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Doug Paisley

DOUG PAISLEY with JENNY WHITELEY and JERRY LEGER at the Horseshoe (370 Queen West), Friday (November 7), 8:30 pm. $13.50. HS, RT, SS, TF.


“When I released Strong Feelings, a lot of people said, ‘Oh, you’ve made a country album,’” says Toronto songwriter Doug Paisley of his third album, which came out in January on No Quarter. “I certainly didn’t set out to do that, but it was unanimous.”

Perhaps Paisley was so steeped in the genre, he didn’t notice. (Over the course of our conversation he mentions George Jones, Kenny Rogers and Charlie Rich – just a few country greats he admires.)

Paisley is not big fan of CD release shows, so Friday’s show at the ’Shoe stands as a belated launch for the album and also coincides with a new 7-inch single, Until I Find You/Everything Is Made, the A side of which features a duet with Bonnie Prince Billy. 

Strong Feelings is more fleshed out, country rock and adventurous than its soft, focused predecessor, Constant Companion, a difference Paisley attributes to circumstance: the 2010 disc’s -hastily organized recording session at fellow Toronto singer/songwriter Hayden’s studio.

“It’s an attic space, so you have to play a certain way in it, and it has this real intimacy, which I think is on that album,” says Paisley. “With this one there was a lot more time to think about where I wanted to record and who I wanted to work with.”

Paisley is committed to recording to tape whenever possible, which is why he chose Parkdale’s Noble Street Studios. He even travelled to Huntsville to borrow Hawksley Workman’s tape -machine for additional sessions with keyboardist Garth Hudson on Glenn Gould’s Steinway at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

In addition to Hudson, Strong Feelings features Bazil Donovan on bass, Emmett Kelly on guitar and appearances by Tamara Lindeman, Colin Stetson and others. But most striking are the duets with Mary Margaret O’Hara, which close both sides of the album. O’Hara came to the studio to sing on jazzy What’s Up Is Down and ended up jumping in on Because I Love You on the fly, throwing in a surprise whistle solo to boot.

“The only way to play with O’Hara is engaging and engaged. If it was anything less than that, I don’t know how involved she’d want to be or if she would be,” he says.

“In a way it was unfortunate that there were people in the other room – an engineer and so on. It was really just about the time that she and I spent together. She’s really dynamic.”

Interview Clips

Doug Paisley talks about the song Radio Girl and discovering music as a teenager in Toronto

Doug Paisley talks about the sincerity of Strong Feelings and relates it to going to see Engelbert Humperdinck with Mary Margaret O’Hara

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