I think that Edmonton-based singer/songwriter Joe Nolan is one of those true “old soul” songwriters. He’s been writing songs that are deeper and wiser than his years for over a decade. He first came to my attention when Six Shooter Records put out the album Tornado in 2014 and set him off on the road to promote it. His name was unknown to me, but the label was well known, and the list of people who helped make that record was impressive. It was produced by the great Colin Linden, who was the guest on episode 3 of this show. He brought in his usual stellar backing musicians, and special guests Lindi Ortega and Tom Wilson, so the album got a quick listen. I loved it from the start.
As good as that album is, Joe has demonstrated some of the most remarkable growth that I’ve ever seen in a young songwriter and performer. He’s truly dedicated to improving and learning as much as possible and will settle for nothing but the best that he can write and put out.
I think that one of the reasons that I’m also so drawn to Joe as a person is that we have similar personalities in a lot of ways. He struggles with darkness and doubt and despair but finds a lot of joy and strength in music and especially live performance.
Joe is truly one of the hardest working musicians that I know. Normally, he’d have toured all over the place and done hundreds of shows over the past year, but Covid had other plans.
He’s made the best of his time though, and just announced a new album called Scrapper, and I really hope that you’ll pre-order that and purchase some of his other albums by visiting him on Bandcamp at joenolan1.bandcamp.com You can learn more about him at joenolanmusic.com
Joe had a lot more to say about the album, but I thought this episode was probably long enough already, so I’ve got more of my chat with Joe coming up on the May 23 edition of my other show, Tell the Band to Go Home, which you can find most places where you find this show, or at tellthebandtogohome.com
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