Lynne Hanson has been called Canada’s Queen of Americana. The Ottawa-based singer-songwriter is bringing her acclaimed gritty, rootsy approach to the genre to Alberta for nine shows this fall.
“I love Alberta,” says Hanson. “It’s the best province in the country.” The landscape, the mountains, the people – it’s got the whole package, she says.
“I always have a great time whenever I play shows in Alberta so I just keep coming back.”
Her music hits the target well in this province, Hanson says. “I’ve always had a lot of luck in Alberta with the kind of songs that I play. There’s a little bit of a country element to what I do. We call it Americana, because of the nature of the lyrics, they tend to be pretty dark and hard-hitting, but I just think my natural tendencies in terms of sounds tend to be something that really resonates with Alberta.”
Her lyrics have evolved from earlier years when sadness was the theme.
“I love a good heartbreak song and I probably always will,” she laughs. “I love hearing them, I love writing them. But I think especially as you get older your perspective changes. You become a little more stable in your own life.”
“Instead of starting from inwards and telling a story that has something to do with what I feel, more and more often I’m able to write a song that’s about how someone else might feel. As a result I think the songs tend to be more about what it’s like to actually be living, versus always how I’m feeling.”
And conveniently she’s co-writing songs with a young music partner who is going through a break-up, so she still gets to write sad songs, just for someone else to sing.
“Every time we get together we write another heartbreak song and it’s so much fun because I like writing them but I don’t like living them.”
Described in her bio as, “too tough for folk and too blues-influenced for country,” Hanson has won two Canadian Folk Music Awards and just released her tenth studio album, Just A Poet.
She has toured widely throughout North America, Europe and the UK. And now she will be in Alberta starting September 27, gracing stages in Red Deer, Calgary, Foothills County, Edson, Edmonton, Athabasca, Vermilion, Priddis and Medicine Hat. Details and tickets are on her website.
