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Depth of the Heart Alex Browne, Peace Arch News “Dance with me, sing along, harmonize sweetly Promise my heart that we’ll never divide Say yes to forever and I shall be happy Happy forever with you at my side” Brian Thomas may not claim Celtic heritage, but as anyone who has heard his music can attest, he has inherited a grand tradition of heart-on-your sleeve folk troubadourship. The singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist’s first album, Storybook, was a memorial to the heartbreak of finding and then losing love. His second, Dancing In The Desert, was a collection of original praise and worship songs in which he chronicled his spiritual journey of recovery. His third, Prairie Rain, is largely instrumental music but nonetheless personal – featuring as it does a song he wrote for his wedding to his wife, Lynne, songs inspired by their honeymoon journey to Scotland and Ireland, and a song dedicated to their seven-month-old daughter Lily. Perhaps most personal of all is the album’s sole vocal track, Happy Am I. “That was the song I wrote and which I sang to Lynne when I proposed to her,” he said. That genuine, deeply felt quality runs all the way through the album, even when telling his stories with the sound of the finger-style guitar, the piano, the recorder, the Celtic bodhran (drum) or the latest addition to his “musical palette”, the hammered dulcimer. Maybe it’s that quality that accounts for him being one of five nominees for best instrumentalist-solo in the 2007 Canadian Folk Music Awards, out of a field of some 400 applicants. Whatever happens at the CFMA ceremony, Dec. 1 at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, Quebec – which he plans to attend – Thomas feels the nomination alone is a vindication of his music. And he’s grateful to sister-in-law Jessie Kergan, who has worked in the music industry and is currently a documentary film maker, for the expertise she’s brought to bear in marketing his musical talents. Ironically the North Surrey native and Trinity Western grad never set out to be a musician and actually refused piano lessons at age six – along with his three sisters – when his mom offered them. “Her mom had left her some money to get a piano and lessons,” Thomas said. “But all my friends were telling me I would have to spend too much time practising. “That was unfortunate. I took a real interest in music later on, in high school. When I picked up the guitar I found it was for me, and I started getting involved with bands. There’s an even greater irony about Thomas and his siblings, he said. “Now we’re all musicians. One sister plays violin and guitar, an older sister plays piano and my other sister plays piano and drums. “Even my mom is learning how to play piano – she’s picked it up. We’re the musical family that didn’t know it.” Even though he took formal music theory training in university, Thomas is a confirmed auto-didact when it comes to picking up new doubles – such as the hammered dulcimer. “I start playing an instrument until it sounds right,” he said, simply. “It’s fun to be able to play something that’s not very common.” And he also likes to develop his own ways of playing each instrument, particularly for his own music, which on his current album evokes everything from a hawk flying to a rainstorm. “U2 said that one of the reasons they sounded unique is because when they were developing their sound they didn’t know how to play anything else.” Thomas said that he’s had a number of musical influences–even a youthful flirtation with Pearl Jam and the Grunge scene – but found himself drawn more and more to the Celtic sound of tin whistles, bagpipes and violin. “When I was about 16 I went to a concert by (late Christian musician) Rich Mullins, who played the dulcimer and all of the instruments, in fact, I now play. “He had an amazing sound. I guess I put that in the back of my mind, that I’d like to try that one day. “I liked the sound of it and feel of it. It’s one that seemed to fit the best, that worked best with the songs I was writing. I don’t think I even called it Celtic music to start with, but people started to tell me ‘that sounds really Celtic.’ That’s when I gave it a title – one that people can understand.” That said, Thomas acknowledges he writes in a variety of different styles – and in the certainty that his life and experiences will continue to colour his music. “I’m starting to write more in a ‘60s folk blues genrey. I don’t know what my next album is going to sound like. It’ll probably be very different from what I’ve done.” |