Fraser Union is a Vancouver-based Canadian folk music group, formed in 1983. [1] CBC Radio helped bring early national attention to them on the Max Ferguson Show. For four decades their music has most often told stories of Canadian working people. [2] Their focus on labour and progressive issues drew them into collaboration with Tom Wayman, [3] Kate Braid [4] and the Vancouver Industrial Writers' Union. [5] Together they produced Split/Shift: songs and poems of the workplace [6] . Fraser Union's festival performances include the 2007 Vancouver Folk Music Festival, [7] where they presented a stage titled "Songs of the Pacific Northwest" dedicated to the work of BC folk song collector Philip J. Thomas. [8] In 2008 they returned to the Vancouver Folk Music Festival [9] to do the same for the legendary Utah Phillips. They have also performed at Vancouver Island MusicFest, ArtsWells, Filberg Festival, and the Princeton Traditional Music Festival, [10] among others throughout British Columbia. In addition to festivals, they perform regularly in folk clubs, and in concerts to benefit social causes. [11]
Their group name derives from the intersecting references to the Fraser River, Simon Fraser University, Fraser Street, etc., all significant to the band's location in Vancouver. By the time of their first, self-titled, recording in 1988 [12] they were a male quartet: Roger Holdstock, Henk Piket, Dan Kenning, and Barry Truter, [13] all of whom met through and were presidents of the Vancouver Folk Song Society. [14] From 1987 until 2008 the quartet remained the same until Dan Kenning retired, leaving the trio to carry on until 2018 when they were joined by Kathy Griffin. At the dawn of 2023 Fraser Union is once again a trio, Barry Truter, Kathy Griffin, and Roger Holdstock, as they prepare to release a new EP.
Brian Brett was a Canadian poet, journalist, editor and novelist. Brett wrote and published extensively, starting in the late 1960s, and he worked as an editor for several publishing firms, including the Governor-General's Award-winning Blackfish Press. He also wrote a three-part memoir of his life in British Columbia.
Spirit of the West were a Canadian folk rock band from North Vancouver, active from 1983 to 2016. They were popular on the Canadian folk music scene in the 1980s before evolving a blend of hard rock, Britpop, and Celtic folk influences which made them one of Canada's most successful alternative rock acts in the 1990s.
Ferron Foisy is a Canadian singer-songwriter and poet. In addition to gaining fame as one of Canada's most respected songwriters, Ferron, who is openly lesbian, became one of the earliest and most influential lyrical songwriters of the women's music circuit, and an important influence on later musicians such as Ani DiFranco, Mary Gauthier and the Indigo Girls. From the mid-eighties on, Ferron's songwriting talents have been recognized and appreciated by music critics and broader audiences, with comparisons being made to the writing talents of Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen.
Margaret "Peggy" Seeger is an American folk singer and songwriter. She has lived in Britain for more than 60 years and was married to the singer-songwriter Ewan MacColl until his death in 1989.
The Evaporators is a Canadian garage rock band formed in 1986 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Vocalist/keyboardist Nardwuar, its founding member, is also known for interviewing musicians and celebrities.
Thomas John Lewis is a British singer and writer of nautical songs and sea shanties, some of whose works have become "folk standards." He's been recorded by over 40 other artists including Nathan Evans and has been called one of the finest exponents of contemporary nautical songs.
Albert Wade Hemsworth was a Canadian folk singer and songwriter. Although he was not a prolific composer, having written only about 20 songs during his entire career, several of his songs – most notably "The Wild Goose", "The Black Fly Song" and "The Log Driver's Waltz" – are among the most enduring classics in the history of Canadian folk music.
Connie Isabelle Kaldor, is a Canadian folk singer-songwriter. She is the recipient of three Juno awards.
The British Columbia Rugby Union (BCRU) is the provincial administrative body for rugby union in British Columbia, Canada. The BCRU consists of nine sub-unions and 65 clubs. It was originally organized in New Westminster in 1889 where Alfred St. George Hamersley, the former England rugby union captain and recent immigrant to Vancouver, and member of Vancouver Football (Rugby) Club, became the first President. The same man is credited with founding the Amateur Athletic Club of British Columbia. and previously had introduced the game of rugby to the youth of South Canterbury, New Zealand. The current headquarters is on the west side of Vancouver.
Deborah Holland is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. She rose to national prominence in 1987 as the lead singer and songwriter of Animal Logic featuring Stanley Clarke and Stewart Copeland.
Thomas Ethan Wayman is a Canadian author.
Jonathan Allan "Jody" Stecher is an American singer and musician. He is best known as a bluegrass and old time musician, playing banjo, mandolin, fiddle and guitar and two of his albums with Kate Brislin have been finalists for the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album. He also plays sursringar in the Dagar gharana tradition of dhrupad.
Philip James Thomas was a Canadian teacher, musician and folklorist.
Fraser & DeBolt were a Canadian folk duo, active in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Its members were Allan Fraser and Daisy DeBolt.
Headwater is a band from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Kathleen Larisch and Carol McComb are American singers and instrumentalists, who performed together in the 1960s as Kathy and Carol. As a duo, they released an acclaimed 1965 folk song album on Elektra Records, before pursuing separate careers. They have reunited to perform together on several occasions in recent years.
The Vancouver Folk Song Society is a nonprofit organization that promotes folk music in the Vancouver, British Columbia, area. The society was founded in 1959 as the Folk Song Circle. The VFSS is not primarily a venue for concerts by professional performers, but a place where everyone is encouraged to participate in music.
Joe Hurley is a singer, songwriter, actor, playwright and voice-over artist. He leads the critically lauded bands Joe Hurley & The Gents and Joe Hurley & Rogue's March. He is the founder and curator of the Allstar Irish Rock Revue, a musical-literary homage to "The Great Irish Songbook", celebrated annually around St. Patrick's Day.
Eileen McGann is an Irish-Canadian folk singer, songwriter and traditional Celtic musician. Her album, Beyond The Storm, was Juno Award-nominated in 2002. She has released seven solo CDs and has established an almost 30-year career touring across North America and Great Britain.
Ian Cameron is a Canadian fiddler and composer based in British Columbia. He also plays guitar and mandolin. He has performed and recorded with several bands, including Strange Advance, Faith and Desire, and the duo Ruckus Deluxe. He collaborated with Arun Shenoy on the Grammy-nominated album Rumbadoodle.
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