Neal, host of CBC Radio One (91.5 FM)'s afternoon show All In A Day... and this year Alan has chosen as his theme a brand-new album that brings together some of Canada's finest songwriters.

Songstress Oh Susanna's NAMEDROPPER album will be released in October, and for it, she asked some of her favourite Canadian songwriters to pen songs especially for her. So... Alan has asked not only Oh Susanna but the songwriters themselves to gather at Knox Presbyterian Church, to share the songs and the stories behind them.

That means that on stage, you will be hearing Oh Susanna, Ron Sexsmith, Joel Plaskett, Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland (Whitehorse), Amelia Curran and Ottawa's own Jim Bryson, who produced the album. Yeah, that's right, we're dropping names. And we may just drop a surprise or two along the course of the evening.

Songwriters will be performing the songs from NAMEDROPPER as well as a few other "name-related" tunes, as they chat with Alan on stage. If you have never been to one of Alan's events at Writersfest, you have been missing out. If you have, you probably haven't finished reading this because you've bought your tickets. Whatever the case, see you at the show. Tune into "ALL IN A DAY" weekday afternoons from 3-6 on CBC RADIO ONE 91.5 FM to find out how to win tickets and learn more about the Namedropper Extravaganza.

The Authors

Alan Neal

Alan Neal is host of Ottawa's favourite drive home show All in a Day, on CBC Radio One, 91.5 FM. In addition to hosting All in a Day, Alan is now a published author, releasing his first children’s book Ava and the Little Folk in 2012.

Amelia Curran

Amelia Curran received her first Juno Award for Hunter, Hunter in front of an adoring hometown crowd in St. John’s, NL, in April 2010. The album also received a total of four ECMA nominations and a place on the 2010 Polaris Long List. With the release of Spectators in 2012, Amelia was once again nominated for a Juno Award for Roots and Traditional Album of the Year. The record received rave reviews, and found its way on to many Best Of 2012 lists across Canada. They Promised You Mercy , the newest collection of songs by Amelia Curran, will be released on November 4. They Promised You Mercy raises the lyrical bar yet again with its unrivaled eloquence. Amelia lives in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Jim Bryson

Jim Bryson is a smooth skating singer-songwriting fellow who has released four acclaimed solo records. The most recent is 2010's pairing with Winnipeg's The Weakerthans, entitled The Falcon Lake Incident. Its follow-up, produced by Charles Spearin (Broken Social Scene) will be released early 2015.

Joel Plaskett

Canada has produced some of the world’s most enduring songwriters and Joel Plaskett is hailed as one of the best. With countless awards to his credit, thousands of tour dates, and numerous recording and producing projects under his belt, Plaskett remains one of the most innovative and prolific artists on the scene today.

Melissa McClelland and Luke Doucet

Melissa McClelland and Luke Doucet tied the musical knot with Whitehorse, marrying their chemistry as a smoldering duo. Whitehorse’s live show is built on their signature blistering guitars and harmonies, but also brings much more to the stage with complex looped layers of percussion, keyboard and telephone receiver amplification. In 2013, Whitehorse made their sold out debut at Massey Hall and their first full-length album, The Fate of the World Depends on This Kiss, was short listed for the Polaris Music Prize. The band also recently released a French EP, Éphémère sans repère.

Oh Susanna

OH SUSANNA has been performing since the mid-90's, with that first 7-song EP that caught the attention of the music industry before Alt-Country had a name. From her internationally acclaimed debut album Johnstown to her last album Soon The Birds, Oh Susanna has drawn on her influences like Hank Williams, Bill Monroe and Tom Waits to craft tales of longing, love and small town joys and pains. Although her Namedropper album was delayed after Suzie learned she had breast cancer, she thanks fans for their patience, love and support.

Ron Sexsmith

Ron Sexsmith is a major contemporary writer/artist who has amassed a sizable and consistently enthralling body of work since making his major label debut in 1995 with his self-titled album on Interscope, followed by such eloquent musical gems as Other Songs (1997), Blue Boy (2001), Retriever (2004) and Time Being (2006). Each has its own particular character but is connected to the rest by the overarching intelligence, impeccable taste and understated emotionality of this single-minded voice in the pop-cultural wilderness. As one new fan put it in a comment on iTunes, Sexsmith’s music “wins you over with a silk punch.” Well put. On his ninth album, the cagily titled Exit Strategy of the Soul (with an emphasis on the last word of this provocative phrase), released July 8 on Warner Music Canada, Sexsmith once again brings a provocative new wrinkle to his expansive aesthetic. Informed but not entrapped by soul and gospel music, ornamented by a Cuban horn section and his own gorgeously imperfect piano playing, the album achieves a sort of metaphysical dimension while maintaining breathtaking intimacy.