Canadian Composer: Wade Hemsworth By: Emilio, Dave J. and Heather, With percussive accompaniment by...
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Transcript of Canadian Composer: Wade Hemsworth By: Emilio, Dave J. and Heather, With percussive accompaniment by...
Canadian Composer:Wade Hemsworth
By: Emilio, Dave J. and Heather, With percussive accompaniment by
Brian
Albert Wade Hemsworth was born in Brantford Ontario on October 23, 1916, and died at the age of 85 on
January 19 2002.
As a Canadian folk singer and songwriter, he wrote a total of about 20 songs. Of these, three
of his most famous were “The Wild Goose”, “The Black Fly Song”, & the “Log Driver’s Waltz”.
Though he learned guitar and banjo in his youth, it wasn’t until he was in the Royal
Canadian Air Force, stationed in Newfoundland, that he discovered traditional
music.
In 1956, he recorded his first album, which was a mix of traditional and original music.
He released a songbook of his music in 1990, and finally recorded his second
album featuring 16 of the songs from it in 1995, at the age of 79.
During the 1960’s, Hemsworth’s music was performed by the McGarrigle sisters, and their band called Mountain City Four. Hemsworth himself would sometimes perform with the
group, though not as a member.
After his death in 2002, Adrienne Clarkson, the Governor General, said his songs were “so much a part of our folklore and
so familiar to us that we didn't realize anyone had written them.”
Dane Lanken, husband of Anna McGarrigle, said of Hemsworth: “Hemsworth creates
beautiful music, music that celebrates life lived fully, the fine old values of hard work and its rewards,
the wilderness and its myriad wonders. It is ... intensely Canadian music, created with a rawness and vitality that matches the wilderness it describes, captures it like a Tom
Thompson [sic] painting.”
A couple of Hemsworth’s songs were made into short films for the National Film Board of Canada, including “The Black Fly Song”, that was an animated video with him singing the
soundtrack.
Many of us grew up with another one of these films that used both real footage and
animation techniques, and the McGarrigle sisters on vocals.