• By The Red

    By The Red

    Catalog #: BR8940

    Release Date: July 10, 2015

    Folk Music
    Vocal Music
    Percussion
    Piano
    Voice

    Life on the Canadian prairie is vital, challenging, and poetic, and on their debut Big Round Records release, BY THE RED, pianist Laura Loewen and baritone Mel Braun - joined by Fred Redekop and Jay Taylor, otherwise known as the mandolin-bass duo Big and Dinky - present a glimpse of the variety of folk music found in Manitoba's Red River Valley. Drawn from French Canadian, Métis, German Mennonite, Scots, and cowboy culture, and supplemented by the art song-like settings of John Greer, Larry Warkentin, Chester Duncan, Robert Turner, and Heidi Ugrin, these works relate stories that 200 years of life in the Red River Valley have generated. Tales of sod-busting pioneers, exile, sacrifice, summer idyll, and love, all leavened by a sense of humor that allows life to flourish on the prairie, are explored on this dramatic and nostalgic collection.