Prince Edward Island's music industry association

Violin player, singer
Swing experimental etc
https://donaldviolin.bandcamp.com/releases

'Big Hurt Boy' is out now: https://linktr.ee/donovanwoods

Donovan Woods was in on the joke when he named his latest release. Riffing on a lyric from a Martin Simpson song (“Never Any Good”), Big Hurt Boy is a six-song exploration of how our failures — and our fixations on them — not only shape but enlighten us.

“I write about them again and again, just hoping people will still be interested,” the acclaimed Canadian singer-songwriter says. “So the title is poking fun of myself, that I’m theoretically this big sad guy who keeps getting dumped and writing fucking songs about it.”

Or you could think of it this way: Woods’ deep curiosity about the human condition is why we so clearly hear our own stories in his. The details differ, the characters change, but at their core, Donovan Woods songs are for and about everyone.

That’s particularly apparent on his new EP, which will be released March 18, 2022. Trying to capture more of an “undone” quality, Woods wanted his latest songs to “get back to the feeling that my early recordings had.” You hear that in the spare, subtle ache of “No Time Soon,” an acoustic monologue Woods describes as “the story of my whole life.”

“These are smaller, less polished songs than the ones I’ve been putting out recently,” says Woods, winner of the 2019 Juno Award for contemporary roots album (for Both Ways) and whose global streams have surpassed 210 million.

Still, Big Hurt Boy brims with some of the luminous production touches Woods has been adding to this repertoire lately. He wrote the album opener, “I Won’t Mention It Again,” on banjo, which fades into a spectral backdrop of electronic textures and layers of lush harmonies. 

A co-write with Peter Groenwald, “Leave When You Go” simmers with an R&B vibe backed by sensuous vocals from indie-pop artist Ralph. “A Picture of Us Smiling at a Party Five Years Ago,” which reunites Woods with Katie Pruitt (who co-wrote and sang on Woods’ “She Waits for Me to Come Back Down”), untangles how our memories are often preserved by photos. “It’s about nostalgia, which is just a memory that doesn’t have any of the stress or dread or anxiety that the real-time experience had,” Woods says.

“I Hope You Change Your Mind,” co-written with David Hodges, is such an understated tearjerker that you don’t even realize the relationship is over until the last line. “That song is about that back-end portion of a relationship when everyone knows the score but no one wants to say it,” Woods says. “It’s loving someone so much that you’re not sure how to be mad at them, so you twist yourself into knots.” 

Big Hurt Boy is the follow-up to 2020’s Without People, Woods’ celebrated album he made in isolation at the height of the pandemic. Whereas those songs were recorded in a makeshift studio at his Toronto home, with collaborators working remotely, his latest release harnesses the electricity of a roomful of musicians laying down tracks live in the studio, a first for Woods.

As an in-demand songwriter whose work has been recorded by the likes of Tim McGraw (“Portland, Maine”) and Lady A’s Charles Kelley (“Leaving Nashville”), Woods has been venturing beyond the singer-songwriter scene where he first cut his teeth. Equally at home in folk and country, he has worked with songwriters such as Tom Douglas, Lori McKenna, Brandy Clark, Ashley Monroe, Dustin Christensen, Femke Weidema, Steve Robson, and Ed Robertson (Barenaked Ladies).

Each of these collaborations has highlighted a budding truth about Woods: As respected as he is as a solo artist, he’s evolving and upending our expectations of how his music sounds. His songs have grown more dimensional, emboldened by new sonic landscapes, reminding us that classic songwriting transcends genre.

Carleton Stone’s latest album Draws Blood (GroundSwell Music) finds the 28-year-old songwriter delivering his most personal artistic statement to date. Co-produced by Howie Beck (Feist, Hannah Georgas, Hayden) and Jason Collett (acclaimed singer/songwriter and member of Broken Social Scene), the album radiates with vibrant life.

Dodging between the hushed tones of “Blood is Thicker Than Water,” the Low-era Bowie inspired “Climbing Up The Walls,” and the graceful pop of “Signs of Life,” Draws Blood’s three song opening introduces a vast sonic pallet that continues throughout the album. Influences and inflections are meticulously pieced together to carry the emotional weight of each track. 

The album is dedicated to Stone’s mentor and close friend, Jay Smith. A veteran musician in Nova Scotia, Smith was a trusted confidante and Stone’s first-ever co-writing partner. He passed away mere weeks before Stone was to enter the studio to record the album. 

Paying heartfelt tribute to his longtime friend, Stone summarized the album’s theme by saying, “Draws Blood is about what we lose in life and the way we hold ourselves as we carry this pain forward, still trying to find the joy that makes every day worth living.” 

The loss, the healing, and the clear-eyed, dogged pursuit of a life well lived are present throughout Draws Blood. A desire to address these weighty and relatable experiences is at the core of Stone’s strength as an artist. He excels at tapping into an ideal balance between that lyrical gravity and a love of melody. An unabashed pop music fan, Stone says his tenure co-writing at the Gordie Sampson Songwriting Camp has been an eye-opening experience that allowed him to mature as a composer.

Teaming with songwriting vets like Sampson, Beck, Collett, and, previously, Hawksley Workman (the Juno Award-winning musician who produced Stone’s 2011 self-titled album) has fine-tuned Stone’s understanding for how to pick the right songs for an album. He says his ultimate goal is to pick the ones that impress him more than others. 

After all, he concedes, the older you get and the more you write, “the harder it gets for your own work to impress you.”


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carletonstone is following