Aaron MacDonald

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Aaron MacDonald hopes to pop into ECMA winner’s circle print this article

LAURA JEAN GRANT
The Cape Breton Post

MABOU — A hard-working Cape Breton musician has earned his first East Coast Music Association award nomination.
Aaron MacDonald’s latest album, John Prine’s Advice, has been nominated for pop recording of the year and the Mabou native couldn’t be more thrilled.
“I was absolutely excited. I found out from a friend of mine through a text message and it totally caught me off guard,” he said. “I’ve been playing music for between 10-15 years now and this is the first little bit of recognition so I’m thoroughly excited and ecstatic and it’s just great news.”
A well-known name in local music circles, MacDonald said he’s been fortunate to have a core fan base in communities across the Maritimes. The 31-year-old singer-songwriter released four independent albums between 2000 and 2003, before taking a recording hiatus.
“In the past I was more sort of in the jam band scene, through my 20s, and then I stepped away from music for about two years and at that time I moved back to Cape Breton,” he explained. “I started just trying to write more structured songs and improve my songwriting ability and from there these songs came and I decided to record some of them.”
The response to the resulting 2008 release, John Prine’s Advice, has been positive, with MacDonald’s loyal fans coming along for the ride and drawing in an ever-increasing legion of new fans.
“We’ve had nothing but good reviews so far on the album and it’s going well and I’m absolutely pleased with it,” he said.
MacDonald — who is up against Christina Martin’s Two Hearts, Damhnait Doyle’s Lights Down Low, Dave Carrol’s Perfect Blue, Gordie Sampson’s For The Few And Far Between, MIR’s OK2Go!, and Ian Foster’s Room in the City, in the pop recording category — said he’s looking forward to the entire ECMA experience in Corner Brook, N.L. Feb. 26 to March 1.
“As a nominee, we get to participate in this five-minute pitch to industry buyers so that’s an opportunity for me to really get in front of the major players and try to show our stuff,” he said. “But other than that I really want to concentrate on just putting on some good shows, and besides that, make sure I go see some other great music. There’s going to be a ton of great music over there.”
MacDonald will be joined in Corner Brook by drummer Neil MacQuarrie and Jim Mullin, on bass, for several shows that weekend, including an official ECMA showcase performance. His cousin, Canadian Idol runner-up Mitch MacDonald, will also join him on stage during the weekend.
“We have a full slate — three shows and then the awards shows, so we’re ready,” he said. “I’ve toured Canada and I’ve been in every other province except for Newfoundland so this will be my first time in Newfoundland so I’m pumped.”
MacDonald won’t have much of a break from performing once he gets back home, with plans to do show dates throughout the Maritimes, as well as Ontario and western Canada in the coming months.
“Our spring and summer are already filling up. We’re confirming dates as we speak,” he said. - Cape Breton Post

Mabou singer-songwriter Aaron MacDonald is very excited that his song, We Can Carry On, has been selected to be featured in the United Way of Halifax Region’s annual fund-raising campaign.

“We’ll be performing the song this Friday, Sept. 11th at noon at the Grand Parade in downtown Halifax at the official launch of the campaign. It will be released across Atlantic Canada with a video by CTV and United Way featuring photos of the Halifax region. I’ll be joined by musicians Ed Woodsworth, Jamie Robinson and Neil MacQuarrie at the Grand Parade during the performance launch,” said MacDonald.

Aaron wrote the song and recorded it at Soundpark Studios in Sydney with Jamie Foulds doing the production duties.

“I did vocals and guitar, and Jamie Foulds produced the song, and he played keyboards and added harmony vocals. Ed Woodsworth played bass and guitar, and Brian Talbot and Darren Gallop added percussion,” MacDonald told The Oran this week. The song was mastered in Toronto. Aaron MacDonald licenses the song to United Way, but he will maintain ownership of it for future use if he chooses.

Last year, United Way had a $5.8 million fund-raising target, which they achieved.

The United Way’s campaign director, Denise Green, approached Aaron with the idea during his CD launch at The Music Room in Halifax in March of 2008 for John Prine’s Advice. She called him again last May and mentioned that they were looking for original material. Aaron gave it some thought and was inspired to begin writing after a trip home one Friday afternoon from Halifax.

“I knew they were looking for something positive, something they could use to bring people together, and something to encourage the community to work together,” Aaron noted, saying he also looked into similar United Way campaigns across the country and continent to see what they were doing. In previous years, local United Way campaigns have used the music of artists such as Amanda Marshall and Sue MacNeil.

“I was able to write most of the new song that weekend and add the finishing touches later, and the next step was to play the song live for them in their office. That was back in June. Because not everyone was there that day, I had to go back again, but they were very accommodating, and they gave me the go-ahead and asked me to start scouting out a recording studio,” he explained.

“We are so pleased to have this song to rally support for our community. We really are uniting people when we work together to raise money to support programs that make it possible for people to change their lives,” said Catherine Woodman, president and CEO of United Way of Halifax Region.

“Aaron has given United Way a wonderful gift by uniting his talent with our cause to support people in our community. This song will travel great distances to inspire giving all across the community,” added Denise Green, United Way’s campaign director.

Carole McDougall, United Way’s communications director, told The Oran that United Way is prepared to share the song with any of the 11 United Way regional offices in the Atlantic region. - John Gillis - Inverness Oran

It all began back in 2003 when Aaron MacDonald and his band were doing a six-week tour of Ontario and Quebec in an old, beat-up 1994 Chevy cargo van named Bertha.

"We were touring steady for about three years. We'd just spent the last three or four days in Montreal. we were listening to John Prine all the way home to Halifax, so his music was just stuck in my mind. Around that same time I ended up moving back home from Halifax to Mabou," said MacDonald.

One of those songs was Prine's Spanish Pipedream (sometimes better known as Blow Up Your TV). It's a darkly humourous post-Vietnam-era tale about a soldier on his way to Montreal and a topless dancer whose lives are changed after a chance meeting. They go on to live happily ever after, the secret to their surreal success, among other things, moving to the country and blowing up their TV. The song resonated with MacDonald enough that he penned his own ode to the Prine song and what became the title track of his new CD: John Prine's Advice.

John Prine's Advice became somewhat of a forerunner to the many changes that were to come in MacDonald's own life - moving back to the country, getting married, becoming a father of two children, etc., yet all the while continuing to write songs and perform.

John Prine's Advice is full of vivid imagery beginning in struggle. "I'm sorting through rubble. The foundation of my mind. Face down in a puddle. Lapping up all the brine." MacDonald brilliantly and humourously contrasts scenes from the urban jungle with the down-home country wisdom from Prine's chorus into this great title track with the promise of more great things to come.

John Prine's Advice is MacDonald fifth independent CD and the mark of a songwriter coming into his own and finding his own voice, style and sound. It's a CD that should get MacDonald the recognition he deserves for his songwriting and performing abilities - perhaps even score a couple of well-deserved hits.

If there's any justice in the world there won't be too many music listeners who won't be able to hum along to Drizzle before the summer is over. It's a song that has a certain magic, whether you grasp what it's about immediately or not, to be a radio hit as well, and Dave MacIsaac's tasteful guitar solo just shines.

"We took the time to get it right with Bryan Melanson at Highball Sound Productions in Antigonish. It was a relaxed atmosphere. Once we felt good with the results of one song we moved on to the next."

"I had a sound in mind going into the studio, but we wanted to keep it simple enough that it could be reproduced on stage as well," MacDonald says.

The help of some musical family members was enlisted in the recording process, including brother-in-law Neil MacQuarrie on drums, cousins Mitch and Gordie MacDonald on harmony vocals, and friends Jonny Grant on bass and Dave MacIsaac on electric guitar and mandolin.

"It has a really family feel to it for sure, and we're really proud of the result," says MacDonald who often gigs with his cousins and other musical friends each summer in the Cape Breton band, Crossfire.

The prolific MacDonald, who estimates he's penned more than 100 songs to date in his career, is looking forward to focusing on marketing himself as a songwriter.

In the coming days and weeks he'll be doing some of the promotion work to get the word out on the new recording.

His website and MySpace site are up and running; there are three shows booked for CD releases and some discussions beginning about radio interviews. Visit www.myspace.com/aaronmacdonaldsmusic for a sampling of the new recording or www.aaronmacdonald.ca for more information.

- John Gillis - March 2008 - The Inverness Oran

"Aaron MacDonald is one of this region's top new singer / songwriters. His latest CD, John Prine's Advice, is a great collection of songs and an excellent showcase of his writing and performing skills."
- Jimmie Inch -
Executive Producer / Host, East Coast Countdown - Brickyard Entertainment

"This album has a sound that encapsulates the laid-back attitude of Nova Scotia living. it is reminiscent of the feelings conjured by the coming of summer, dancing in the sun, and forgetting all worries."
- Brian Cauley - The Xaverian Weekly - The Xaverian Weekly