Latest news with #GreatBigSea
CTV News
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- CTV News
‘Music is medicine, we need a dose right now': Great Big Sea member stopping in Edmonton on Canadian tour
Séan McCann of Ottawa and St. John's, N.L., is invested as a member of the Order of Canada by Gov. Gen. Mary Simon during a ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, on Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022. McCann was a founding member of folk rock band Great Big Sea, and now advocates for mental health as a solo artist. (The Canadian Press/Justin Tang) Séan McCann, founding member of Great Big Sea, is taking the road less travelled this summer as he tours Canadian cities and towns. 'The Great Big Canadian Road Trip' tour kicked off in May in Sudbury, Ont., and is something of a love letter to Canada. McCann will be hitting venues that are off the beaten path in towns less travelled. 'It's about reminding Canadians, from Kamloops to Kenora, that their stories matter and their voices count,' said a press release. 'Together we are strong enough to overcome every challenge we may face as a country moving forward.' McCann will be bringing his one-man show to the Grace United Church in the Fulton Place neighbourhood on June 14. The Order of Canada recipient said the tour isn't about hating on Americans, but embracing his home country by bringing music to people who need it most in places that don't always make the tour poster. 'I love Americans,' said McCann in a statement. 'I love them so much that I even married one, but I won't return to the states until the current president is gone and our neighbours change their angry tone.' McCann has already hit Medicine Hat and Calgary, playing at the public library and Parkdale United Church, respectively. Before coming to the city of champions next week, McCann will play a benefit concert in Jasper on June 13 at the Historic Jasper Baptist Church to raise funds for victims of last year's wildfire. 'I believe that Canada needs a little more singing and a little less shouting.'
CTV News
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Séan McCann embarks on cross-Canada unity tour
Northern Ontario Watch Rick Wyman chats with former Great Big Sea member and Order of Canada recipient Séan McCann has he sets out to embarking on a 2025 cross-Canada tour – eschewing U.S. stops due to political tensions – to foster connection through intimate performances in small venues, promoting unity and resilience. McCann will make several stops in northern Ontario.
CBC
02-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Need a musical apprenticeship? Look no further than Uncle Harry's Bar, says Alan Doyle
Before he became a Newfoundland superstar, Alan Doyle had to learn the musical ropes, which he credits to a west coast Newfoundland band. Uncle Harry's Bar Band was made up of Wayne Parsons, Charlie Payne and Rufus Drake, who played country music as well as traditional Newfoundland tunes in the 1980s and 1990s. "The presentation of the shows were always extremely professional, even when they were in places that could have easily just been, like, a bar band, you know? Like a little throw together kind of thing," Doyle told CBC Radio's Newfoundland Morning. "Uncle Harry's Bar were always slick and sounded great and looked great." As a young man in St. John's, Doyle said he and his friends would go to every concert they could, even if it meant sneaking into places like the Strand at the Avalon Mall. He said he was already playing in bands and wanted to learn everything he could, including what equipment bands were using, how to front a band and keep the dance floor swinging. Doyle says he enjoyed Uncle Harry's Bar Band so much that he wrote a glowing review in a 1989 issue of MUN's student newspaper The Muse. "Uncle Harry's Bar was just the best ones at it. Every time the song stopped, Wayne had a joke and everybody sang really well — it was a really polished show," said Doyle. Parsons recalled Saturday afternoons at the nightclub First City where Doyle and other musicians like Dave Stack would drop by to come up with some "licks." "I always prided myself on being able to read a room," said Parsons, who has been performing with Anchors Aweigh in Rocky Harbour for almost 30 years. He said he's kept up the skill set from his days performing with his Uncle Harry's Bar Band bandmates. A musical 'apprenticeship' Doyle says he considers himself lucky to have gotten such a musical "apprenticeship." He says that through travelling around the world in his professional career he found that not all musicians have the type of skill set that Uncle Harry's Bar Band had. "You'd be surprised how rare that skill set shows up," Doyle said. "People who walk into a room and know how to organize the next 35 or 40 minutes of a concert instantly in their minds, or rearrange it or switch and change … that's a rare thing." Parsons said a reunion with his other bandmates isn't likely to happen anytime soon, but the trio did play at Woody Point's come home year in 2016. More than a thousand people attended that concert. "We were so popular over here. So that was really good," said Parsons. Doyle says he was also taken with a particular guitar that Parsons played, describing it as a skinny Yamaha. It later became possible for him to buy it. "I thought it was like halfway between an electric guitar and an acoustic guitar and I thought it was the coolest thing I've ever seen," he said. While hanging out at First City, Parsons mentioned to Doyle he was looking to sell that guitar. Doyle jumped at the opportunity. He said he ended up playing it for some early Great Big Sea music videos, including Mari-Mac. "And I still have it," Doyle said.
