The Home Routes Borealis Trail is opening up once again, and Suzie Ungerleider’s Oh Susanna is spearheading the performers slated for the 2016-17 season with a concert on Sept. 25.
Ungerleider’s alt country/alt folk performance features songs with an organic palette and a contemporary edge, with strong elements of balladry and storytelling that have earned her three Juno nominations, two Canadian Folk Music (CFM)nominations and one CFM award, and earned her the top spot in CBC’s Great Canadian Song Quest in 2009.
Ungerleider was born in Massachussetts, though was quickly transplanted to Vancouver, where she spent her formative years throughout the ’70s and ’80s. Vancouver, and the west coast in general, is not a music scene typically associated with country sounds. But while Ungerleider’s American family helped keep her country and folk roots alive, she recalls a deeper inspiration in the city: “It’s still this kind of western, resource-based place, where people try to get away from and make new things. That blues, country world made sense: you saw a lot of people come west with dreams who maybe didn’t make it, and the dreamy folks going somewhere better.”
Ungerleider was also drawn to the underground, and often illegal, punk and rockabilly shows that would emerge in warehouses in the city, only to evaporate into the morning. But by the ’90s, the city’s focus had taken a strong turn towards electronic and club culture, and Ungerleider had decided to seek a home more suited to her passions. Once again, she found her place in folk music in the most unlikely place: Canada’s urban heart of Toronto.
“When I came to Toronto, I met a lot of people who really understood the music I was interested in,” explained Ungerleider. “When I was in Vancouver, I felt like I was alone listening to a bunch of dead people, but when I came to Toronto, it was the norm.” Dead American staples like Hank Williams and Bill Monroe, passed only in body.
This isn’t Ungerleider’s first Home Routes tour, but it is her first heading north. Ungerleider has found the experience enriching. “It’s the community that’s making the event, and the musician is just the excuse to get together. I get to observe them as much as they’re observing me, and get to know what the town is all about.”
Namedropper, Oh Susanna’s last album, was a recording of original music written for Ungerleider by some of Canada’s top alt folk and country artists, including Ron Sexmith, Jim Cuddy, Royal Wood and The Good Lovelies. After her stretch on the Borealis Trail, Ungerleider plans to begin recording her latest album, one which recalls her teenage years in ’80s Vancouver. “Teenage shenanigans,” she notes, “like love, heartbreak, and getting caught doing things you shouldn’t be.”
The concert will be hosted at 91 Parkway Crescent at 7 p.m. Admission is $20 and all proceeds go towards the performing artist.
