The 2017 Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction ceremony takes place Sept. 23 at Massey Hall in Toronto. The CSHF is a national, bilingual, non-profit organization, founded to honour and celebrate Canadian songwriters. Since 2003, the CSHF has held seven highly successful induction ceremonies focusing on the unique craft of the song and celebrating the value of music in our society.
This year’s inductees include Neil Young, Bruce Cockburn, Beau Dommage and Stephane Venne with a list of presenters and performers including Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, Eh440, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Randy Bachman, The Arkells, k.d. Lang and incoming Governor General Julie Payette.
Music Life Magazine recently caught up with Joe Oliva, bass vocalist for the Toronto acappella group Eh440 who will be performing at the induction ceremony. Eh440 began five years ago when five musicians with five different musical backgrounds decided to form a group.
“It’s a bit of a different story than most acapella groups,” said Oliva during a telephone interview from his home in Toronto. “Most acapella groups come from church choir or school choir and they sort of have similar sounds, like when people are singing lead vocals, they’re sort of interchangeable. And we want to go like you do with a normal band, like an instrumented band and go with very diverse lead singers so that when someone is watching a show, there’s always different facets to it. So, myself, I’m a bass singer and I’ve always been sort of an acappella bass singer and about seven years ago I met this beat boxer (Luke Stapleton) at a festival and I was like, ‘Wow, this guy is amazing!’ And I wanted to work with him, so that was one part of it. And then we just put the band together.
“I was already working with Janet Turner who’s sort of like a country singer, pop singer and then she said, “I used to compete in music contests as a child with this girl and she’s amazing and she’s a pop singer, and she’s a powerhouse, she’s a rapper now.” And that was Stacey Kay and then about a year ago, maybe less than a year ago, maybe six months ago, we had a guy (Jake Stern) leave the band and Tafari Anthony, who’s like an R&B soul singer, auditioned and we were blown away by his voice. He was the first audition and we were like, “this is the guy.” But we had to do the other auditions too! [laughs]. And so we all came together and so when people are on, like every song sounds very, very different. Different grooves, different beat, and depending on which of those three is on lead, it has a very different vibe to the music.”
When asked about another Toronto acapella group, The Nylons (who recently “hung up their mics”), Oliva says he is well aware of them.
“They were sort of my first introduction to acapella being in Canada as well. I was friends with their bass singer, Arnold Robinson. He left the band a few years ago, maybe six or seven years ago, and then he passed away unfortunately. I was buddies with him. I don’t really know any of the other members. Stacey knows Gavin, one of the guys in the band right now, Gavin Hope. But they definitely broke ground, not just in Canada, but even south of the border, there are people of a certain age group that say, “Oh, I saw The Nylons in concert in Wisconsin”, or wherever it was, and these are now people that are in acappella groups. So, they had an influence, not just in Canada, but all over the world.”
Eh440 currently has two albums out – Turn Me Up (2014) and Boss Level (2016). Although my introduction to Eh440 was seeing a video of them covering Michael Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel and other covers, Oliva says the two albums contain mainly original material.
When asked if the band is working on a new album yet, now that Tafari is in the band, Oliva said, “He’s so new that we just sort of got him into the show,” adding, “But we should be starting that, sort of, in the Fall. This summer we had some much needed down time because we were on the road full time right up until June or so. So, July and August we just did the gigs that we had to do. And now we’re starting up again. We’re doing Massey Hall gig as you know. We’re going to South Korea this month and things get rolling again.”
The band’s Fall tour will be mainly in the U.S. and overseas. “We do more shows in the states than anywhere else and people complain that we don’t play Canada enough,” said Oliva. “So, we try to do at least one or two Toronto shows so that local people can come out and see us. But no matter what it is, it never seems to be enough, like you do it on a Friday night and then someone’s like, “Oh, I couldn’t make it out that one night”. And then they start e-mailing, “When’s your next show?” and we don’t have any. But I think we do a lot of shows in the U.S. Overseas is lots of fun because you get to see different countries and that sort of thing and meet people from different backgrounds. But we love playing at home, which we don’t play enough of it. The great thing about the Massey Hall show is, I’m 95% sure that they’re going to be live streaming it. So anybody can see us anywhere in the world.”
Oliva says he and his bandmates are looking forward to being one of the night’s performers to help honor all the artists at this year’s Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction ceremony.
“I think everybody’s doing a minimum of one song,” said Oliva, adding, “It’s a really great honor to be sharing their induction ceremony with them.”
Fans can expect an exhilarating live show with breath-taking music, moving stories and stunning visuals. For more information visit http://www.cshfinduction.ca/ and http://www.masseyhall.com/.
The Massey Hall show will be livestreamed at CBCMUSIC.CA and on CBC MUSIC’s Facebook and YouTube pages starting at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, September 23.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxpv1f2vZLo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8Mp1RqnXMU
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