Cort Delano

The Chris Benoit saga has moved a Calgary-based folk singer to compose a song about the wrestler’s tragic end. Cort DeLano wrote The Ballad of Chris Benoit on Tuesday when he caught wind of the media frenzy that had erupted after the Alberta-bred grappler’s body was found dead alongside the bodies of his wife and seven-year-old son. Police believe Benoit murdered them before ending his own life.

DeLano was intrigued by the fact that, despite Benoit’s crime, many were still portraying him as a hero. “I think he was like a rabbit backed into a corner with nowhere to go," DeLano says.
DeLano has posted the song on the Internet at www.myspace.com/cortdelano

Friday, June 29, 2007 - Calgary Herald

By Spencer Brown

Cort Delano is a back-to-basics roots musician distilling everything to its essential elements: lyrics, guitar, and a voice that crispy and clearly communicates the song to the listener. After discovering an old acoustic guitar in his father's closet, Delano found it as a natural next step after playing hockey and "picked around" on the guitar in high school.

"I had my first show four years ago, and I've been going consistently since then. I'm fortunate enough to be a full-time performer. I'm not rich, but it keeps the hounds from my door," smiles Delano.

With songs that are distinctly Albertan - focusing on subjects such as the South Country Fair, working on the rigs, and the odd satirical take on himself and his genre, Sorry Ass Folk Singer - it's no surprise that Delano's songwriting abilities have earned him recognition in our province, with three songs placing in the Calgary Folk Festival's Songwriting Competition - Best Song for Alberta category. The most recent, "Broken Arm," saw Delano consult a couple of Albertan heavyweights for songwriting tips.

"On a train trip I met Ian Tyson and Tom Russell, and I opened up communication with them," says Delano. "I sent them the song ("Broken Arm") and they said it was 'somewhat abstract,' but a good song, so I fine-tuned it and sent it into the Folk Fest Songwriting Competition and finished second." Delano points out the benefits of working with other musicians, whether at the Folk Fest workshops or in more informal settings. "In songwriting, the more influences, the better," he says with a thoughtful nod.

Being primarily a solo artist, Delano promises that "the next logical step is a trio," yet going alone has allowed Delano to tour extensively, having crossed from Victoria to St. John's in 2007, and even up to the Yukon and into New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. "It's easy" he muses, "because it's just you, a plane ticket and a guitar."

In addition to these varied locales, Delano also plays frequently in rural Alberta, but not where you'd think. "Lately, I've been playing a lot of fine dining establishments in small towns, and having live music in those kind of places is something they (small towns) seem to understand, but Calgary hasn't caught on quite yet," says Delano.

In terms of influences, Delano credits seeing the world as "being on the move is motivational and inspirational to playing music, work and travel combined."

"I take some pointers from wild birds," he says about nature's influence. "Ravens have been urging me to write lately, as funny as that sounds." More conventionally, "Bob Dylan, his movie (I'm Not There), really changed my view on poetics. Leonard Cohen's music keeps influencing me, Elvis, musicals, and of course Woody Guthrie.

"But," pauses Delano, "the nice thing about music is anywhere you go and anything you do, you can keep an influence." - Beat Route

“Having hosted over 300 open mics in the past 4 years, I've seen my share of good writers, but every once and a while, in this business, you catch a glimpse of something special....that's what I saw when I watched Cort Delano play live for the first time....I'm a believer! A true poet, with an instinct for the perfect hook, Cort is bound for greatness. Completely unique, quietly charming and unforgettable....don't be the one who missed out on the experience!!!” Troy Kokol. Singer/songwriter. - Troy Kokol

Some albums get over-produced and some, under-produced. But this one finds the happy medium. A very earthy delivery, with no electronic glitter.
I could imagine the road travelled, as story joined melody, colored by guitar over-shoulder and a pocket harp, and a few good fellows in fine rhythm.
We 'olders' might sense an image reminiscent of a Folk from yester-sixties. But is it the age of a generation, anew with the influences and changes the fore-We instilled, bringing the feelings of today to record? Perhaps it's to become a yester-decade for the now-possessers of youth.
Delano delivers. Really raw. And raw is real. And that is good.
One can be sure there are many who will love this work.

DFaires

for Calgary Songwriter.com
- Calgary songwriter.com

Song revisits Mayerthorpe
'I wanted to get inside the story'

Heath McCoy, Calgary Herald

Published: Thursday, April 19, 2007
Preview

For a storytelling folk-singer like Cort Delano, the nightmarish scene that went down on March 3, 2005, on a farm near the Alberta town of Mayerthorpe, was too tragically compelling to pass on. For all its horror and ugliness, the tale had to be told in song, and the 28-year-old Calgarian was determined to tell it.

At the Gates, a song on Delano's new album Sad Sorry-Ass Folk Singer, is a vivid reimagining of the events two years ago when town bully James Roszko, a convicted pedophile and known drug dealer, ambushed and killed four RCMP officers who were investigating claims of stolen truck parts and marijuana plants on his farm.

The case sparked a national outpouring of grief and outrage, a media frenzy, and a made-for-TV movie, To Serve and Protect: Tragedy at Mayerthorpe, which is set to air on CTV later this year.

Delano, an up-and-coming singer-songwriter and an Alberta history buff, was driving from Calgary to Red Deer in the fall of 2006, thinking about the incident, when he was struck with the idea for a song.

"It was almost winter and I was driving along, looking out on this desolate landscape," Delano says. "I had been doing a lot of reading on what went down and where it was and I just thought Mayerthorpe is way out there. I think you can get a bit stir crazy in those hills."

In a sense, Delano is speaking from experience. Years ago, when he was fresh out of his hometown high school in Claresholm, Alta., Delano did a stint in Alberta's oilpatch.

"It really puts you through the gears," he says. "Working as a jughound, I'd work for weeks on end up north, in the middle of nowhere, and you do kind of lose touch. After about 30 days you do get a bit stir crazy. You're just involved in a completely different reality. . . . That can have a negative effect."

Delano put himself in that mindset when he composed his harshly-strummed, hotly burning folk number, At the Gates. "I was trying to write it like a historian or a journalist, not taking sides, but just trying to get the details down," Delano says.

"I wanted to get inside the story and see what really went on. . . . Then that last line, ('If they cross the gate line, they will cross me for the last time.') that's the killer's perspective. That's him."

Writing the song was a natural for Delano, who will be releasing his full-length CD on April 20 at the Ironwood.

Since he began playing guitar and writing songs at the age of 22, Delano has come to see Alberta's culture and history as his muse.

This is reflected on such album cuts as On the Ground, written from the perspective of a bullrider; Jughound, about life on the oilpatch; and Ballad of Jerry Potts, inspired by the true-life historical figure who helped settle violent relations between the North West Mounted Police and native Canadians in the 1800s.

As Delano sees it, Alberta offers a bottomless well of material for any aspiring songwriter. He's one of a number of local musicians, such as Corb Lund and

"It's the Wild West out here with the oil and all the boom and bust stories. It's like the songs Woody Guthrie sang, y'know?

"There's no dust storms yet," Delano jokes, referring to the infamous "Dust Bowl" of the 1930s, which devastated the prairies and inspired Guthrie to write his famed album, Dust Bowl Ballads. "But it sure is windy."






© The Calgary Herald 2007
- The Calgary Herald

Cort Delano
Sad Sorry-Ass Folk Singer
Independent

Sad sorry ass folk singer his CD may proclaim him to be, but Cort Delano proves the title wrong the moment he steps to the stage. With captivating charisma and storied songwriting, the Claresholm raised singer has a knack for holding forth Alberta in a great many of his songs. Prayers of a rodeo rider set to shoot out the chute, songs sung of his time spent in the oil patch, regional history both recent and old, and even the South Country Fair make appearances here on Cort’s second album without seeming to confine or define him to familiar regions – he is a road-worn singer of songs from experiences observed, imagined and overheard.

Sad Sorry-Ass Folk Singer is a product of those experiences, and a hard earned evolution from Cort’s debut album, Fools Moon especially in its matured lyricism following Bob Dylan’s flair for finding stories in places others may not look. “Shot Down” gives us a firsthand look at the life of one of the prisoners holed up in San Quentin during the Man in Black’s infamous visit, while “At The Gates” is an interpretation of the events in Mayerthorpe on March 3rd, 2005 (five people died, four of them RCMP officers).

In little over three years between the recording of his albums, Cort has played relentlessly anywhere and everywhere that would have him – for all the goods and bads. The title track of the latest album brings forth some of the bads, while his album itself ranks high among the goods. The highest of all though is the energy and thrill of his live performances. When Cort puts on a show close to your neck of the woods, you’d be a sorry-ass fool to miss it.

-Shayne Aeichele
- Beatroute

June 27, 2008

There’s a new folksinger passing through the Yukon ... and he’s prepared.

He may never have been North before, but Cort Delano’s “got my tin pan and gunny sack.”

This Albertan roots musician, like many who make their first journey North, has a friend he grew up with, Darren Van Langen, a friend who has been campaigning to get him up here for a while.

“He really encouraged and helped me out in terms of tour planning and help with accommodation and that,” he says.

But that isn’t the only reason Delano is coming North. “It’s the Yukon and there’s all this Robert Service type nostalgia, the wild big space, the Midnight Sun.

“So that was another major plan, to do my tour in conjunction with Solstice, to experience that sort of environment and ambiance.”

In turn, he’ll share his brand of roots music with Yukoners.

Born in Claresholm, Southern Alberta, and now based out of Calgary, Delano creates and performs a style of roots music that, as Delano explains, “would be sort of the Americana style, North American roots, the influences would be country, folk and blues, the primary colours of the rainbow.

“They seem to be the primary style of music in North America I draw my influences from. I’m really interested in older music, more so than any modern-type music that has come out lately, for me it seems the older the stuff the more interesting it is.”

And the roots extend even deeper for Delano: “It’s a roots performance as well, solo acoustic, nothing to lean on, no band. It’s me sort of like a Ramblin’ Jack, trying to be real onstage, staying connected to myself, where I am and where I come from.”

Geographically, he’s also grass-rooted, the networks under the surface extending far and wide. “I go around from person to person, introducing them to my music, from small town to small town.”

Listening to Delano’s songs is an experience akin to watching a small sliver of a stream as it tumbles and winds down a mountain, gaining strength, volume and briskness, fresh to the taste.

But rhythm and melody isn’t the only appeal. Storytelling is wound into his musical lyrics: “I am really interested in the writing aspect of music. I read a lot. I try to learn through other artists, their intent, what they wrote about, how they got their message across, what they were saying and feeling.”

Heartfelt, Delano tries to “put my all in the songs. It comes from the heart, I just really kind of take everything away and try to get at the heart of the song. There’s your brain, which is a thought process, but also your heart and your gut has a thought process and all your cells are intelligent. So I try to incorporate them all and listen to different parts of the information in the music.”

Cort Delano will be playing five venues on his Yukon tour: The Fireweed Cabin June 19, at 6:30 p.m., Sunstroke Festival June 20 and JR’s Pub (The Casa Loma) 8 p.m. June 20.

He then plays at Bombay Peggy’s June 28 at 8:30 p.m. in Dawson City, back to Whitehorse June 30 for Arts in the Park, noon.

To hear his music, go to www.sonicbids.com/cortdelano.

Janelle Hardy
- What's Up Yukon

They've been working in perforect harmony to bring music to every nook and cranny of Calgary.

The MAtt Masters 30 day challenge, in celebration of March Music Month and the 2008 Junos, wrapped up Monday night.
More than 100 local artists and bands performed hundreds of shows through the month of March at a variety of conventional and not-so-conventional venues.
Folksy songwriter Cort Delano was one of many musicians who stepped up to the plate and took on the challenge of booking as many gigs as he could in March.
By the end of the month, Delano had played more than 30 shows, not bad when you consider there's only 31 days in the month.
Delano said the highlight for him was convincing businesses and non-live music venues to let him tune up his guitar and perform in their buildings.
"An unsuspected highlight for me was calling the businesses, approaching them with the idea and format and to see how they reacted to the opportunity.Some were too busy, some flat out said no, others pondered and a few didn't know what to say, but I did recieve a great amount of support from many", said Delano. "And to the ones that said 'yes', the shows brought unsuspecting life into an average day".
The Claresholm-born, Calgary-based songwriter said the City's Music Lives Here initiative - a push to support and foster music in Calgary as the city geared up for this weekend's Juno Awards - created a forum for musicians that wasn't there before.
" Normally people attatch music to a bar or pub setting when music can be, and is, present in all facets of daily life...I think there is a greater awareness of music in Calgary...Doors are opening," he said.
Delano hopes the city will continue plans to extend the Music Lives Here initiative on a yearly basis each March.
And Mayor Dave Bronconnier has proclaimed March Music Lives Here Month in Calgary.

Theresa.Taylor@sunmedia.ca - The Calgary Sun

Alberta-born folk singer Cort Delano is coming back to play in High River once again. It was March the last time he was in town to perform, and in the five months since then he’s has no trouble keeping busy.

Delano spent his spring and summer months playing touring up in the Yukon, performing at the Calgary Stampede, the Alberta Summer Games, the Calgary Folk Fest, private home concerts, and dozens of other venues throughout southern Alberta. But, in between all the driving, practicing and performing, the award-winning musician is sure to make time to focus on his writing.

“I’m constantly writing, it’s consistent,” he said. “Songwriting is my main focus right now.”

To keep his writing skills sharp, Delano is a member of a poetry working group facilitated by Richard Harrison, an esteemed poet and instructor at Calgary’s Mount Royal College.

“That keeps me grounded and focused and inspired to keep my writing on the up and up,” said Delano.

Over the years, he’s carved for himself a reputation for writing from personal experience, history and things he knows or is genuinely interested in. In that fashion, he’s won multiple songwriting awards, including 2nd place at the 2009 Calgary Folk Fest and 3 rd place at the South Country Fair for “Broken Arm,” a song about the a Cree chief named Maski-Pitoon who brokered a historical peace treaty at Hobema, Alta.

“It was more of a journey than a songwriting experience,” Delano said of the two-years it took him to pen the song.

He said he came across the story of Maski-Pitoon on the drive home from performing at the Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose, Alta. in 2007. He had pulled his car over to the side of the road just outside Hobema and had gotten out to stretch his legs he came across an Alberta history sign explaining the story of the Native chief whose name means “the one with the broken arm.”

“I played around with it for a bit and nothing really seemed to stick, so I put it away for a while” he said.

But the unfinished song kept coming back to him.

“I wanted to capture the feeling and the history of it,” Delano said. “It was a challenge…I’m not sure it’s even done yet.

Written by Alyssa Burham - High River Times

Cort Delano “Sorry Sad Ass Folk Singer” (Independent 2007)

An album with an air of mystery

It’s almost impossible to say, with any degree of accuracy, just what kind of musician Alberta’s Cort Delano is, other than a very fine one. Ballad of Jerry Potts is a country song but he’s not a country singer, Tucked Away is undeniably a folk song but he’s not a folk singer; he moves between genres and styles with consummate ease.

There’s also a definite combination of influences, Dylan, Johnny Cash (over and above the namecheck on the album’s opening track Shot Down) plus the same brand of ‘off the wall’ originality that was Warren Zevon’s great strength are all brought to bear in varying degrees. With Sorry Sad Ass Folk singer Cort Delano, possibly by design, leaves much of what drives him a mystery.

Far easier to understand is the album’s appeal. Whatever he does, he does with real honesty and feeling, there’s not a moment squandered.

It means that the thread of great good humour that runs through Clam Shell and Jughound can’t mask the fact that there is nothing that Cort Delano would rather do than make music, his passion gives the whole thing a substance and life.

That depth comes from the roots of On The Ground and Hobo’s Lament. Like all great artists Delano heads straight for the heart.

In the final analysis all you can really say about Sorry Sad Ass Folk Singer is that it’s a collection of great songs, performed with integrity and style. As to exactly what kind of musician Delano is, who cares? Sit back and enjoy the ride.

Cort Delano may well be sad, and a part of him may well be a folk singer but he’s nothing to be sorry for.


Date review added: Monday, May 14, 2007
Reviewer: Michael Mee
Reviewers Rating: 9 out of 10

- Americana U.K.