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.[1]
Geoffrey Kelly and J. Knutson had begun playing music together as a duo when Kelly's then-girlfriend Alison, at the time a theatre student, told them she had a classmate with a really great singing voice.[2] That classmate, John Mann, joined Kelly and Knutson as a folk trio called Eavesdropper,[3] and scored early gigs as an opening act for rockers such as Art Bergmann and Barney Bentall.[3] Early on their set predominantly comprised covers of artists such as Bruce Cockburn, Eric Bogle, Richard Thompson and Billy Bragg,[3] with original compositions gradually introduced into their set.[3]
Stony Plain released Tripping Up the Stairs in 1986.[5] Following that album Hugh McMillan[3] joined the band and the band toured through 1987 as a quartet with Hugh on bass. In October 1987 Jay Knutson left the band to join the Winnipeg based band Hart Rouged and pursue a "solo" career.
After that album's tour, McMillan took a temporary hiatus from the band in December of 1988 for personal reasons and to pursue solo interests.[7][8] He was replaced by Daniel Lapp and Linda McRae, but returned before the band's next album was recorded.[8] When McMillan returned, Lapp left the band in June of 1989 due to his wife becoming pregnant,[7] but McRae stayed on.[8] (As a result, Lapp never actually appeared on a Spirit of the West recording. He pursued a solo career, however, releasing a number of albums of experimental jazz/folk/electronic fusion.)
On the strength of "Political", Warner Bros. Records signed the band in 1989,[9] and Stony Plain released a compilation, Old Material 1984–1986, to close out their contract with the label.
In 1990, the band's major label debut, Save This House was released.[3][9] The album track "Home for a Rest", which was considered a classic party anthem at universities across Canada[10] was not officially released as a commercial or radio single, but became the band's signature song.[2] (Despite its not being a single, a music video was released for the song.)
Evolution
As part of their tour to support Save This House, the band toured England with The Wonder Stuff,[11] and decided to bring in a drummer and experiment with a more rock-oriented sound — a need which became particularly acute after the bands played two shows on the same bill as Jane's Addiction.[3] After recording some song demos with guest drummer Darrell Mayes of the Colin James band[12] and then touring for part of 1990 with various session drummers, the band brought in Vince Ditrich, who appeared for the first time on the band's 1991 album Go Figure.[13]
Although the album retained many of the band's folk influences,[14] it was more hard rock than any of the band's previous efforts,[13] and this proved controversial among the band's fans. The album included a rock rendition of "Political", and at one show in London, Ontario, the audience presented the band with a petition demanding that they play the original version of that song.[15] Despite the controversies, however, it won them many new fans in the alternative rock scene.[3]
MacRae also appeared on The Wonder Stuff's album Never Loved Elvis,[14] and all of the members of both bands recorded a cover of the country standard "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" as a B-side for the Wonder Stuff's "Welcome to the Cheap Seats" single.[3][11] Over the winter of 1992-93, the band undertook the Hollow Bodies tour, performing material in their older acoustic style.[16]
In 1993, the band released their most successful album, Faithlift, and scored their biggest hit single, "And if Venice is Sinking". 1995's Two Headed, in turn, garnered significant airplay for the single "Tell Me What I Think", and the band garnered a Juno Award nomination for Group of the Year at the Juno Awards of 1995. However, the album was not as successful on the charts, or as critically hailed, as its predecessor.
Beginning in 1995, the band also performed a number of shows with symphony orchestras across Canada,[17] premiering songs written for a planned symphony album with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.[17] After recording two shows with the VSO on May 12 and May 13, 1995, they released the album Open Heart Symphony that year;[18] the concert also aired on Bravo concurrently with the album's release.[18]
At the end of 1996, McRae left the band amicably to pursue a solo career, performing her last show on New Year's Eve of that year. She released a solo country album in 1997, and then formed the alternative country band Cheerful Lonesome.[19]
The remaining members recorded 1997's Weights and Measures as a four-piece at Martin Barre's studio in Devon, England,[1] working with Barre and members of The Wonder Stuff, Capercaillie and Fairport Convention to round out the studio effort,[20] and added Tobin Frank for their concert tour.[21] In the same year, a studio version of the song "Kiss & Tell", which had previously been released only in its live form on Open Heart Symphony, appeared on the soundtrack to the film The Hanging Garden.[22]
However, with the music industry's emphasis having shifted by this time away from alternative rock and back toward more mainstream pop-oriented performers, Warner Bros. put little effort into promoting the album, and dropped the band from their roster after the tour.[3]
Hiatus and revival
After Weights & Measures the band took a hiatus from recording and broad-scale national touring, although they continued to perform selected live dates on the summer folk festival circuit and in major concert markets such as Vancouver and Toronto. During the hiatus, Mann, Ditrich and Kelly all released solo albums, Mann pursued acting roles, McMillan worked as a session musician and producer for The Town Pants, and Kelly and Frank recorded with The Paperboys.
In 2008, the band released a 25th anniversary compilation, Spirituality 1983-2008: The Consummate Compendium, on Rhino Records.[15] The two-CD set includes 32 remastered tracks from throughout the band's career, including two new songs, "Winter's Now the Enemy" and "Another Happy New Year". Their official 25th anniversary concert, held at Vancouver's Commodore Ballroom on March 14, 2008, was recorded and broadcast by CBC Radio 2.[24] Concurrently with the release of Spirituality, Rhino also released remastered editions of Faithlift and Open Heart Symphony.
In 2009, Spirit of the West opened for Great Big Sea on the "Fortune's Favour" tour, finishing in Victoria, British Columbia on March 26.[25] On this tour, the final encore performances typically involved both bands performing together on various songs, including Spirit of the West's "Political" and Great Big Sea's "The Old Black Rum".[26]
In 2010, Kelly, Ditrich and Frank joined Ashley MacIsaac and folk musician Matthew Harder in recording a charity single, "Dreams", to benefit Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, a skier from Ghana who was the first Ghanaian athlete ever to compete in the Winter Olympics.[27] Nkrumah-Acheampong himself participated in the recording, playing traditional Ghanaian percussion.[27] The single, credited to The Parallel Band, was released to iTunes on February 19, 2010.[27] Concurrently, Mann was in Edmonton, starring in a stage production of Bruce Ruddell's rock musical Beyond Eden.[28] In 2011, the full Spirit of the West lineup recorded and released another charity single, "Bulembu", to benefit the Bulembu orphanage and sustainable economic development project in Swaziland; the song also includes a vocal choir of children from Bulembu.[29]
Kelly underwent surgery in early 2012 and was unable to perform for several weeks; Harder and Kendel Carson of The Paperboys substituted for him in several live shows during this period, including the band's traditional annual St. Patrick's Day show at the Commodore Ballroom.[30] At the band's 2014 St. Patrick's Day show, they were inducted into the British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame.[31]
Conclusion
In September 2014, Mann announced that he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease,[32] but planned to continue performing with the band as long as he remained able to do so.[32] In concession to Mann's illness, the band began performing with an iPad mounted near the microphone in case Mann had difficulty remembering the lyrics, while Harder joined full-time to take over Mann's duties on lead guitar. Weeks after the announcement, Mann performed a concert featuring his solo material and that of Spirit of the West, which was broadcast by CBC Television's Absolutely Canadian in July 2015 as "John Mann Here and Now".[33]
In December 2015, the band announced that they would perform a three-night run at the Commodore Ballroom from April 15 to 17 as their final shows.[34] Over the month before the final shows, the band undertook a small-scale final tour.[35]
The band remained informally active through private "Johnny Jams" as a form of music therapy for Mann,[37] and Kelly communicated the hope that Mann would remain healthy enough for the band to play occasional brief reunion sets in the future.[2] Following The Tragically Hip's announcement in May 2016 that singer Gord Downie had been diagnosed with brain cancer but would undertake a tour with the band in summer 2016, Kelly was interviewed by both CBC Radio One's Day 6[38] and Maclean's[35] about his experiences performing with Spirit of the West under similar circumstances.
The band performed a reunion set at Spirit of Canada, a benefit concert for Alzheimer's awareness at the Commodore Ballroom on November 19, 2017. The concert's lineup included Odds, Barney Bentall, Dustin Bentall, Jim Byrnes, Kendel Carson, Jim Cuddy, Alan Doyle, Colin James, Sarah McLachlan, Ed Robertson, Shari Ulrich and Spirit: The Next Generation, an act consisting of the band members' children.[39] Before the show, the performing musicians participated in a group recording of the band's signature song "Home for a Rest" as a tribute to Mann.[40]
In 2007, "Home for a Rest" ranked No.8 on CFNY's "Top 102 Canadian New Rock Songs of All Time" chart.
"Save This House" is the theme song for Save Us from Our House, a combined relationship/renovation/reality TV show which aired in 2007 on the Canadian cable network W, and on HGTV in the U.S.
In 2010, Spirit of the West were the recipients of the National Achievement Award at the annual SOCAN Awards in Toronto.[47]
Ashley Dwayne MacIsaac is a Canadian fiddler, pianist, singer and songwriter from Cape Breton Island. He has received three Juno Awards, winning for Best New Solo Artist and Best Roots & Traditional Album – Solo at the Juno Awards of 1996, and for Best Instrumental Artist at the Juno Awards of 1997. His 1995 album Hi™ How Are You Today? was a double-platinum selling Canadian record. MacIsaac published an autobiography, Fiddling with Disaster in 2003.
54-40 is a Canadian rock band from Tsawwassen, British Columbia. The band take their name from the slogan "54-40 or Fight!", coined to express the successful expansionist agenda of James K. Polk's presidency, which was intent upon controlling a contested U.S.-Canada border area in the Oregon boundary dispute. 54-40 has had a successful career, with four of their albums being certified platinum in Canada. The band has been nominated for eight Juno Awards. Between 1996 and 2016, 54-40 were among the top 150 best-selling Canadian artists in Canada and among the top 50 best-selling Canadian bands in Canada.
The Irish Rovers is a group of Irish musicians that formed in Toronto, Canada in 1963 and named after the traditional song "The Irish Rover". They are best known for their international television series, contributing to the popularization of Irish Music in North America, and for the songs "The Unicorn", "Drunken Sailor", "Wasn't That a Party", "The Orange and the Green", "Whiskey on a Sunday", "Lily the Pink", "Finnegan's Wake" and "The Black Velvet Band".
Glass Tiger is a Canadian rock band from Newmarket, Ontario that formed in 1983. The band has released five studio albums. Its 1986 debut album, The Thin Red Line, went quadruple platinum in Canada and gold in the United States. Two singles from that album, "Don't Forget Me " and "Someday", reached the U.S. Top 10.
John Fraser Mann was a Canadian rock musician, songwriter and actor. He was best known as the frontman of the folk rock band Spirit of the West.
Geoffrey Kelly is a Canadian rock musician. He played guitars, flutes and bodhrán for the folk rock band Spirit of the West, for whom he was also the lead vocalist on some songs: Geoffrey Kelly and John Mann were the band's primary songwriters and founders. They were often referred to as the "Glummer Twins". Their partnership endured through the years until the final 3 SOTW shows at the beloved Commodore Ballroom in April 2016. The Spirit of Canada shows took place at the Commodore the following year with an all star cast of Canada's finest.
Vince Richard Ditrich is a Canadian rock musician, best known as the drummer and manager of the band Spirit of the West. Ditrich is also the author of three novels featuring fictional musician Tony Vicar.
Hit Parade is the second compilation album by Canadian folk rock group Spirit of the West, released on September 14, 1999 by Warner Music Canada.
Go Figure is the fifth studio album by Canadian folk rock group Spirit of the West, released on June 25, 1991 by Warner Music Canada. It was the band's first rock album, and their first with drummer Vince Ditrich.
Labour Day is a 1988 album by Spirit of the West.
Odds are a Canadian alternative rock band based in Vancouver, British Columbia. They were nominated for six Juno Awards in the 1990s. As of 2014, they are on their fifth record label.
"Home for a Rest" is a song by Canadian folk rock band Spirit of the West from their fourth studio album Save This House, released in 1990. It is the band's signature song and is considered a classic of Canadian music.
"Political" is a song written by John Mann and recorded by Canadian folk rock group Spirit of the West. One of the band's most famous songs, it originally released in 1988 as the lead single from their second studio album Labour Day. While it failed to chart as a single in 1988, it was re-recorded and released in October 1991 as the second single from their fifth studio album Go Figure, peaking at number 70 in Canada in November 1991.
Wild T & the Spirit is a Canadian blues rock band, fronted by guitarist Tony Springer.
"Bobcaygeon" is a song by Canadian rock band the Tragically Hip. It was released in February 1999 as a single from their sixth album, Phantom Power, and has come to be recognized as one of the band's most enduring and beloved signature songs.
"Ahead by a Century" is a song by Canadian rock band the Tragically Hip. It was released as the lead single from the band's fifth studio album, Trouble at the Henhouse. The song reached number one on Canada's singles chart, and is the band's most successful single in their native Canada. It was one of the 10 most-played songs in Canada in 1996. The song was nominated for "Best Single" at the 1997 Juno Awards. The song was certified platinum in Canada in 2016.
Dear Rouge are a Juno award-winning Vancouver-based alternative rock band formed in 2012 by Drew and Danielle McTaggart.
Spirit Unforgettable is a 2016 Canadian documentary film, which premiered at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in 2016. Directed by Pete McCormack, the film profiles the Canadian folk rock band Spirit of the West in preparation for a 2015 concert at Massey Hall, as part of their farewell tour following lead singer John Mann's diagnosis with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, interspersing the story of his diagnosis and the band's preparations for the concert with a portrait of their overall history.
David Gibson is a Canadian pop-rock singer. He received a Juno Award nomination for Most Promising Male Vocalist in 1987.
Cock's Crow is the second full-length studio album by Waltons, released in 1995 on Warner Music Canada. Produced by Michael Phillip Wojewoda, the album features contributions from Geoffrey Kelly, John Mann and Linda McRae of Spirit of the West. It was also the band's first album to add the keyboards of Todd Lumley to the band's traditionally folk rock sound.
1 2 "Spirits aim to shake up Canadians". Toronto Star, June 30, 1991.
1 2 "High-Spirited group: B.C. folk-rockers pump up volume". The Province, June 27, 1991.
1 2 "That's the Spirit; No 'Home for a Rest' as Spirit of the West releases best-of double disc and hits the road". Toronto Star, July 16, 2008.
↑ "Creative Batteries Boosted: Spirit of the West bounces back with tour, album". Ottawa Citizen, February 3, 1993.
1 2 "Going symphonic no strain for Spirit of the West; Former folkies' concert with ESO to premiere acoustic material for upcoming album". Edmonton Journal, May 6, 1995.
1 2 "Smells like clean Spirit Despite many musical leaps, Spirit Of The West's aim remains true". Toronto Star, June 8, 1996.
↑ "From punk to roots music; Ex-Spirit of the West player says it's not such a surprising evolution". Victoria Times-Colonist, May 2, 2012.
↑ "Spirit of the West; Return to folkier roots means familiar pleasures for band's longtime fans". Edmonton Journal, November 25, 1997.
↑ "Celtic music rocks on; The faddish frenzy of the '90s is over, but Great Big Sea can still sell out a hockey arena". Victoria Times-Colonist, March 26, 2009.
↑ "A great Great Big farewell; Ottawa favourites, fans in high spirits at final show before band breaks for a while". Ottawa Citizen, March 23, 2009.
1 2 3 "Ghana's Snow Leopard records Olympic dream song with Canadian fiddler MacIsaac". Canadian Press, February 19, 2010.
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