Strongwriters On Songwriting: with Eric Bjarnason Martin and Scott B.

SAMANTHA MARTIN:Drawing influences from Memphis soul greats such as Aretha Franklin and Brooklyn’s Sharon Jones, Samantha Martin has been nominated for thirteen Maple Blues Awards to date, 4 times in 2019 and 3 times in 2020. Her record Run To Me was released on April 28th, 2018. Eleven months after releasing their recording Run to Me, the 11-piece blues/soul band was nominated for a Juno Award for Blues Album of the Year.

JERRY LEGER Leger has a thing for ghosts. The Toronto singer/songwriter confirmed it a couple of years ago when he went on a personal journey to explore many of Ontario’s largely unknown ghost towns, having been inspired by the writings of historian Ron Brown. Leger has immortalized one of those towns, Burchell Lake, on his new album Time Out For Tomorrow, containing 10 portraits of the impermanence of life, love, or simply catching a glimpse of a shooting star.Yet, other ghosts reside much deeper in Leger’s songs. Whether they’re the voices of Roy Orbison, Lou Reed, Gene Clark, Rick Danko or Ronnie Lane, they naturally complement the universal truths at the core of Jerry Leger’s music, along with his undying faith in rock ‘n roll as a way for all people to find common ground.

LINDY VOPNFJÖRD: State of the Heart reflects not only Lindy’s personal evolution toward a new love and revolution as a dedicated songwriter, but also his fledgling partnership with Danny Michel, who breathes new life into Lindy’s style by imbuing his signature folk sound with a modern feel.The opening moments on the title track “State of the Heart” carry the audience in this new direction, as he sings: “This was meant to be a protest song, but the politics were wrong / Not a time to be sublime / let’s leave the politics behind.” State of the Heart displays the synergy between the sound and vision of a meticulous perfectionist working out of a rural Southern Ontario studio and the soul of a self-described “joyologist and freedom nerd” who recently moved to Hamilton, Ontario.

Each song on The Ridge represents an acoustic-driven mixture of styles that reflects Taylor’s range as a creative force by building upon the templates forged during his tenure fronting the alt-rocking collective Staggered Crossing as well as the fine funk and R&B-driven foundation he continues to mine with the still-active Julian Taylor Band. From the title track’s ruminations on Taylor’s formative days spent on his Grandparent’s farm in British Columbia to the hopeful swoon of “Over the Moon” to the tribal-energy landscape that permeates “Ballad of the Young Troubadour” to the Tex-Mex Canadian-Western vibe mashup of “Love Enough,” the honest, raw nature of The Ridge enables listeners a myriad of personally relatable entry points into Taylor’s enlightening narrative tales.

Taylor’s extensive experience as bandleader, band-member, and solo artist has all prepared him for how to best zero in on his prime directive as a songwriter. “I’ve been able to carve out my own niche as a musician because I feel like I can do want I want to,” says Taylor. “I’ve been able to go back to the drawing board as I keep experiencing failure after failure and see how I’ve grown and learned from those failings. And I’m ok with that. I’m here because of the people who love and support me, my belief in myself, and the ability to get up every time I haven’t succeeded to keep on trying. I feel so fortunate to have created the music that’s on The Ridge. I’m really proud of it.”

In the final episode of the Teachers, Mentors and Friends series, we're excited to introduce Blair Packham, who will debut two new songs from his upcoming release with The Impossible Dream. A former cohost of a long running major market weekly new radio show about music in the studio on the Bell Media Talk Radio Network. And now, 16 years after his last release, Could have Been King, Blair Packham is recording a collection of clever, catchy and poignant songs, entitled Unpopular Pop.