Traditional music
The Tsimshian, Salish, Haida, Kutenai, Athabaskan and Blackfoot are the predominant Amerindian peoples (known as First Nations) in Western Canada. While each cultivates its own musical traditions, there is a common core to all practices. For the Amerindians, music generally has a social or ceremonial purpose. In the first case, it is dance music rich in percussion, in the second, it is music centred around songs (also accompanied by percussion). Overall, the human voice is the primary instrument and the songs and dances are considered sacred.
In particular, in the Canadian prairies, the land of the Blackfoot, the singing is nasal, recognizable by the very frequent high pitches, and large double-skinned drums are often encountered. In British Columbia, the land of the Tsimshian, monophonies are legion and the songs are characterized by complex and declamatory rhythms. The instrumentation is also richer, with many whistles, flutes, horns and percussion instruments. In the same region, we also find the Salish tribes, whose music has similarities with that of the Inuit. Among the Cree, present in Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, most of the songs are highly repetitive and are characterized by recurring silences.
Today, many First Nations artists combine traditional music with modern genres such as country, rock, hip-hop or folk. In addition, a number of Amerindian artists are gaining mainstream recognition in the country, such as Jerry Alfred, a star from the northern territories who hails from the Amerindian community of Selkirk (Yukon), Crystal Plamondon, a Francophone artist from Alberta who mixes traditional Cajun sounds with country, folk and pop songs (she also sings in Cree), or Buffy Sainte-Marie, an Amerindian folk singer with an international career.
In 2014, the excellent Light in the Attic label released the Native North America compilation, featuring many rare and out-of-print songs by First Nations and Inuit musicians. It is a very valuable document to get a broad overview of these musics. Otherwise, the country offers two beautiful appointments to discover Aboriginal music and its artists : Talking Stick Festival in Vancouver, a beautiful event to learn more about First Nations, and the Calgary International Native Arts Festival, an arts and crafts festival with some concerts and dances.The country
Although the majority of the country's Anglophone artists come from Ontario, some grew up west of the Prairies. This is the case for many country musicians in Alberta, a genre that has modernized over the years. Originally from the Appalachian region of the United States, country music appeared in Canada in the late 1920s, popularized by musicians such as violinists Don Messer and George Wade. Although the genre has always appealed to Western populations - it undoubtedly fits in well with the region's wide open spaces - it experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 1990s through the success of Canadian artists such as Garth Brooks, Terri Clark (originally from Alberta) and Shania Twain.
Today, the latter are still active stars and we can add big names from Western Canada such as Rick Tippe, Dean Brody, Brett Kissel, Paul Brandt, Jess Moskaluke (to name but a few) and especially K.D. Lang, an uncompromising Alberta artist who publicly displays his homosexuality, a very rare occurrence in the genre.
There is no doubt that Calgary is the country capital of Canada. You only have to walk along its 11th Avenue - aka Electric Avenue - with its numerous country bars with luminous pediments to realize it. Among all these addresses, one stands out: Broken City Social. Very popular with Calgary's trendy youth, the place offers concerts of all genres - rock, punk, jazz - and also very good country music. More authentic, Ranchman's Cookhouse and Dancehall immerses you in Canadian cowboy culture: waiters in boots and hats, live country music and a dance floor... The perfect place to spend a real western evening!Folk and rock
In British Columbia (and Alberta), folk and rock have always been popular, driven by the dynamism of the Vancouver scene. As early as the 1960s, Vancouver began to develop its own aesthetic with folk music played in4th
Avenue cafés. The number of major American and international groups performing on the city's numerous stages had a major influence on young Vancouver musicians. Among these up-and-coming artists, a certain Joni Mitchell, a folk singer originally from Alberta, met with success during the boom of the 1960s and 1970s. At the same time, the city was experiencing a fairly significant psychedelic movement. In the 1990s, the proximity to Seattle's grunge scene stimulated Vancouver's and bands such as Maow, Gob, The Smugglers and The Evaporators were born. But it's in the 2000s that Vancouver has its most resounding independent music scene with bands with an international aura such as The New Pornographers, You Say Party, Black Mountain, Japandroids, Lightning Dust or personalities such as Dan Bejar and his project Destroyer, real guru of the local scene. For the anecdote, the rock band Nickelback, revealed in the early 2000s in the midst of the neo-metal wave and considered as "the most hated band in the world", is originally from Alberta. No doubt a regional pride! True to its origins, Western Canada offers an impressive number of festivals dedicated to folk music. TheVancouver Folk Music Festival, the largest event of its kind in North America, is held in Vancouver every July. Also known as the "Birkenstocks Festival", it takes place on Jericho Beach. Bring your blankets to reserve your seats on the grass. After forty years, the festival is still growing in popularity. In Calgary, the Calgary Folk Music Festival offers folk music in a western setting (a good idea). In Edmonton, the Gallagher Park Folk Music Festival is the largest in Alberta. More bucolic, Folk On The Rocks offers a multitude of musicians from across Canada on lake and beach stages. Finally, in the town of Mission, there is a very renowned folk music festival that regularly surpasses the one in Vancouver: the Mission Folk Music Festival. Otherwise, more open, the three-day Dawson City Music Festival in July has been named "Best Smaller Music Festival in Canada". An exciting meeting place for contemporary music.Popular music
Whether you know them or not, you've obviously heard, or even hummed, a song by a western Canadian pop star. Without really explaining why, this immense territory is a fertile ground for Canadian variety stars and many album sales champions come from the region. Starting with Bryan Adams, a Vancouver rock star and one of the best representatives of Canadian music. He has sung with some of the greatest, and has had some success in Europe, especially since his hit Everything I Do (I Do It For You) on the soundtrack of the Robin Hood movie with Kevin Costner (yes it's him!). Another phenomenon from Western Canada: Michael Bublé. Originally from Burnaby, British Columbia, this popular soul and jazz singer is a modern-day crooner who regularly achieves record album sales in the English-speaking world. More surprisingly, Nelly Furtado is also from the region (not the United States). This Victoria native enjoyed resounding worldwide success in the 2000s thanks to her collaboration with producer Timbaland and their numerous RnB hits have become classics. In a similar vein, the author of the global cardboard Call Me Maybe, Carly Rae Jepsen, is from Mission. While she came out of Canadian Idol and started her career with a few hits that were a bit out of the ordinary, the singer has taken an artistic turn in her career in recent years that has garnered a lot of critical interest. Also, one cannot fail to mention Diana Krall, a jazz pianist and singer, among the most famous of the last two decades. This native of Nanaimo (on Vancouver Island) is a Grammy Award winner and collaborates with such luminaries as Paul McCartney (on an album of jazz covers).
