Despite the fact that there were 513 submissions in 19 categories this year, the 2011 Canadian Folk Music Awards (still only in its seventh year) seemed small. This was partly due to the intimacy of the venue (U of T’s Isabel Bader Theatre) and partly because everyone over a certain age in the Canadian folk scene seems to be on a first name basis.
This was the first time that the CFMAs were held in Toronto, and the awards were also broadcast live online on Roots Music Canada.
Co-hosted by Shelagh Rogers and Benoit Bourque, it was a bilingual affair, with Rogers and Bourque not so much translating for each other as warmly picking up where each other left off, franglaise-style.
Things would have gone a lot differently if Bruce Cockburn – who was out on the West coast with a new baby – had won all four of the awards that he was nominated for. As it was, his manager, Bernie Finkelstein, collected two awards on his behalf, one near the beginning and the other at the end of the night, for Solo Artist Of The Year and Contemporary Album Of The Year.
Incredibly, Small Source Of Comfort is Cockburn’s 31st album.
Nova Scotian Dave Gunning, also nominated for four awards, won both Traditional Singer Of The Year and New/Emerging Artist Of The Year for a tribute to John Allan Cameron. Gunning, who’s been active since the late 90s, joked that he’s been emerging for a long time.
Quebec’s Genticorum also picked up two awards, for Ensemble Of The Year and Traditional Album Of The Year.
Some emotional moments included when local blues singer Suzie Vinnick collected her Contemporary Singer Of The Year, and when Sylvia Tyson delivered the English Songwriter Of The Year award to Ottawa-based singer/songwriter Lynn Miles with a hug and a big cheer from the crowd (Miles, ever the comedian, called Tyson her “hair hero”).
Indian-Canadian Kiran Ahluwalia picked up World Solo Artist Of The Year and gave credit to Canadian folk festivals for throwing her into collaborations with musicians from different cultural backgrounds. She later presented the World Group Artist Of The Year award to Toronto’s Minor Empire.
Jane Harbury, a veteran publicist, was the recipient of the inaugural Unsung Hero award, which celebrates people who work behind the scenes in Canada’s folk music industry. She told the story of how she came to manage Yorkville’s legendary Riverboat Coffeehouse, and had a long list of people to thank.
I would have liked to see David Francey, who’s an engaging live performer, pick up Solo Artist Of The Year, and the nominees in the Pushing The Boundaries (won by Vancouver alt-klezmer player Geoff Berner) and New/Emerging Artist Of The Year categories look like they could have been expanded. But these are quibbles.
The musical performances – two songs each from West Coast blues collaborators Jim Byrnes and Steve Dawson, East Coaster Rose Cousins, with her sad songs and silly banter, African-Canadian a cappella group Soul Influence, Quebecois trio De Temps Atan and celtic-folk-goth Loreena McKennitt – were consistently good.
Though McKennitt’s headlining performance was a powerful, Soul Influence and De Temps Antan stole the show the former with their surprising and uplifting vocal arrangements and the later with all the commotion three guys can make with their feet and a fiddle, whether or not the guitar pickup was working.
