Latest CD's
Contenders 3: Off the Floor
Gary Fjellgaard's CD with Valdy
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Contenders 3 "Off the Floor" has Gary and Valdy playing some of their favourite songs, live, off the floor. No overdubs.
Two stalwart gentlemen obviously having fun. Even used some electric guitar but still managed to keep that acoustic flavor.
This collection is easily taken to the concert stage for what is always an entertaining performance.
The Collection: Solo Accoustic
Gary Fjellgaard's new CD
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Finally, here’s a collection of some of my favourite cowboy songs I’ve written over the years. as well as the classic Streets of Laredo taken from childhood memories. I’m performing the songs the way they were written with just guitar and voice, recorded live in the hushed atmosphere and very special acoustics of the St. Andrew’s United Church in Nanaimo, B.C. The indomitable spirit of the cowboy and the western life style has been the inspiration for this collection.
All songs written by Gary Fjellgaard except for STREETS OF LAREDO, a traditional country song.
All songs published by Slim Creek Music except for HEROES, TEN YEARS OLD and BAREFOOT which are published by Helping Hand Music.
Read CBC Music Review
All in the Journey
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"I recorded these songs as a performance with just me and guitar or mandolin without using ear phones. There is a certain amount of emotional energy that’s hard to capture any other way. The other instrumentation was added after the fact but with a high degree of sensitivity and caring. I would like to thank those most excellent musicians including David Sinclair the producer who took my songs to a new level and once again trusted the voice of Linda Kidder to tug away at our heartstrings."
All songs written by Gary Fjellgaard except for co-writers on 6,12
All songs published by Slim Creek Music except for co-publishers on 6,12
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FALCON AND THE COWBOY 4:22
Gary Fjellgaard-Silver Songs SOCAN
I always wanted an acoustic version of this song and the environmental message is more relevant today than ever. Folks who make a living from the earth, I’m sure understand this.
Lead vocal and acoustic guitar: Gary
Mandolin: David Sinclair
Bass: Rene Worst
BG vocals: Linda Kidder, David Sinclair
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ALL IN THE JOURNEY 3:15
Gary Fjellgaard-Slim Creek Music SOCAN
This was written the year we toured an incredible number of miles and still managed the long haul to Mexico. Pay your toll or take the free road and utter chaos. Lynne kept saying, “It’s all in the journey”
Lead vocal and acoustic guitar: Gary
Nylon string guitar: David Sinclair
Cello: Finn Manniche
BG vocal: Linda Kidder -
BACK WHEN BILLY ROBBED TRAINS 3:50
(Gary Fjellgaard-Slim Creek Music, SOCAN
Kitchen Table Music-SOCAN)
Billy Miner road up from the States to the South Thompson region of British Columbia. He spent over half his life in prison. I got to thinking about Billy’s crimes in comparison to today’s modern leaders of Nations. Hey, Billy wasn’t all that bad.
Lead vocal and mandolin: Gary
Bass: Rene Worst
Drums: Shawn Soucy
Fiddle: Cam Wilson
Acoustic guitar: David Sinclair
BG vocals: Linda Kidder, David Sinclair -
I APOLOGIZE 4:06
Gary Fjellgaard- Slim Creek Music SOCAN
This apology is dedicated to the First Nations victims and survivors of the cultural genocide which occurred in Canada for over a century. No apology can heal the wounds caused by the far reaching effects of the residential school system. I can only add my voice as a member of the generation who allowed this abuse to take place. This song is still available on my web site as a free download.
Lead vocal and acoustic guitar: Gary
Drums: Elliot Polsky
Bass: Brian Newcombe
Electric guitar: David Sinclair
Violin: Cam Wilson
BG vocal: Linda Kidder -
OLD WESTERN STORY 2:53
Gary Fjellgaard-Slim Creek Music SOCAN
It’s an old familiar theme of wagon trains heading west. Those early settlers faced all that nature could throw at them but the wagons still kept rolling towards that dream. Today we think of the romance of the journey and not the hell it must have been.
Lead vocal and acoustic guitar: Gary
Fiddle: Cam Wilson
Electric guitar: David Sinclair -
HORSES IN HEAVEN 3:49
Gary Fjellgaard-Slim Creek Music SOCAN/Darrel Delaronde SOCAN
Co-written with Darrel Delaronde who came to me with this wonderful melody, and the idea that heaven could not be truly paradise, without horses. As a lover of the western lifestyle it made perfect sense to me.
Lead vocal and acoustic guitar: Gary
Nylon string and electric guitars : David Sinclair
BG vocals: Linda Kidder, David Sinclair
- MEXICAN HEAT 3:38
Gary Fjellgaard-Slim Creek Music SOCAN
It’s a challenge sometimes for a songwriter to put difficult words into a song. Beauganvillea and eucalyptus came to mind sitting in a courtyard in Mexico. Try and spell that.
Lead vocal and mandolin: Gary
Drums: Shawn Soucy
Bass: Rene Worst
Nylon string guitar and mandolin: David Sinclair
BG vocals: Linda Kidder, David Sinclair
- RUN LITTLE GUY 3:01
Gary Fjellgaard-Slim Creek Music SOCAN
It was a crushing experience when we lost our beloved little dog Jake. This song is a tribute to our little guy and I suppose my way of dealing with the loss.
Lead vocal and acoustic guitar: Gary
Violin: Cam Wilson
Cello: Finn Manniche
Electric guitar: David Sinclair
BG vocal: Linda Kidder
- SHARE THE RANGE 4:16
Gary Fjellgaard-Slim Creek Music SOCAN
This song deals in a lighthearted way with ranchers who have to sell off small parcels of land to get some much needed cash. I say buy your ten acres, build your house but don’t fence it. Let the rancher continue to use the graze. Everybody wins.
Lead vocal and acoustic guitar: Gary
Drums: Shawn Soucy
Bass: Rene Worst
Nylon and electric guitars: David Sinclair
- HAVE WE BEEN HERE BEFORE 3:33
Gary Fjellgaard- Slim Creek Music SOCAN
Lynne and I were in the ghost town of Barkerville, B.C. long before any of the restoration, when it was a true ghost town. Looking at all the artifacts hanging on the walls we realized we had used most of them in our many years together. This became our fiftieth anniversary song.
Lead vocal and acoustic guitar: Gary
Violin: Cam Wilson
Cello: Finn Manniche
- KNOWIN WHEN TO QUIT 3:16
Gary Fjellgaard-Slim Creek Music SOCAN
Lynne has asked many times over the years “When are you going to quit the business?” After a particular rough twenty six thousand kilometer journey that question kept coming up more often but with more of a tone of desperation. That beach in Mexico is starting to look better all the time.
Drums: Shawn Soucy
Bass: Rene Worst
Electric guitar,dobro,banjo,jaw harp and tuba sample: David Sinclair
- ONE MORE PONY RIDE 4:15
Gary Fjellgaard-Slim Creek Music SOCAN/ Stuart Montgomery-Collins Music BMI/Kitchen Table Music SOCAN
Written in Nashville with Stuart Montgomery, previously recorded, but lyrically fits in with the theme of the CD. During one of the many cattle drives out of Kamloops a wedding took place with the whole entourage on horseback. There wasn’t a dry eye among us as we watched the couple ride off into the sunset and disappear over the crest of a hill.
Lead vocal and acoustic guitar: Gary
Cello: Finn Manniche
Nylon string guitar: David Sinclair
BG vocal: Linda Kidder
Secret Santa
Gary Fjellgaard's new Christmas CD
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Contenders Two: Still in the Running
Gary Fjellgaard's CD with Valdy
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In an era where volume and instrumental virtuosity too often count for more than quiet and calm and meaning and thoughtfulness, a CD like this seems strangely out of fashion. And yet the truth is, well, true, and "Contenders Two" is indeed "Still In The Running." Richard Flohil, Toronto Publicist, Stony Plain Records.
In a world awash in electronic fakery, formulaic noise and phony, selfish sentiment and at a time when sequels and retreads are the rage because few artists can think of anything new to say, Gary Fjellgaard and Valdy: Contenders Two (Still In The Running) stands out. It's genuine, honest, heartfelt and highly recommended. Bruce Mason, The Sounder, Gabriola Island
Caragana Wind
Gary Fjellgaard's new CD, a second breath, renewed vision
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Gary Fjellgaard's 12th album is his best work, signposts from 35 years on the road, playing for people and listening too, carefully observing lives and the landscape.
"I knew Caragana Wind" was a good song and it was confirmed by audiences. I searched for others in a drawer-full of unfinished material and wrote new songs that were more than just radio fodder," he recalls.
"I wanted an acoustic sound with the vocals up front, to resist the over sweetening that musicians add as protection from the scary reality of their own voices," says Fjellgaard, who would require quintuple heart surgery during the project.
"I came back to the rough mix with a second wind and fresh ears," he reports, "and took my own advice about keeping a sense of humour, including in my songs and on-stage."
Caragana was grown as a windbreak and the song was written after a "good old visit" with the family homestead, in Rose Valley, Saskatchewan. It’s derelict now, empty for 50 years, "barn-board grey," like the couple in the title track and obscured by plants, abandoned by humans.
This is Fjellgaard’s most diverse and ambitious work, deceptively simple, with background vocalists Linda Kidder and Peter Padden, who have sung with him for decades and hand-picked musicians, all recorded in the Gerry Paquette’s basement studio in Nanaimo.
There is a completeness in the new CD that comes with time well spent. Starting with a tribute to a horse "Sweet Nellie," it continues on an autobiographical emigration aboard a "Steel Horse Lullaby." There are side excursions: the hilarious misadventures of a gringo on a "Malecon," a couple lost in song under a "Mexican Moon," and the madcap politics of "By the Sea."
Also included are poignant longings for "Barefoot Days," a tribute to the "Raw Courage" of those who fought and lost in raging BC forest fires, and the crowd-pleasing memory of "Pop Campbell's Barn."
The familiar Fjellgaard theme of vanishing values includes Vaqueros in "If the Cowboy Goes Away," becoming comical in "Lonely Desperado," a cowboy waltz "Whisper of Love" and a final message, "The Long Haul."
"I'm fortunate to be able to use my imagination to create songs people pay to hear, enough to make a living at least," he says. "For me, it's always been about the music and the love of it."
