‘I was writing stuff, but it was just crap’ — folk stalwart James Keelaghan

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James Keelaghan
Grace Presbyterian Church
Friday, October 30 - Friday, October 30

More in: Folk / Country

“I’m beginning to view history as something we live and that really has been made clear in the past couple of years,” says former Calgarian James Keelaghan from his Winnipeg home base. “You look at the news and you get a sense that you’re living through a historic time. So, if I’m writing about the present, I guess I’m really writing about history.”

Keelaghan certainly knows history, and he has been repeating it, albeit in his own words and his own voice, for nigh on two decades. Not all history, however, is created equally. “We sleepwalked through a whole bunch of stuff that I don’t think is necessarily going to be history — it will turn up in compendiums of bad fashion,” he quips. “I think we are presently living through one of those times where it’s a big shakeup.”

The title track from Keelaghan’s new disc, House of Cards, takes the obvious metaphor from the recent credit collapse and deals it out to its endgame over majestic horn arrangements by former Spirit of the West multi-instrumentalist Hugh McMillan. Keelaghan co-produced this understated, wholly acoustic effort, which brings his personal vision of history and his characteristic blend of sunny and dark perspectives into modern times. The album contrasts global trepidation and uncertainty with the importance of home and hearth, the dark brooding intensity of “Medusa” with the “Honey pack up the car and let’s go fishin’” domesticity of “Leave Town.”

Another novel aspect to the new record is a greater-than-ever amount of collaborative songwriting. Joella Foulds from Cape Breton’s Celtic Colours Festival took Keelaghan and five other singer-songwriters, put them up in a large house in small-town Nova Scotia, fed them three meals a day and left them to write new material. The experiment proved wildly successful.

“We were so busy we hardly left the house,” he marvels. “It got so intensely good. The idea was we were supposed to have two full sets of tunes at the end of the week. On Sunday we said, ‘If we get eight tunes, we can flesh it out with stuff from our back catalogue, so let’s relax and not worry about it.’ By Wednesday, we had the makings of 20 tunes. By Friday night we’d finished all 20.”

At the end, 17 of the new tunes were debuted in concert and five of them are featured on HoC. The timing was perfect, as Keelaghan had been feeling a little out of touch with his muse and at a bit of a loss for words. “I came into the song house with five or six different melodies but I had no idea about words — none,” he admits.

“I don’t like referring to it as writer’s block,” he continues. “I think I was looking for a new direction and I just hadn’t really evolved what that new direction was going to be. I was writing stuff, but it was just crap.”

Fans needn’t worry. Keelaghan is back in fine form and eagerly anticipating an extensive tour. While our collective future history may be uncertain and fraught with difficulties, Keelaghan’s forecast for the future of the music business is significantly sunnier.

“I think we’re living in possibly the most exciting time ever in the music business, just because of all these opportunities,” he says. “In terms of being both performing and recording artists, we’ve never had as much control as we have now. I think it’s going to be a really good time if everybody just keeps their head. I’m pretty excited about stuff, not just in terms of touring and recording, but I think we’re about to be on a sea change in the whole live music circuit.”