Live Music in the Plaza with Joe Nolan
Sunday | June 2, 2024
3pm – 5pm
Joe Nolan, named by The Globe and Mail as “An Americana wunderkind to look out for,” shares Lost Verses, his seventh album – and fifth in just five years – through Fallen Tree Records. It will be available exclusively at Bandcamp on October 31, and on all digital platforms from December 16.
The dozen songs on Lost Verses grew from notes collected in Nolan’s most private journals, revealing the inner thoughts of a prolific artist who expresses longing, love and remorse with powerful melodies, primarily picked on his signature parlour guitar. During Nolan’s illustrious career he’s recorded with JUNO award winning producers Colin Linden and Hawksley Workman, won several Cobalt Prize songwriting awards at the Maple Blues Awards, earned a handful of BreakOut West nominations, as well as a Canadian Folk Music Award nod for Contemporary Roots Album Of The Year for his 2020 release, Drifters.
Influenced by roots-music gentry like Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams and Bob Dylan, Nolan reflects on his vagabond lifestyle that takes him from his hometown city of Edmonton, to festivals and venues spread throughout Canada’s peaks and valleys. A typical year will see him playing anywhere from 150 – 200 shows; he is a true workhorse and road dog.
Often framed as a lone wolf, Nolan self-produced Lost Verses, but called upon some friends to elevate the album. Key tracks feature Sarah Pagé on harp (Leif Vollebekk, The Barr Brothers), LA’s COULOU on trumpet and sister Nataya Nolan on background vocals.
Opening a journal can uncloak the deepest emotions buried inside. On Lost Verses, Joe Nolan let’s us in through these twelve stories of broken lovers, speeding cars and critical, honest personal contemplation, as he meditates on life’s meaning through, what he calls that mist of uncertainty, “cigarette skies.”
The lasting effect is a heart-wrenching and utterly inspired recording, and a guarantee that these Lost Verses will not be buried again.