JUNO's Songwriter's Circle 2016

A photo posted by Irene Seto (@heyseto) on Apr 3, 2016 at 11:28am PDT

Canada is blessed to have such amazing musicians that weave stories about our Canadian heritage and experiences. The Songwriter’s Circle brings together a small group of such artists to share their musical background and is known as the “gem” of the JUNOs weekend. This year’s edition brought Calgary boy Paul Brandt home to host the event. It was an eclectic group of JUNO nominee ranging from new acts like Autumn Hill and Ria Mae to established voices like Alex Cuba and Matt Good. The diversity worked well through the entire show – they were funny, they were charming, and boy, could they sing.

In telling their stories about their song-writing experiences, it felt like the artists were doing part stand-up comedy and part therapy session on stage. Old Man Luedecke shared stories about the seemingly mundane like parenting at the grocery store. Alan Doyle explained how Jann Arden inspired Great Big Sea’s biggest hit Ordinary Day. Paul Brand sang his classic Alberta homage ditties causing new artist Ria to dub him as the “Drake of Alberta.”

The format of the circle saw two different sessions with the first group of artists singing a few tunes and then the second group switching places for their turn. I would have liked for the artists to have discussed their songs with each other or played songs together. But the show itself still played very well with each artist taking their individual turn and shining a collective light on how great Canadian music is.