LAC LA BICHE - John Wart Hannam, a Lethbridge-based musician whose says his songwriting is inspired by life events and the prairie landscapes of southern Alberta, will be taking to the stage at the Sir Winston Churchill Provincial Park campground ampitheatre on Aug. 17. The show is the latest instalment in the 2024 Music in the Forest concert series.
Hannam says that if he were to put his music into a genre it would be “folkly singer-songwriter.”
“My music is lyrically driven,” he told Lakeland This Week. “When I first started writing, I wrote a lot about my surroundings of southern Alberta; it’s landscape and history.”
Even now, after a 25-year career as a musician, he finds those images find their way into current songs, among with many other life experiences.
Hannam, who worked as a junior high teacher before becoming a full-time musician in the early 2000s, says to be a good writer, you have to be a good listener.
“I feel like I've developed my songwriting radar over the years,” he said. “I could be waiting in line at the grocery store, and I’ll overhear somebody in front of me say something that is the catalyst for a song.”
When he first began writing songs, Hannam, like other beginning songwriters, mimicked his songwriting heroes.
“If they wrote about losing the farm, I wrote about losing the farm,” he said. “If they wrote a coal mining song, I wrote a coal mining song.”
Eventually though, Hannam found more of his own voice and wrote songs that held meaning for him. Writing about yourself, he said, can be very difficult. Good songwriters, he explained, can write about themselves in a way so that when other people hear the song, they think it was written for them or is about them.
“Writing like this takes years of practice,” he said. “There's a fine line between making a personal song universal and making it just plain self-indulgent.”
Looking back to his first album, Pocket Full of Holes, which he released in 2003, Hannam is a little self-critical, describing how ‘green’ he was. But he also uses the debut album as a benchmark from where he has come. He also says there was an “excitement” and “energy” in the album from being in the studio for the first time that he tries to maintain with each new recording.
To date, he has released eight albums, with his most recent offering, titled Long Haul, containing what he says are some of the best songs he has ever written.
Award winner
Since making the career leap from teaching to playing music, Hannam has received his share of accolades and recognition, including a JUNO nomination, a Canadian Folk Music Award for Best Album of the Year, a CBC Galaxie Rising Star Award, a Kerrville Texas Folk win, and numerous Western Canadian Music Award and Canadian Folk Music Award nominations.
Despite the well-earned trophy case, Hannam likes to stay ground and sees his successes objectively.
“I think all awards should be taken with a grain of salt,” he said. “I look at nominations and awards as a pat on the back and a sign that I’m on the right path and should keep going.”
While he has written several great tunes, Hannam says if he had a signature song, it would be ‘Church of the Long Grass.’ This song, he explained, is the one that he gets asked to play the most. He also gets told by people that it reminds them of southern Alberta. When he comes to Sir Winston Churchill Provincial Park on Aug. 17, Hannam will be playing a selection of songs from all eight of his albums. He added that the summer months are always a busy time for him as it’s festival time, and he enjoys playing outside.
Hannam doesn’t think that he has played in Lac La Biche before, which he says is surprising given that his folky sound has been heard all over Alberta.
“I feel like there's not a highway I have not driven,” he said.
Doors for the show open at 6:30 p.m. while the music starts at 7:30 p.m. For more information about the John Wort Hannam show or to purchase tickets, contact Alberta Parks.
