27/05/2025
Coming up on Monday 2nd June....
James Keelaghan lives in a charming little town called Perth, (in Eastern Ontario).
Dave Marsh, the eminent Rolling Stone critic, simply described James as “Canada’s finest songwriter.”
Throughout a career that now spans almost four decades, the Juno and Canadian Folk Music Award winner has created a repertoire of incalculable importance. Ten solo albums flush with enduring lyrical relevance.
Various originals from James must surely enter the domain of traditional folklore. Most notably, Small Rebellions (highlighting the 1931 slaughter of peaceful striking miners in Bienfait, SK); Hillcrest Mine (a prelude to the worst coal mining disaster in Canadian history); Kiri’s Piano (a triumph over adversity amidst the shameful, racist treatment of Japanese-Canadians during WW II); Cold Missouri Waters (a harrowing portrait of the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire in the mountains of Montana) …
A relentless musical spirit, James has surrounded himself with a variety of amazing musicians down through the years that have largely included the late, innovative, free-spirited fiddler and composer, Oliver Schroer, the exuberant, Chilean, Latino-fusionist guitarist, Oscar Lopez, or the ubiquitous, former Spirit of the West anchor and multi-instrumentalist, Hugh MacMillan.
There have been several mouth-watering collaborations in the writing department, too. Celebrated names in the folk world such as Karrine Polwart, Jez Lowe, Catherine MacLellan, David Francey, Lynn Miles, Dave Gunning, Cara Luft and J.D. Edwards … all contributed to notable releases.
James Keelaghan, as they say, is “a man you don’t meet every day.”
Check out James singing Cold Missouri Waters
