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Today, new records are out from Bright Eyes, and the distinctly non-folk Arcade Fire. Spring will also bring new releases from Ryan Adams, Tori Amos, and Feist.
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Brett Hooton is a freelance writer and editor based in Montreal, Quebec. He has an MA in English Literature from McGill University, where he served proudly as the co-president of the McGill Folk Music Society-one of the university's oldest student clubs-for two and a half years. During his tenure, he established far-reaching connections to the local, national, and international music scenes.
His work has appeared in The Gazette [Montreal], Hour [Montreal], Kansas City Star, History News Network, and many other fine print and online publications.
Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri (Can you hear the banjo twangin'?), his love of music grew like mildew amongst the musty, dampness of his parent's Midwestern basement. After he and his three brothers tired of racing their Roller-Racers in circles, they started to flip through the massive collection of vinyl records spilling off of a slightly slanted shelf constructed by his father. A short time later, those records revealed the...um... "unique" voices of such luminaries as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joan Baez, Tim Buckley and countless others.
Obviously, he hated it. Then he listened again and again, and soon he couldn't stop listening. Eventually he was able to recite verbatim nearly every song in the Dylan catalogue and dreamed of spending his formative years riding boxcars. Instead, at the age of 18, he moved to Montreal. In the summer of 2000, he backpacked around Ireland, halting his peripatetic ways just long enough to engage in some in-depth musical research in local pubs and to work on a llama farm in the village of Castlecove on the Ring of Kerry.
In 2003, he married the world's cutest redhead-a bonnie Nova Scotian lass who plays a mean guitar and, after a few drinks, arranges Cyndi Lauper songs for the mountain dulcimer. For the last seven years, he has been a happy expatriate. His French is not bad and getting better. His favorite color is blue, and he is writing his first novel.
Like everyone, he wishes he was Bob Dylan.