Porch music with a little Texas Red Dirt
2009 Canadian Folk Music Award Nominee New/Emerging Artist
2009 Southwest Regional Folk Alliance Official showcase artist
2009 Kerrville New Folk Finalist
2009 Rose Garden Coffeehouse Finalist
2008 Mountain Stage New Song Regional Finalist
2008 FAR West Official showcase artist
2006 OCFF Blues Award "Songs from the Heart" contest
Some call it country, some call it roots-and-blues, others call it rougharound-
the-edges folk. Lynne Hanson calls her musical style by her
own name: porch music with a little Texas red dirt.
It’s a sound that’s been receiving rabid applause from enamoured
critics and devoted fans in Canada, the US Southwest, Europe and
Australia. Accompanied by fine instrumentation (acoustic guitar,
mandolin, banjo, fiddle, dobro, pedal steel, harmonica) and blessed
with a soulful voice that’s been compared to Gillian Welch, Lucinda
Williams and Mary Chapin Carpenter, Hanson is one of the most
captivating female singer-songwriters on the Americana scene
today.
“Canadian country music at its best.” – Maverick Magazine
Don’t go labelling her a country crooner. But Hanson sure knows how to share her troubles in a song. Her second CD, Eleven Months,
tells many tales of heartbreak: a soft and tender ballad about the
death of a lifelong true love in Dance of the Evermore; a
heartbreaking tale of two lonely lovers who get together for all the
wrong reasons in Seeking Juliet. With an open heart and not a hint
of sentimentality, Hanson sings simply and honestly about loss and
the search for redemption.
That redemption comes at her live shows. No one leaves a Lynne Hanson concert feeling heavy-hearted. Onstage
Hanson is a happy-go-lucky storyteller with a gift for the gab and a wink in her eye, engaging her audience just as
much with her stories and one-liners as she can with her music. She’s intimate with her audience, as if she were
shooting the breeze with old friends at her kitchen table. Or her front porch.
Which brings us back to that Texas red dirt…
“Any listener thinking Hanson couldn't have been born north of the Mason-Dixon Line is forgiven.” – Folk and
Acoustic Music Exchange
Hanson grew up seeing more white Canadian snow than Texas red dirt. She grew up in Ottawa, a quiet,
conservative government town with bone-chillingly cold winters. Unlikely breeding ground for a southern-style
roots musician? Perhaps. But anyone who can live through a lonely Ottawa winter just might emerge in springtime
singing the blues. And that’s exactly what Hanson did. For years, Hanson was a self-described “closet kitchen
musician” until 2006 when everything she’d kept inside spilled out onto her acclaimed first CD, Things I Miss.
Things took off pretty quickly with the release of her second CD, Eleven Months. Word got out about an earthy
singer-songwriter from Canada and Hanson was invited to showcase stages from Austin, Texas to Memphis,
Tennessee, a European tour, a few more stops in Texas and a Canadian Folk Music Award nomination.
It’s been a busy few years for Lynne Hanson. And with a nonstop touring schedule she’s not taking any breaks
just yet. Well, maybe just a few. On her front porch. To kick off her cowboy boots, grab her guitar and write some
more unforgettable songs for her third CD.
They say everything’s bigger in Texas. With a little Texas red dirt under her heels, Hanson might have to consider
building a bigger front porch to fit in more fans.
"Eleven Months is worth every minute it took to spill out all those guts onto Hanson's kitchen table." - Alan Neal,
CBC Radio One
- bio written by Jenny Green
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