If you are a faithful reader of this blog then you will be aware that I was born and raised on the east coast of Canada on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. I grew up with the sound of the fog horn’s lullaby, the smell of the salt air and knowledge and humility that comes with living beside something as mighty as the Atlantic Ocean. My home town of Glace Bay was a coastal town. Both of our main industries were heavily influenced by the sea and the geography that it helped to form. If you didn’t work in the fishing and coal mining industries yourself then you certainly knew dozens of people who did. Glace Bay wasn’t a fancy town by any stretch. It was populated with good people who worked hard to make a living for their families. The rugged nature of the land in combination with the blue collar nature of many of the folks who lived there helped to form a proud cultural backdrop to much of the poetry, music and art that was created while I was growing up as a proud Cape Bretoner myself. Singers like Rita MacNeil, Bruce Guthro, Matt MInglewood and others along with bands such as the Rankin Family, The Barra MacNeils and Glace Bay’s own the coal mining chorale, The Men of the Deeps all sang songs about the sea, about the sense of community that existed on the island and about the history of how it all came to be. There was a universality to the music that caused me to believe that it all aligned with the core values of what was meant to be a Canadian. When I left Cape Breton Island for the greener pastures of larger centres, I took that Cape Breton culture with me. It doesn’t matter how long I have been away, I still tear up whenever I hear the song “We Are An Island” no matter who happens to be singing it at the time. That anthem of my island is embedded in my soul. No amount of wandering can change that.
I thought a lot about this in relation to the subject of today’s post, Corb Lund. Lund was born and raised in Taber, Alberta. Taber is actually twice as close to the Canada-U.S. border crossing at Coutts, Alberta than it is to the nearest major Canadian city of Calgary. Lund’s parents came to Taber as part of a series of cattle migrations that saw species such as highland cows moved from the U.S. midwest up into Canada. Taber, Alberta is a farming community and is specifically known for its corn. In fact, Taber is considered by many to be the corn growing capital of the world. Not surprisingly, Corb Lund grew up on a farm. Lund, like many of the people in his family and his social circle, have lived the farming life for generations. They know the fundamentals of soil and irrigation the same way that the people from my hometown know the sea and the tides. Corb Lund grew up working with his hands and like many children who grew up on a farm, he grew into a man who was very big and strong and capable of fixing things on his own. There is something about the vastness of prairie farmland and the big sky nature of daily life that has often caused many a young farm person’s thoughts to turn toward music. The most common manifestation of that is how closely Country and Western music is associated with farmers and cowboys and with working class life on the land. That many famous Country singers have donned cowboy hats, for example, further solidifies that genre’s connection to those who make their living in this world from the land. The funny thing about Corb Lund was that, initially, he did not gravitate toward a career on the land nor in Country and Western music. When Corb Lund was a teenager, he and a friend set off in search of a musical education. They ended up five hours to the north in Edmonton at a school known for, of all things, Jazz music. Although Jazz was not the genre that interested him, Corb Lund was happy to have left Taber and find himself in a city that was bigger and offered more diversions and opportunities. One of the things that Edmonton had over Taber was the sheer number of bars and nightclubs that offered live music. At one of those nightclubs, Lund found himself at a punk rock show. As you may know from my series on punk rock Who’s Punk?! What’s the Score?!, the ethos of the punk rock scene was often DIY in nature. Bands handled their own staging, promotions, sound and lights, merch. sales and so on. In that way, they remained in control of the music they produced and eliminated the corporate interference that came with signing major label record deals. The show that Corb Lund had wandered into was a concert by Edmonton punk legends SNFU. The lead singer of SNFU was a man named Ken Chinn who went by the stage name Chi Pig. ***(Chi Pig recently passed away. His death was mourned in Edmonton as a great loss. You can read an article about his legacy here . This article is from a website known as Broke-Ass Stuart’s Website which you can reach here). The experience of watching that concert changed Corb Lund’s life in a very profound and fundamental way. Prior to that SNFU show, Lund had laboured under the belief that creating music and reaching an audience was some mysterious process that required the help of music executives and other folks with specialized skills. Up until the SNFU show, Lund had never realized that absolutely anyone could make music and that there was an audience for every type of music as long as that music came from the heart. If the music you created was good and your skills were sharp enough then people would find you. It really was as simple as that.
Impressed with what he learned at the SNFU show, Corb Lund and his buddies decided to form their own punk band and head out on the road. Lund’s punk band was called The Smalls. This band became such a cult favourite in Alberta and western Canada that they became the subject of a feature documentary called The Smalls: Forever is a Long Time. *(you can watch the trailer for that documentary here). The Smalls toured relentlessly, as many smaller bands do. But instead of touring from east to west, as Canada is defined geographically, The Smalls toured north to south. They were equally as popular in American border states like Wyoming, Colorado and Montana as they were in the Canadian prairies. However, after touring for a while, it started becoming clear to Corb Lund that the potential for growth for a prairie punk band like The Smalls was limited. They were popular but not likely to grow much beyond what they had already achieved. As Lund was thinking these thoughts, he began to notice that many of his punk contemporaries were starting to incorporate acoustic guitars into their shows and their songwriting. Punk was definitely taking on a country air. Corb Lund saw this as a sign that his music could be more that speed metal and thrashing guitars. So he decided to end his time with The Smalls and launch a solo career that would be filled with music that drew on Jazz, Country and Rock music elements. This transition happened also around the same time as a band from Hanna, Alberta (just up the road a bit from Taber) called Nickelback was starting to gain some traction in the world of music. While Nickelback opted to head in a more straight-forward rock direction, Corb Lund turned toward country and western music. That decision has been one of the best of his life. He is now considered to be one of, if not, the biggest music star in Canadian Country music today.
One of the things that helped Corb Lund and his band the Hurtin’ Albertans to gain an audience was the authenticity of their music. The bands I grew up listening to back home like The Rankin Family all sang of people, places and events that had some personal, geographical or historical connection to the island of Cape Breton, to the ocean and to the Maritime provinces, in general. That band earned the respect of thousands of Maritime Canadians because we knew that what they sang about was true. Their music corresponded to the reality of the lives that we actually were living. The truth behind their music was very real. Take that regional truth and apply it to the farming/oil production world of Alberta and, instead of The Rankins, you have Corb Lund.
Corb Lund rose to the top of his field because he wrote songs that were about people, places and subjects that arose from the lives of the real people who lived in Alberta and the Prairies. It is not for nothing that Lund has songs about highland cows, oil rig workers and farmers in his discography. To date in his solo career, Lund has recorded eleven albums and has three Gold records. He performs everywhere in Canada and the world but has the most success emulating the path trod by The Smalls, using the north-south farmland corridor that exists in North America. He is also very popular in Australia where there is a long history of farming, too. The song that I have chosen for today’s post is called “Truck Got Stuck”. I find this song to be hilarious. I don’t know Lund enough to know if comedy was the intent here but, regardless, this song makes me giggle. It is a simple story concept that centres on a pickup truck getting stuck in the mud on a farm after a sudden downpour of rain. One farm boy after another all show up with their own trucks to help pull the original truck out of the mud. But, one after the other, the new arrivals get their trucks stuck, too. While “Truck Got Stuck” comes off as a humorous song, it also draws upon several real truths of life in Taber, Alberta and in communities all across the prairies. For example, the community feel to life in a farming town is accurately portrayed. When someone needs help and sends out a call for assistance, your friends and neighbours arrive to help. That is part of the cultural glue that makes small farming towns the close knit communities they tend to be. The fact that rain and soil conditions come into play also highlights a fact of life on a farm. Farms need rain but too much rain is not a good thing, either. This is not the throw-away plot element that it may seem to be at first. In these times of climate change, the future of agriculture in Canada is not as stable and secure as it once was. Rain and soil is as important to an Albertan as rising sea levels are to a Maritimer. Finally, the song closes by taking a shot at a federal government agency known as Agriculture Canada. It is true that many residents of the prairies hold a somewhat less than enthusiastic view of the Feds who make their rules from far away in Central Canada. That sentiment finds a place in the closing lines of “Truck Got Stuck”. As a result, this humorous song ends up cutting a little closer to the bone than it may appear upon first listen. Once again, Corb Lund’s lyrics ring true.
While Canada may be a geographically large country, it features elements of regionalism that help to define individual areas. Good people are good people no matter where they all live but the issues that affect us in Ontario are not always the same as those in the Prairies nor the same as those on the east coast or west of the Rockies or way up north in the Arctic. Sometimes I find myself getting caught up in my own interpretation of regionalism with my Cape Breton sensibilities. As genuine as those feelings may be, I am sure that Corb Lund and his fan base would have views that differ from mine but which would be just as valid as anything I have experienced and know to be true. It behooves us all to keep this in mind as a new general election draws near. There are those seeking the office of Prime Minister who would seek to prey upon those regional differences to pit people and political parties against one another. That needn’t be the case. I have always believed that learning new things from people who live differently than I do is one way I grow as a human. Thus, I listen to the music of Corb Lund as he sings about oil rigs and cattle and, instead of shaking my head at it all because it doesn’t reflect my reality, I slow down, allowing him the opportunity to paint a picture of those good people from his world for me. As a result, I grow a little. Growing up on Cape Breton Island taught me to have respect for those who toil with their hands and backs each day. Honest work is honest work, whether it takes place in a coal mine or a fishing trawler or a wheat field or a cattle ranch or an oil rig. I respect the effort involved and the people who make it. Thus, I enjoy the music of Corb Lund, even though it is not my standard musical fare. Lund makes good music that serves to tell the stories of the people in his world. He does so with humour, with attention to detail and with respect. The success that he has achieved speaks for itself. He is one of Canada’s most prolific music stars for a reason.
The link to the official website for Corb Lund can be found here.
The link to the video for the song “The Truck Got Stuck” by Corb und and the Hurtin’ Albertans can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.
The official website for The Smalls can be found here.
The link to the official website for the town of Taber, Alberta can be found here.
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