Monday,
Dec 5, 2005
Halifax Herald
No
Blue Christmas
Canyon's
holiday homecoming filled with country classics, hits
George
Canyon says his mother's mother was a huge fan of Elvis Presley.And
Halifax fans got a preview on Sunday of the gift Pictou County's
favourite cowboy will give his grandmother when he hits his
hometown for four sold-out shows at the deCoste Centre on
Thursday and Friday.
With
a deep-throated drawl that brought down the house from its
opening notes, Canyon sang The King's hit Blue Christmas complete
with Olympic quality vocal gymnastics that drew enthusiastic
cheers from the fired-up audience at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium
on Sunday afternoon.
Canyon,
who now lives on a ranch near Okotoks, Alta., told the packed
house that when he planned this current tour (with stops in
32 cities in 34 nights) he didn't want to do a typical Christmas
concert where the audience would get bored listening to me
sing.
Instead,
he wanted to show people how he grew up, visiting family and
friends, dropping in to tell stories, sing songs and toast
the season with eggnog.
So
he structured the show, which also played again at the Cohn
on Sunday night, as an imaginary visit to the recording studio
of longtime friend John Meir (who joked he knew George before
he was George), where he worked alongside high school buddy
Dave Gunning.
Meir's
Christmas stories contemporary tales and fables of days gone
by were cleverly interlaced with songs by Canyon and his band
of musicians from Nashville, Oklahoma and Halifax in the form
of bassist Joe Butcher.
Canyon
was joined by Gunning for a number of duets and the popular
ECMA-winning folksinger-songwriter showcased some of his solo
material. Not that there's any fear of a Canyon audience getting
bored. The winner of four Canadian Country Music Association
awards including the Fan's Choice has sold out every stop
on the tour which promotes his seven-song Christmas album,
George Canyon Home For Christmas.
Flashes
went off throughout the show with the rapidity of papaparazzi
on a Paris Hilton stakeout as fans captured their hero on
camera. And an adoring audience flocked to a post-show meet-and-greet
with Canyon and Gunning, clearly thrilled to be back in their
home province.
The
two-hour-plus performance mixed Canyon's hits like Good Day
to Ride and My Name with country classics like Johnny Cash's
Ring of Fire and Folsom Prison Blues and holiday favourites
like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Silent Night, serving
up the tunes with equal helpings of down home humour and folksy
charm.
Meir,
sitting beside an old- fashioned radio opened the show with
the tale of a mysterious Christmas puzzle before Canyon, sexy
in his trademark cowboy hat, faded blue jeans and checked
shirt made his first appearance, dazzling the crowd playing
Good Day to Ride, which stayed in the Top 50 for more than
20 weeks on Canadian Country Radio in 2004. The lantern-jawed
singer followed up with I'll Never Do Better Than You, the
first single off his 2004 album One Good Friend, released
in 2004 after he reached the runner- up spot in the televised
country music talent search Nashville Star.
Canyon's
recollection of his his daddy shooting deer when he was six`
and fears that the famous red-nosed deer was in jeopardy led
into the familiar strains of Rudolph, followed by One Good
Friend and the entirely appropriate song Happy Man.
Meir's
heart-rending story about a little angel atop a Christmas
tree led into an emotional version of Canyon's hit My Name,
penned with Cape Breton's Gordie Samson, for which he won
single of the year and SOCAN songwriter of the year at the
CCMAs, followed by birthday greetings to a four-year-old fan
named Abby Kidd who claims the tune as her favourite song.
Gunning
was welcomed to the stage with a giant pair of antlers which
he donned to big applause, singing a Christmas song he recently
completed about Santa drinking all Daddy's beer. A performance
of the chorus as if sung by Stompin' Tom elicited gales of
laughter.
Gunning's
meditation on homelessness, Do You Feel What I Feel, was followed
by a rollicking rendition of his hit Here She Comes A Running
with Meir on accordion and Butcher rocking out to the catchy
tune, and the love song Salt Water Hearts penned after a chance
encounter with a particularly romantic couple at Celtic Lodge
in the Cape Breton Highlands.
Proud
papa Canyon reclaimed the stage with loving tales of daughter
Madison, 5, (he also has a son, Kale, 7, with wife Jennifer),
and the newly penned Maddy's Song before recalling early influences
like country legends Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson, creating
some of the evening's highlights with the Man in Black's Folsom
Prison Blues and Ring of Fire and Nelson's On the Road Again.
A
Christmas highlight was a spine-tingling version of Silent
Night performed after Meir told the story of the familiar
hymn's creation in 1818. New song Santa's On His Way, with
Gunning and Meir adding spirit and melody, put Texas swing
into the holiday atmosphere, while the evening's final song,
Frosty the Snowman (which followed the first encore Canyon's
hit Who Would You Be), sizzled with unmatched country sass.
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