Equinox Songwriter’s Circle at Wolfe Island Gardens
Featuring four brilliant singer-songwriters who’ve made records right here on Wolfe Island!
Presented by Hotel Wolfe Island and Wolfe Island Gardens
featuring:
Hugh Christopher Brown
Suzanne Jarvie
Rocky Roberts
Michael Harrington
Enjoy music and the autumn evening around the campfire at the site of Wolfe Island Gardens, a short 2.5km from the Hotel — 433 Hwy 95, at Base Line Road — see the map for location.
FREE ADMISSION — Please bring your own chairs
HUGH CHRISTOPHER BROWN
Toronto-born singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Chris Brown has been making music with a purpose since the 1980s, from The Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, Chris & Kate, and solo records. Along with his own work, he has appeared both on stage and in the studio with artists ranging from The Tragically Hip to Barenaked Ladies. Currently based in Wolfe Island, Ontario, Brown operates the label Wolfe Island Records and its recording studio built in the former Wolfe Island post office.
SUZANNE JARVIE
Suzanne Jarvie’s debut album, Spiral Road was released in 2014 to rave reviews from the US, Canada, and Europe, comparisons to Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams, and a 2015 nomination from the Independent Music Awards for “Best Concept Album”. No Depression described Jarvie’s voice as “seraphim-pure, reaching out and lifting your spirit often without permission.” Spiral Road documents the painful journey after her oldest son tripped and fell down a spiral staircase, lapsing into a coma in 2011. “It was a bomb,” Suzanne recalls. “I couldn’t breathe. The doctors said he wouldn’t live, but he did.” The miracle of her son’s survival changed Jarvie’s life. While her son was still at the hospital, she began an intense period of songwriting, never having written anything much prior. “It was powerful and strange.”
Jarvie’s sophomore record In the Clear, released in January 2019, picks up where Spiral Road left off – delving deeper into the aftermath of her son’s brain injury – and going beyond it. The tunes tunnel into feelings and impressions that are the essence of Suzanne’s artistry, luminous rabbit holes that merge mysticism with reflections on life’s ups and downs that fans of Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan or Lucinda Williams would appreciate.
ROCKY ROBERTS
Craig “Rocky” Roberts, touring guitar technician for the likes of Neil Young, Wilco, Patti Smith, CSNY, Paul Simon, Lucinda Williams, Nils Lofgren, and My Morning Jacket, brings his own rootsy sound to the stage with the help of his Wolfe Island musical family. Rocky’s new EP, Pieces of Time, has just been released, to enthusiastic critical acclaim. The first single, Buck Moon, features Norah Jones & Carl Broemel (My Morning Jacket):
“What a sweet and tender bluesy Americana sound for the oncoming summer months. Perfect for swinging in a hammock after a few tequilas. Rocky Robert & Friends EP Pieces of Time is a tranquil beauty… It’s the best of American music, the honorable, gentle, open-hearted kind.”
— Samantha Simmonds-Ronceros, NoHoArtsDistrict.com
MICHAEL HARRINGTON
Michael Harrington was born in New York and raised in California, the middle child of Marge and Pat Harrington Jr. (Dwayne Schneider on the long-running hit 70’s TV series, One Day At A Time.)
Musically, Michael was taken equally by the work of acts from both sides of the Atlantic, exposed from an early age to the Byrds and the Beatles (the musical equivalent of the birds and the bees) and since then his pop sensibilities have continued to reflect an equal measure of both American and Anglo influences — as if Aimee Mann married Elvis Costello and their children were Roxy Music and The Grateful Dead. Throw in Filter, Semisonic, little feat, The Band, The Stones, The Who, Peter Gabriel and Squeeze and you get an idea of the range of his influences.
First up for Harrington is Relative North, a collection of 11 songs for and about the lost, dejected, and precious souls of this world, recorded with another famed relative, second cousin once removed, Canada’s own Hugh Christopher Brown. It only took the pair 20 years to collaborate, (hell it took them over 30 years to learn of each other’s existence). Hopefully the follow up won’t take as long.
