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JOHN WORT HANNAM CHECKS INTO
QUEEN’S HOTEL ON NEW CD FOR
BLACK HEN MUSIC DUE NOVEMBER 17
VANCOUVER, BC – Black Hen Music
announces a November 17 release date
for Queen’s Hotel, the
latest album of songs from Canadian
singer/songwriter John Wort Hannam.
The Black Hen Music label is
distributed in the U.S. by Burnside
Distribution.
A former ninth-grade language arts
teacher on the largest reserve in
Canada
-
The Kanai Nation,
part of the Blackfoot Confederacy –
John Wort Hannam heard a Loudon
Wainwright III album in 1997 and
became enthralled with the music and
stories. After buying a guitar and
learning some chords, he quit
teaching in 2002 and set out on the
road pursuing his dream of becoming
a working musician.
Queen’s Hotel
is Wort Hannam’s fourth
full-length CD and second release
for Black Hen Music. His last album,
Two-Bit Suit, was
released in 2007 and produced by
Juno award-winner Steve Dawson, who
again takes the helm producing 11
tracks of authentic Canadiana
folk/roots music on the new CD. The
writing, although true to John’s
narrative story-telling style, is
tighter, smarter, more personal, and
with a breadth of subject matter not
seen on previous recordings. The
upbeat “With the Grain” (a
song for which Wort Hannam won Grand
Prize at the 2009 Calgary Folk Music
Festival Songwriting Competition)
recalls the conversation where John
tells his father he would quit
teaching to attempt a shot at
performing music. “Worth a Damn”, a
timeless sounding duet performed
with multi-Juno award-winner Jenny
Whiteley, is reminiscent of a John
Prine/Iris Dement collaboration.
Despite the title, “Requiem For A
Small Town”
is a rollicking 3 and ½ minute
look at the town that just never
quite made it. The poignant but
catchy closing song, “Lucky
Strikes,” was written
after a visit to the infamous
Queen’s Hotel, located near the
Canadian Rockies in the Western
Canadian province of Alberta. “When
I Drink Too Much” is a humorous tune
that begs for a sing-a-long in a
funky barroom. Wort Hannam also
revisits two songs from previous
independent releases: “Church of the
Long Grass,” which has
been called by some “the unofficial
anthem of southern Alberta,” and
“Pier 21,” which
recounts the immigration of Wort
Hannam’s family from the island of
Jersey in the Channel Islands, UK,
to Canada in the late ‘70s.
Queen’s Hotel
was recorded
“live on the floor” at Vancouver’s
The Factory, with all the musicians
in one room facing each other in a
circle, and very few overdubs. The
resulting sound is immediate,
comfortable, warm and inviting.
Along with John Wort Hannam on
vocals, guitar and tenor guitar, the
rest of the band included Steve
Dawson on electric guitar, Dobro,
National and Weissenborn guitars and
pump organ, John Reischman on
mandolin and mandola, Rob Becker on
upright bass, Geoff Hicks on drums
and Jeanne Tolmie, Tyler Bird and
Jenny Whiteley on backing vocals.
In
addition to numerous Canadian music
awards and nominations, John Wort
Hannam was the “New Folk” category
winner in the 2007 songwriting
competition at the prestigious
Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas. He
will tour extensively in both Canada
and the U.S. in support of
Queen’s Hotel.
For
more information, visit
www.blackhenmusic.com or
www.johnworthannam.com.
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