James Gordon (Canadian musician)
James Gordon | |
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File:James Gordon 1 (Hillside 2008).jpg
James Gordon performing at the Hillside Festival, which he co-founded in 1984.
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Residence | Guelph, Ontario |
Occupation | singer-songwriter |
Known for | Tamarack, "Frobisher Bay", Hillside Festival |
Spouse(s) | Val Morse |
Children | Evan Gordon, Geordie Gordon |
Website | http://www.jamesgordon.ca |
Notes | |
James Gordon is a Canadian singer-songwriter, known as a founding member of Tamarack.[1] He has also released more than 20 solo albums.
Contents
Musical career
As a prolific songwriter, James Gordon is known for such diverse songs as "Sweaters for Penguins" and "Frobisher Bay".[2]
He wrote the weekly song for the CBC Radio program Basic Black. He is proficient on a variety of instruments including guitar, piano, banjo and mandola.[3]
He has toured internationally in North America, the British Isles, Southeast Asia, and Cuba.[4]
His songs have been covered by other musical artists such as the Cowboy Junkies ("Mining for Gold") and Melanie Doane.
He is a co-founder of Guelph's annual Hillside Festival and was its first creative director, from 1985 to 1988.[5][6] He also founded (and was the artistic director of) the Canadian Songwriters' Festival,[5] and was a board member of the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals. Gordon is active in arts-, civics-, and environment-related causes in the Guelph region, for which he was given the Guelph Mayor's Award in 2008.[5]
Politics
Provincial
He was the candidate for the Ontario New Democratic Party in the riding of Guelph in the 2011 Ontario provincial election but lost to incumbent Liz Sandals.[7] He ran again in 2014 but once again lost to Liz Sandals.
Municipal
James Gordon threw his hat in the ring[8] for Ward Two City Councillor in the city of Guelph, Ontario in the October 27, 2014 Guelph municipal election. Gordon was elected to serve alongside Andy Van Hellemond and plans to continue his activist pursuits[9] such as touring his one-man show, "Stephen Harper: The Musical"[10]
Discography
Tamarack
- Au Canada (1980)
- Wind River
- Spirit & Stone
- 13
- Fields of Rock and Snow (1993)
- Frobisher Bay (1993)
- Leaving Inverarden (1995)
- Blankets of Snow (1998)
Solo recordings
- Looking for Livingstone (1987)
- Farther Along (1991)
- Hometown Tunes (1994)
- Dim Lights, Small City (1995)
- More Hometown Tunes (1997)
- Pipe Street Dreams (1999)
- Mining for Gold: Twenty Years of Songwriting (2002)
- Tune Cooties (2002)
- One Timeless Moment (2003)
- Endomusia (2004), includes "Weapons of Mass Instruction"
- Nine Green Bottles (2007), includes "Casey Sheehan Didn't Die for Nothing", credited to James Gordon and Sons
- My Stars Your Eyes (2009)
- Coyote's Calling (2013), includes "Jack's Dream"
Folk operas (musicals)
James Gordon used to perform with David Archibald as "Jane & Dave", producing family-oriented musicals.
- Jane & Dave's Awesome Environmental Adventure (1990)
- Jane & Dave's Awesome Search for the Golden Toad (1992)
- Jane & Dave's Awesome Supernatural Camping Adventure (1993)
More recently, his work includes:
- Hardscrabble Road (2003)
- Two Steps and a Glass of Water (2005), which deals with mental illness and health, also a film by Glenn Curtis [11]
- Tryst and Snout (2007)[12]
- Stephen Harper: The Musical (2013)[13]
Cinema
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- "Mining for Gold" on the soundtrack of the film Silver City (2004)
- Two Steps and a Glass of Water
References
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- ↑ bio at allmusic.com retrieved 1 June 2010
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- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ http://guelphpolitico.blogspot.ca/2014/08/james-gordon-to-give-municipal-politics.html
- ↑ http://www.guelphmercury.com/news-story/4955468-guelph-councillor-elect-james-gordon-vows-to-remain-an-activist/
- ↑ http://www.westerngazette.ca/2014/11/26/little-shop-harpers-musical-satire-stephen-harper-musical-comes-arts-project/
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ http://jamesgordon.ca/newsletter.html
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- Articles with dead external links from September 2010
- Use Canadian English from May 2013
- All Wikipedia articles written in Canadian English
- Use dmy dates from May 2013
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- Articles with hCards
- 1955 births
- Living people
- Canadian singer-songwriters
- Canadian folk musicians
- Canadian anti–Iraq War activists
- Canadian anti-war activists
- Ontario New Democratic Party candidates in Ontario provincial elections
- Guelph city councillors