by Jim Kelly

Who: Joe Fournier
What: Twangy nuggets of Americana
Where: Peggy’s Cove, NS
To Contact: Junkyard Dog Music, (902) 823-1754, junkyard@ns.sympatico.ca

Upon first hearing Joe Fournier’s debut CD, Raw Sugar Shed, you marvel at his talent for writing a great song. When you discover that Fournier recorded the album himself and played all the instruments, you know you’re onto something special. Having moved to Nova Scotia from Ontario about a year ago, Fournier set up a makeshift studio (dubbed the Eight Track Shack) to finish some half-written songs - just as a fun project. But after being urged by friends to send out copies of his CD, Fournier started getting some very favourable press and radio spins in Europe and airplay down in Texas. “I thought, ‘Oh crap, now I gotta get serious about this,’” Fournier recalls, laughing. He says his songs come to him in spurts. “If I have a handful of songs and it seems like it’s coming together as a concept, then I’ll work and see it through. But until I feel that way, I don’t really try and force it.” That must be why each song on Raw Sugar Shed is a little nugget of craft, attitude and emotion, from the irreverent broadside “Country Music’s Gone To Hell” to the twangy two-stepper “All About Irene”, and the Orbison-like balladry of “Everything” and “New Girl In Town”. So far he hasn’t had much response to his music in Canada. Hopefully that’ll change soon, because, as our European and Texan friends have already discovered, a songwriter as good as Joe Fournier won’t be kept in the shed for long.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 16th, 2002 at 1:13 pm and is filed under Showcase. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.