PEI’s pre-eminent singer songwriter will repeat his annual concert during 3 day Acadian festival in Rustico July 23-25, 2010

Lennie Gallant at Rendezous Rustico 2004

Lennie Gallant will perform again at Rendezvous Rustico this summer on PEI. It’s one of the annual appearances of PEI’s top singer songwriter.

The festival opens Friday evening with a BBQ and children’s activities followed by an Acadian concert at 8 pm featuring talented performers from across PEI.

Saturday, July 24, at 8 pm local artists will be performing in the Song Writers Circle at Harmony House Theatre in Hunter River. This event, hosted by John Connolly, will feature Mario Robichaud, Jeannita Bernard, and Nick and Chris Gauthier. Following the concert there will be a homecoming dance at the Cymbria Lion’s club with music by Stagefrite.

The Sunday evening concert will be at 8 pm in St. Augustin’s Church. Tourists and Islanders have been marking it on their summer calendars for years. The concert is just one of many events over the weekend that highlight Acadian culture in the Rustico area. Rustico is Lennie Gallant’s home so his friends and family love to hear him perform on the home turf.

Tickets sold out last year. You can purchase them by calling 902-963-3252 at $20 adult / $15 students (under 16). Visa/Master card accepted.

Video follows the story break of Lennie Gallant singing Before We Sell This Car from last years Rendezvous Rustico

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Le cœur hanté, la painteur Karen Gallant

Qu’une bonne surprise! Un nouvel CD par Lennie Gallant à compter du 3 novembre 2009

par Jean-François Dufour CKRH-FM 98,5 Halifax

L’attente est terminée! Le nouvel album de Lennie Gallant est enfin arrivé et il promet de démontrer à la critique et aux amateurs de bonnes musiques que Lennie Gallant est un artiste dont son travail de création est en plein essor! Avec la chanson d’ouverture, Une tempête dans mon cœur, l’album rugit dès les premières notes et prend en otage l’auditeur, avec une collection de chansons qui ne laissera aucune oreille indifférente.

L’album Le cœur hanté examine l’amour et les relations à partir de différents points de vue et parle avec beaucoup de force en le faisant. De la puissance d’un barrage d’éclatement dans le cœur et l’afflux des choses auparavant non dites dans le numéro d’ouverture, à la déclaration de la beauté de Tu ne sais pas comment jolie tu es, de la noirceur de nos pensées qui hantent notre esprit avec L’histoire du fantôme, aux questions d’une relation qui a perdu de sa vitalité dans Si on passait au feu, ces chansons nous demandent ce que nous pourrions sauver si nous avions soudainement l’urgence de décider vraiment ce qui est absolument nécessaire dans notre vie.

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Unknown musical talent emerges and Rendez-vous Rustico extends olive branch to Acadian Minister Bertram

Lennie Gallant, PEI’s favourite son, hosted the Songwriter’s Circle at Harmony House in Hunter River Saturday evening. Along with Meghan Blanchard, Dennis Ellsworth, and Gary Gallant of Western Prince, they put on a good show in the first extension of Rendezvous Rustico outside the Rustico area where it has been held for the more than a decade near St. Augustine’s church.

Harmony House is a new theatre converted from a local church that makes a good venue for music. The seats are tiered, the sound is decent and it’s accessible. Well accessible except for the rustic bar is in the basement which would be a shame for the disabled to miss – quite the spot. Perhaps they will consider an outside accessible entrance for the bar. Video performance by Lennie Gallant follows the story break.
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Charlottetown Guardian, please pay us for out of date news

Will charge for Internet content if you’re dumb enough to pay

After posting my review yesterday of Lennie Gallant’s new CD If We Had a Fire, I was poking around to find other press stories. It’s not kosher to read other reviewers and then write a review but afterwards its cool to research the music critics.

After seeing my article four times on Google’s first page (2nd, 3rd, 5th) and again on page 3, I wondered: where the  is Charlottetown Guardian coverage?

On page 4 which is a good spot for the new release of PEI’s most famous performing artist. Clicking the link I discovered the Guardian would only let me read the article if I paid them. Right. Sure. Yeah, in a heart beat.

This is the new plan newspapers have concocted in a secret bathroom meeting on a Caribbean island to avoid charges of collusion. They want to charge people for Internet content.   Read the rest of this entry »

Lennie Gallant photo Stephen Pate

Lennie Gallant claims his latest album If We Had A Fire is his best work yet.

Recorded in St. Cecilia Studios on the outskirts of Halifax, the album holds 14 new Gallant songs, performed by the artist and the best musicians the East Coast has to offer.

For Stephen Pate’s review of If We Had A Fire, click the link

“This is the first project I’ve recorded so close to home since my debut album, Breakwater”, says Gallant. “It was great to be able to use players with whom I had been on the road, or jammed with over the years, especially my main road guys Sean Kemp, Brad Davidge, Jamie Alcorn, Adam Dowling and Kim Dunn. There was a great sense of camaraderie and the creation of something special going on in the studio environment. All the songs’ basic tracks were recorded live off the floor and almost all the vocals as well so we ended up with some great energy and, I think, some kind of magic that a more piece by piece recording would probably miss.”

Gallant says he is very happy with the way the songs turned out. “We had been playing some of these in our live show for a while and we’re anxious to get them down. Songs like “Tell Me A Ghost Story,” “Before we sell this Car,” “If We Had A Fire,” have been going over great in our concerts so we were really ready to commit them to disc.

As usual, I ended up writing like mad up until, and during the recording, so some songs were practically born during the process as well. It is great to have that blend of tried and true, and fresh outta the oven on the same album”

Those who have heard the new project say they are knocked out by the rocking energy of many of the songs and by the storytelling as well. Gallant has long been known as a killer spinner of tales in his past work and songs like “Emily’s Letter’s”, (a song of unconditional love and a shared secret), “The Ringer” (a mystical tale of recapturing a lost soul), and “Tonight I Drive You Home”, (a heartrending story that MADD will be sure to embrace) will more than satisfy those looking for that solid Gallant narrative and one-two punch knock out ending.

“Extraordinary Ordinary Life,” recorded with Symphony Nova Scotia, is a song about couples who have stuck it out for the long hall through thick and thin, and Gallant’s moving portrait of a seemingly ordinary relationship is sure to make even the most hard hearted take a deep breath. Count on this one being used at many an anniversary celebration.

His Song “Be The Change” was inspired by both Mia Farrow and Mahatma Gandhi and incorporates a choir of children including Gallant’s own 5 year old daughter. The album also includes several co-writes with some pretty prestigious writers including Gordie Sampson, Troy Verges, Gerald O’Brien, and Carolyn Dawn Johnson, who also sings with Gallant on the title song. Other guest vocalists include Rose Cousins and Coco Love Alcorn.

There is one song that Gallant says is his favorite co-write on the album. “I was on the road for a couple weeks and talking to my five year old daughter, Amelie, on the phone , telling her how much I missed her, when she said, “Daddy, you ‘re like the flowers in my heart, and I go there when you ‘re away” I said “What did you say?!! I couldn’t believe she made that up and so had to incorporate it into a song and, of course, give credit where due. The song is called “Flowers in My Heart,” and like so many other songs on this recording, it will find a place in the heart of any listener wise enough to seek out this latest offering from PEI’s premier songsmith.

(From official press release)

Lennie Gallant, If We Had A Fire

The return of one of our best story tellers

Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, July 25 2009

PEI’s favourite son has returned from the recording studio with 14 new songs on the CD If We Had a Fire. After 30 years, 8 CD’s and numerous performances, I wondered: does he have anything new?
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Lennie Gallant museum

Think outside the box

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown PEI, Canada, February 18, 2009
Change often brings new opportunities. The 9 years of revenue for Cymbria Lions Club from the French School Board will soon be at an end. Any more recriminations and hostility is a waste of time. Put your heads together and come up with a new plan. There’s always a new idea that can make money. You’ve got a building. What can you do with it? How about a Lennie Gallant Museum, maybe a lobster supper? It would give people a destination to visit in Rustico. You might dedicate some space to selling local artists and artisans. Surely with the focus on Rustico, if you adopt a positive point of view you could attract Federal or Provincial dollars to help transitioning the building to something else. Make lemondade from lemons.

Musicians who are trying to start their careers are faced with daunting odds of success. It’s not possible to make a decent income on PEI simply due the small size of any market segment. There aren’t enough people to buy the product. Money is made in the larger centers such as Toronto, New York, Los Angeles and more recently Nashville. Once the home of country music, Nashville is the largest recording market in North America for all types of music. Perhaps Bob Dylan knew what was blowing in the wind when he went there in 1966 to record Blonde on Blonde, his 7th album.
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Lennie Gallant will be appearing in Rustico on Monday December 29th, 2008 at St. Augustine’s Church. Lennie will be accompanied by Sean Kemp, his longtime violin player.

I attended the Un Noel Acadien concert for the first time in 2003 and it’s always been a very special part of the holiday season for me.

Lennie Gallant is one of the Island’s favourite sons and a world touring singer songwriter.

With Gallant on the bill are Meaghan Blanchard, an up-and-coming singer songwriter and award winning pianist Jeremy Gallant. Other performers include Caroline and Jeannita Bernard, Angele and Christine Hashie Rix.

Tickets are still available at 963 3252 or at Gallant’s Clover Farm 963 2000. The performance starts at 7 pm.

By Stephen Pate

An excerpt of this article was published in the Guardian Voice for Seniors June 2008

Lennie Gallant writes and sings of the Acadian and Celtic traditions that make Prince Edward Island unique reflecting our rich heritage. His stories are the stories of our Island.

Born in Rustico, PEI Gallant has been performing for three decades since he was 13 years old. He performed in a variety of local bands in traditional and rock and roll styles, including the Speed the Plow.

In 1988 he released his first solo CD, Breakwater, which demonstrated his traditional Island roots and story telling abilities. Since then Gallant has traveled the world telling his stories about people, places and especially about PEI. His 7th CD When We Get There (2005) was nominated for a 2007 Juno, his third JUNO nomination.

It was the PEI stories I wanted to explore when I met Lennie Gallant in downtown Charlottetown in February. He was here to judge the David Foster Star Search.

What keeps him writing and singing about PEI? I asked.

“PEI is definitely my home,” he said. “I live in Halifax because my wife has a job there and it’s easier for me to move around than for her. I’ll be back here eventually.“

“My family is the oldest (European) family on PEI, the Gallant family” he said tracing his ancestry to Michel Haché-Gallant who lived from 1662 to 1737.

Growing up in rural PEI, Gallant was close to the land. “I’ve worked on farms. I’ve worked on fishing boats. I’m pretty close to what we’re all about here.”

Peter’s Dream is a song about fishermen and the hard times they faced. “I wrote it in Rustico Harbour one morning,” said Gallant. “I woke up at 6 am just in time to hear the put-put of the boats going out.” The song tells of a fisherman who drowning in despair sinks his ship in the harbour.

The first CD Breakwater displays Gallant’s talent for story telling and his Acadian roots. One song, La Tempête, is entirely in French. Destination is a bilingual song that became so popular Gallant performs it at almost every concert.

Island Clay, from Breakwater, was inspired by a poem by Island historian Harry Baglole. It is the touching story of an 80-acre family farm auctioned off to pay the debt. “Another part was inspired by Maggie Carmichael who was in the first edition of Speed the Plow,” said Gallant. “Her family owned a farm like that.”

The song also echoes Gallant’s roots. “I lived in a small farm community and I did all the work, baled hay, picked potatoes and all the work you do in a farm community. I have a great affinity for Island farms and the farm way of life. The song came from that life.”

At Rendezvous Rustico which takes places each July, Gallant sings Going Back to Rustico. “It’s just a fun song to get you to come home to PEI and hang out with your friends and family.”

Ghost stories are also part of Island tradition. Gallant remembers Antoinette Gallant, a story teller, who told them of a phantom ship. Gallant said he incorporated this tale into his song Tales of the Phantom Ship.

The last verse tells of the drowning at sea of six hundred Acadians trying to make their way back after the expulsion. Years later he was given a book by a woman who attended a concert in Victoria, PEI. It had the exact same story of an Acadian ship that went down off the north coast of PEI. Gallant added, “It was exactly like the last verse that I thought I had made up about Acadians who didn’t make shore.”

That song seemed to make strange things happen. “We lost power in concerts while playing that song so many times, we put the song at the end so it wouldn’t end the concert early. We lost lights. We shut down the Vancouver Folk Festival in the middle of the Festival over that song. We we’re playing a TV show with Rita MacNeil and a wind storm came up. We’ve had three lightening storms in the middle of that song,” said Gallant.

I felt the old story teller was weaving her story through Lennie Gallant as he recounted the unusual events that accompanied Tales of the Phantom Ship.

Gallant says he will return to PEI for four or five concerts this summer. We also can look forward to the Lennie Gallant Songbook coming out later this year. It will include his stories in song with the music and guitar chords.

More information about Lennie Gallant is available on his website.

Lenny Gallant is also on MySpace and Facebook.

The ECMA’s are over, our bags are packed and we have to fight the storm back to PEI.

Tempers flared in the parking lot with a school bus and me playing Mexican standoff.

Saturday night must have been the night to remember because Sunday was the wimper at ECMA 2008. There were only 2 events in the afternoon and we went to the Singer Songwriter Circle with Lennie Gallant. The producer of the event demonstrated that you can take 5 talented musicians, put them on a stage and proceed to induuce sleep in audience. We left early for an afteroon nap. Let’s see slow song, fast song, slow, fast – yes that would keep them awake. Maybe it’s the artists who argue for their most sensitive, fingerpicking material. I dunno.

I was back in the wheelchair. My left foot decided that a late night of dancing deserved a day off. How do you like that? Took my left foot to Carmen Townsend and Slowcoaster and it goes on strike. Wheelchairs at these events are non-existent. From a headcount alone, I’d say the ECMA’s are not disability friendly. There is no visible sign any ECMA planner gave disabilities a passing thought.

ECMA organization is a bit odd. We had invitations to the Industry Awards Dinner at 5 p.m. with an inteview scheduled for the Tremtones but no location. A few media types in the lobbby said it must be the Aitken Centre so off we went. Once there we endured a phalanx of indifferent to nasty staff people I guess that’s why it’s the Achin’ Centre.

Undaunted we met the Tremtomes just as the opening music started. A few group shots and we beat it up to the cheap seats. Industry dinners aren’t broadcast on TV and for good reason. The entertainment is sparse and the back slapping is plentiful. I kept thinking – yeah but do audiences like it?

The Gala Awards show was unfettered by the timelines of TV and proved that people will speak too long given the chance. The music was awesome, especially the light shows and sync video. Mark Critch from This Hour Has 22 Minutes is one of the funniest hosts in ages, sort of a Howie Mandel from Newfoundland. Butts were squirming after 2 hours. Mark quipped we were just 45 minutes short of starting ECMA 2009. So why not end it!

Everybody felt tired and exhauted. Tempers flared in the parking lot with a school bus and me playing Mexican standoff. All right, he had brawn: I had good looks,

By Stephen Pate, February 10, 2008, updated May 15, 2009

Saturday was a major work day with interviews scheduled all over town. We would find out that tight schedules don’t happen. Like all trade shows, party stamina is a determinant of success. I think I blew it last night. Whatever.

Disco Rockin Llamas were on the calendar for a 1 pm interview at Sweetwater’s. We arrived at noon expecting lunch but Sweetwater’s had no food service. We got the last table at the Irish pub next door and waited over 90 minutes for bar food.

Missing Disco Rockin we headed out to get a Lennie Gallant pic at the Aitken Centre which is not the centre of anything other than confusion. Staff were a little jumpy since the power was out. Must have been a blown fuse, a very large fuse. Read the rest of this entry »