Here Comes the Judge

I have been involved in music my whole life but Saturday, May 14, 2011 I had an entirely new experience. I was a judge in a song contest – The Calgary Folk Festival Songwriting Contest. It’s an annual contest with four major sections – Untapped Newcomer, Sonic Youth, Beaver Tales (songs about Canada) and Pros and Prose. They gave me my choice of which one I could judge and I asked for Beaver Tales.

The competition is held over two weekends at one of the more popular bars on Calgary's 17^th Avenue strip, the Ship and Anchor. It’s a straight up, no frills pub with a huge patio that is always filled to capacity on warm sunny days. Of course on the beautiful summer-like day of my particular event, a rare chance for me to visit a bar, I was required to sit in the dark bowels of the pub. At least I was inside watching some extremely talented performers, and the nice people from the Folk Festival made sure we – the judges – were looked after with food and drink.

Back to the contest. The Festival received 300 entries in this category this year and whittled it down to 17 of the best (thank god!). Each singer songwriter, and their accompanists, took to the stage and played their song with the lyrics projected on a screen behind them. Talk about pressure! One shot to impress the judges. Oh, the judges were: Mike Morrison a blogger and CityTV producer @mikesbloggity, Mark Teo, the music editor of FFWD @excitement, and Terry Wickham, artistic director of the Edmonton Folk Festival and me. 

Terry and I represented, how should I put this? an older generation of folk music fans. Mike and Mark definitely skew younger. I’m not sure if it was planned that way but that’s how it ended up; even though my outlook on music is far from traditional. (More about that in another blog entry, I promise)

I have to compliment the sound folks because the changes from one act to the next were terrific and the sound was great.

I truly believe that every performer deserved to be there and every song had some great qualities. I will also tell you, however, that it quickly became clear to me which were the best songs. 

After the performances, the four of us retired to a board room upstairs, a rather swanky room much better than I expected, and we started deliberations. One of the Folk Fest staff sat at the head of the table and acted as referee. I think this process hasn't gone quite so smoothly in past years which is why Johanna was there. I’m not suggesting there was bloodshed but I am pretty sure she was there 1) just in case there was and 2) to keep things moving along.We were quite a diverse group yet we pretty much agreed on the top songs right away. Then it became a matter of deciding which ones would get which prizes.

You can find the winners at the Calgary Folk Music Festival website.   

And I have provided you with the winners’ names and some links to their music or at least some information about who they are and what they do.

Rob Heath - Starlight Tours


Ryan Sande - New World Dream 


Christopher Ford - Despite the Weather


T Buckley - Medicine Line


Dan Vacon - I'm Free (Red River Rebel)


Vince Musaka -Oh Beautiful Canada


Bob Remmington - Kandahar

I sincerely congratulate all the performers in the Beaver Tales category as well as the rest of the finalists in the contest. It was a great experience and I certainly hope I get asked to do it again next year.