Great Big Sea and Throwback Thursday...Sea to Great Big Sea (Junos 1998)

Alan Doyle has been nominated this year for a Canadian music industry Juno Award for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year for his So Let’s Go album. Although Great Big Sea has been nominated many times for a Juno award over the years they haven’t had any success. Here is hoping 2016 will be Alan Doyle’s year.

I found this really interesting newspaper article on Great Big Sea before the 1998 Juno Awards in Vancouver, British Columbia. Great Big Sea was nominated for two awards, Group of the Year and the Best Roots or Traditional Album for a Group for their album Play.

The article comes from a fan site that contains a lot of transcripts of newspaper articles from the early years of Great Big Sea (1997 to 1999). It is difficult to know whether these articles have been altered in anyway when transcribed, as I haven’t been able to compare them with the originals.

I have decided to take them at face value. This is based on a number of articles and interviews I have read and videos seen with the members of Great Big Sea. The comments made in this article seem genuine to me.

I found these early comments interesting, in particular about the boys in the band having to challenge the stereotypes of Newfoundlanders and being in a band based in Newfoundland. Nearly 20 years on two of the members of Great Big Sea still live and work out of St. John’s, Newfoundland and Sean McCann only moved to the mainland last year.

I was interested in the comments made by Sean McCann about Great Big Sea being a collective and all band members having a equal say. This decision would come back to bite them over 20 years later when they decided to go their separate ways.

Many of the songs from the Play album have become fan favourites including Ordinary Day, When I’m Up (I Can’t Get Down), The Night Pat Murphy Died and Donkey Riding. These songs are still being played and can possibly be heard at any concert by Alan Doyle and Sean McCann by this year along with all the fabulous new music of course.

I hope you enjoy this article as much as I have. There is a great collection of articles at this site for all those fans interested in reading some early Great Big Sea interviews.

I have circulated some videos of the music from the Play album from the CBC 20th anniversary concert in Toronto a couple of years ago on my Google + page. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

“From sea to Great Big Sea” By J.M. Sullivan. The Globe and Mail. February 13, 1998 http://greatbigsea.tripod.com/athome/articles/feb1398.html8

0ne place Great Big Sea won't be on March 22 is Vancouver, the location of this year's Juno Awards. Not that they don't belong: On Wednesday, the Newfoundland based quartet was nominated for two Junos, as Canadian group of the year and best roots/traditional ensemble. But this is a principled group and, well, they've told Juno organizers they won't show up en masse to accept any award or play.

The reason? Well, they're going to be on tour in Texas that month, so perhaps just one band member will get the nod to make the long flight to and from British Columbia to serve as the group's representative.

But, more importantly, with such Maritimes acts as Lennie Gallant, Super Friendz, Jamie Sparks and the Glamour Puss Blues Band shut out of the Junos, they feel the East Coast scene has been underrepresented at what is for many the premiere showcase of Canadian music.

Sean McCann, guitarist and singer, said, "We take that as a little bit of an insult. This is such a vibrant scene, and there's a huge catalogue of people to draw from."

Taking stands is nothing new for Great Big Sea, particularly when it comes to matters Newfoundland. Last summer they were angered when the promoter of the Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill suggested the band wear sou'westers on stage and bring a dory along with them.

"It was very bad when we first started out" five years ago, said the group's multi-instrumentalist, Bob Hallett. "We would be advertised as part of a Newfie Night or Screech Night. Now we have it in our contract that words like "Newfie" and "Screech" don't appear in any context with us."

Along with battling the Newfie stereotype, Great Big Sea want to dispel the myth that you can't live in Newfoundland and work as a successful band. Indeed, in the Maritimes, Great Big Sea is a bonafide supergroup, having won a third consecutive award for entertainer of the year at the recent East Coast Music Awards in Halifax, plus four other trophies, including those for group of the year and song of the year (for When I'm Up).

"The stupidest question a journalist ever asked me," said guitarist singer Alan Doyle, "was when would we be good enough to move to the mainland. "

"We want to be good enough to stay here," snorted McCann. "We're lucky to be from a place that has such a culture, and such a self-deprecating sense of humour. Maybe the rest of Canada will start to look beyond the jokes and The Shipping News and see what it's like to live in this exotic place in the middle of the ocean. . . . I'd be happy if we just played here, and audiences flew in to see us."

Luckily for the rest of Canada, it hasn't come to that yet. On Feb. 24, the band begins an 11-city Ontario tour in Sudbury. This should add to the sales of its second album, Play, which has already sold more than 200,000 copies in this country. Meanwhile, a new video for the Sea's cover of R.E.M.'s End of the World As We Know It will debut soon on Much Music, and a third album is in the works.

Great Big Sea recorded Play and have shot half their videos in Newfoundland. They are adamant about doing as much of their work as they can at home, partly because it allows them to have a real life ("You can walk home after you're finished at the studio," said McCann) and partly because the atmosphere helps preserve a specific folk flavour they deem essential to their music.

"It's not Celtic rock," said Hallett, although the term is often applied to them. "Rock to me is based on a 12-bar rhythm. This is based on Newfoundland music."

"Pushing the envelope," said Doyle. "Faster and louder. Not just a rock band with a mandolin player added."

"With the pop part being that annoying lyric hook you can never get out of your head," McCann explained. "The one everybody's always trying to write."

It's a sound each member had been searching for individually, before they all ended up at Doyle's parents' house for a jam session Christmas Day in 1993. "We didn't know if we wanted to be in a band together. We didn't know if we were going to like each other," said Hallett.

That initial uneasiness was put aside and the band got going: Tours of Canada, England, Poland, Germany, Scotland. Concerts. Record deals. "We did so much playing live that I think people discovered us before we were much on the radio," said bassist Darrell Power.

Great Big Sea's sweep of the East Coast Music Awards earlier this month has definitely lifted them a notch up the publicity scale. The band members suddenly found themselves being asked for opinions on questions like the structure of the ECMA awards, and whether Sarah McLachlan is a real Maritimer or not. "I don't think anyone has done more for Canadian music in the last 12 months than Sarah has," said Doyle. The band was firmly behind the awards, and still consider them valuable: They had met record-company representatives, and signed record deals at earlier ECMAs. And when it comes to politics or anything else, "my opinion shouldn't count any more than someone who works in a candy store," Doyle said.

The United States might be the next country to fall under the spell of Great Big Sea. The group has signed with Sire Records, former home of Talking Heads and k.d. lang, and "we'll start flinging ourselves like spaghetti against the wall and see if anything sticks," said McCann.

Meanwhile, they're a little worried about their third recording. Unlike the first two, it may not have a oneword title. Up and Play, they said, happened to match the feelings of the different albums. The next may be as long as, well ... 11 words.

"But, judging by the hours of arguing that went into the first two, I'm not eager to start this now," said Hallett.

"We're a collective, which is unwieldy, and I'm proud we're together after five years," said McCann. "Four heads are better than one. Sometimes we slow ourselves down, but that can be a good thing. We have to agree on everything."

Just like the Spice Girls?

"Unlike the Spice Girls," said Doyle, "we are not in excellent physical condition."

Great Big Sea plays North Bay, Feb. 25; Peterborough, Feb 26; Kingston, Feb. 28; Hamilton, March 1; Windsor, March 3; Orillia, March 4; Kitchener, Mar. 5; Brantford, Mar. 6; London, Mar. 7; Sarnia, Mar. 8.