Garnet Rogers

Garnet Rogers
Background information
Born	May 1955 Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Occupation(s)	Singer-Songwriter
Instruments	Guitar, Fiddle, Vocals
Labels	Snow Goose
Website	http://www.garnetrogers.com

Garnet Rogers is a Canadian folk musician, singer, songwriter and composer. He was born in Hamilton, Ontario in May, 1955 but has roots in Nova Scotia.^[1] He began his professional career working with his brother, folk musician Stan Rogers,^[2] and arranging Stan's music.

Career

Despite and ever since Stan Rogers' death on 2 June 1983 (just a few weeks before Stan, Garnet and bass player Jim Morrison were to tour America ), Garnet Rogers has pursued his own career.^[3] At first, Garnet had difficulty getting a permit from the U.S. Immigration Service, which only granted one after a campaign on his behalf was launched by Odetta, the Boston Globe and a PBS TV station in New York.

While his brother's style of writing was more traditional and often based on Canadian Maritime styles, Garnet's style is more modern, utilizing influences from blues, rock, country/bluegrass, and classical.^[4]

Rogers' instruments include the guitar, mandolin, violin, and flute. In live performances, he usually sits beside a guitar rack that includes three vintage Gibson acoustic guitars, a National guitar, a Fender Stratocaster, and sometimes a Hammertone Octave 12 (half-scale electric 12-string guitar).^[5]

His songs include The Outside Track, All That Is, Sleeping Buffalo, Night Drive, Under The Summer Moonlight, Summer Lightning, Small Victory, and Frankie and Johnny. They range from slices of life to mild social commentary and humour. His humour is also seen in his on-stage banter between songs,^[2] which is mostly unrecorded, except for a couple of interludes on his brother's posthumous album, "Home in Halifax". In addition, Garnet has covered other folk artists' work, including Roy Forbes' (Bim's) Woh Me, and Archie Fisher's The Final Trawl. His list of collaborators include Doug McArthur^[6] and Doug Long.^[7]

Personal life

Garnet lives on a farm in Brantford, Ontario,^[2] where his wife Gail raises champion thoroughbreds. They also own a house in Nova Scotia. Garnet has written a memoir of his travels with his brother Stan Rogers. Stan died in a fire aboard an Air Canada Flight in 1983. The book is called Night Drive, Travels With My Brother, published 2016 and is currently available at Garnet`s shows and on his website www.garnetrogers.com. The book, 735 pages long is filled with stories about ``every stupid, inexplicable and bizarre thing that could happen to a pair of young idiots who were naive enough to think they could play folk music for a living back in the mid-70`s and early 80`s.``

Solo CDs

• Garnet Rogers 1984
• The Outside Track 1985
• Speaking Softly in the Dark 1988
• Small Victories 1990
• At A High Window 1992
• Summer Lightning Live album 1994
• Night Drive 1996
• Sparrow's Wing 1999
• Firefly 2001
• Shining Thing 2004
• Get a Witness Live album 2007
• Summer's End 2014

Other CDs

• Off the Map with Archie Fisher 1986
• Doug McArthur with Garnet Rogers 1989
• All That Is (The Songs of Garnet Rogers) 2002 [Red House Records]
• Live at the Black Sheep 2003

See also

• Eileen McGann—Irish-Canadian female Celtic folksinger. They started out professionally in the same timeframe, played many of the same venues in their early days, and Garnet Rogers appeared on some of her early recordings.
• Gordon Lightfoot

References

External links

• Garnet Rogers' official webpage