Question for Canadians: Kirk Lorange

[Phillydor]

Canadian guitarist Kirk Lorange moved to Australia in the early seventies, and established himself as something of a legend here. He played some great slide on hugely successful albums by Richard Clapton, one of our top singer/songwriters, as well as being an in demand session player and playing in his own band. He also does a lot of guitar teaching.

Just wondering if he is recognised at all as a great player in his home country? Possibly not,since a lot of the records he played on were not hits outside of this country, though they should have been.

[Fingerstyle_Jim]

My only knowledge of him is through his internet presence, he has lessons and columns at several sites. The short bios that some of these have all state he's an Australian, I didn't know he came from Canada. I can safely say he's not well known in my area.

 

Jim

[Phillydor]

Oh well, all I can say is Canada's loss is our gain! He became a fully fledged Australian citizen in the nineties I think. Actually his first solo album 'No Apostrophe' has vocals by another Canadian import, Wendy Matthews, who since went on to have a good deal of success here.

I was wondering about him after a discussion about Oz guitar legends with Vince C and discovered that he does indeed turn up on various internet sites.

We'll take all the spare Canadians you've got please. And after our recent loss to England, you don't have any spare Cricket players do you?

[Shoes]

It's more of a national trait that we do not recognize our own tallented artists unless they play the hockey stick

 

...and I certainly did watch Hockey Night in Canada last night Go Habs Go

 

No... I've not heard anything of him which is likely a crime of sorts (if he's any good) I will check him out now.

 

Does the rest of the world know of Bruce Cockburn ? I often get the impression that after decades... he's still never received the notariety he deserves.

 

He would likely admit, quite Canadianly.. I'm not looking for any. I'm Canadian.

[Phillydor]

Come on down Bruce! He even sounds like an Aussie with a name like that.

Pretty well known, and I think he's toured here a couple of times.

[Kramer Ferrington III.]

Originally posted by Philemec:

Come on down Bruce! He even sounds like an Aussie with a name like that.

Pretty well known, and I think he's toured here a couple of times.

Bruce Cockburn had a mainstream hit of sorts in the 80s too, with a song called something like "If A Tree Falls In The Middle Of The Forest"... I've been away from Oz since then. The two events are, of course, not related.

 

Has he had any others since?

[Phillydor]

That's the song that I always think of when he's mentioned, he still gets a fair bit of airplay though. I know a lot of people who are really into him, so I'll investigate his music further. His site looks really good and I'll check it out when I get time.

Here's a link to Richard Clapton's site. I've always loved Kirk Lorange's slide playing on Deep Water (mid-seventies)

Deep Water click on the audio sample

[dreibel]

Originally posted by Vince C.:

]Bruce Cockburn had a mainstream hit of sorts in the 80s too, with a song called something like "If A Tree Falls In The Middle Of The Forest"... I've been away from Oz since then. The two events are, of course, not related.

 

Has he had any others since? [/QB]

Bruce has actually had several hits, including "Wondering Where The Lions Are", "Waiting For A Miracle", "If I Had A Rocket Launcher", "Lovers In A Dangerous Time", "And They Call It Democracy". He also had a small hit with a cover of Monty Python's "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life"

 

BTW, he's just released a compilation album of his best instrumental performances, including some Japan-only stuff and new material especially for this CD.

[Kramer Ferrington III.]

Originally posted by dreibel:

Bruce has actually had several hits, including "Wondering Where The Lions Are", ...

Yeah, but were they hits in Australia? Not trying to convince anyone that you've only "made it" when you have a hit in Oz, it's just that the thread was about Canadian exports to Australia.

[Phillydor]

Wonderin' Where the Lions are? That was Bruce? Great song, and was very popular here..mind you I haven't listened to top 40 radio for a long, long time. You should listen to ABC 702 on the net from time to time Vince, just to keep in touch. That's where all of us go when we get too old to listen to triple J!

Another thing I didn't know but just found out about Richard Clapton....he produced the first album by INXS, and INXS members have turned up on some of his albums.

Must be a lovely place to live, Milan.

[Kramer Ferrington III.]

Originally posted by Philemec:

Must be a lovely place to live, Milan.

It is, but I wish we had more venues. Musically, it's straight AS. A bit of jazz, a couple of blues venues and about four music bars that I know of.

 

That's about it. A lot of stuff got closed down during the early 90s and they take EU safety regulations seriously so it's practically impossible for a bar to have bands. Not without major restructuring.

 

The rest of the venues are heavily politicised anarchist squats, which are pretty good places to play but unfortunately they're largely getting closed down and the queue for a gig is ginormous.

 

And also because they are anarchists, they're not into fascist hierarchical things like "talent", so EVERYONE gets a go. Wonderful idea, but even if you have a great band you still have to wait six months, while utterly crap bands play their gigs.

 

Other than that, I love it here!