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 Over
the past decade or so Steve Dawson has become such
an indelible fixture on the Canadian musical landscape that it’s
tempting to take him for granted. One of the drawbacks of being
so talented is that Dawson makes everything he does sound so effortless.
The music that continually flows out of him is so natural and unforced
that it’s possible to forget all of the toil that went into
producing it. Behind the organic, flowing guitar work, the crisp
arrangements and the laconic singing voice, resides one of the brightest,
hardest working musicians the country has ever produced.
Steve Dawson is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist.
Specializing in slide and fingerstyle guitar, pedal steel, lap steel,
banjo and other instruments, he is in demand as a performer, session
musician and producer. Over the last decade, Steve has performed
at major jazz and folk festivals in Canada, the USA and Europe.
In addition to working on his own music, he’s kept very busy
producing memorable albums by such luminaries as Jim Byrnes,
Kelly Joe Phelps, Jenny Whiteley, Old Man Luedecke, The Sojourners,
and The Deep Dark Woods, as well as the award winning
Mississippi Sheiks Tribute Project. Add to that
his session work and touring commitments and it’s amazing
that this 2-time Juno Award winning artist (not
to mention 5 other Junos for his production work!) ever finds the
time to create any new work under his own name.
Steve grew up in Vancouver. At 18, Steve spent two years at Boston’s
Berklee College, before returning home to perform in touring original
bands for several years. His interest in acoustic music began to
take root at this time, as he explored the earliest recordings of
blues, jazz, and Hawaiian music from the 20s and 30s.
The Spirit Merchants were the most prominent and
this band played countless gigs all over North America. Steve’s
subsequent duo with violinist Jesse Zubot (Zubot and Dawson)
featured acoustic instruments in genre-stretching original music.
They released 3 albums and won many awards, including a Juno in
2002.
The Great Uncles of the Revolution teamed Zubot
and Dawson with 2 exceptional jazz musicians from Toronto. This
band was the winner of a Juno Award in 2003, as well as The Grand
Prix de Jazz at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 2003.
Other artists began asking Steve to produce records for them. In
between tours and sessions, he started a career as record producer.
Steve has produced award-winning albums for Jenny Whiteley,
Jim Byrnes, Old Man Luedecke, Kelly Joe Phelps, Ndidi Onukwulu,
The Sojourners, John Wort Hannam, and many more. He has
been awarded Producer of the Year honours twice at the Canadian
Folk Music Awards and three times at the Western
Canadian Music Awards.
In 1998, Steve started Black Hen Music, an independent
record label with the intention of releasing roots, acoustic, jazz
and blues music. Over the last 10 years, the label has thrived and
now has a roster of almost 20 artists and over 30 releases that
are distributed internationally.
Steve began his solo recording career in 2001, releasing Bug
Parade. 2005 saw the Juno Award nominated We Belong
to the Gold Coast, which further explored his love of antique
and modern sounds, mixing traditional blues and Hawaiian music with
originals.
Steve received a grant in 2005 from the Canada Council to
study the pedal steel with Greg Leisz, the foremost player of the
instrument outside of country music.
2008 saw the release of 2 solo albums: Waiting For The Lights
To Come Up – a collection of new songs, and a few
traditional, and Telescope – an all-instrumental
album featuring the pedal steel guitar as the main voice. Recorded
at the same time, these were 2 different concepts that Steve wanted
to record with the same musicians. Telescope was
nominated for a Juno in 2009.
Steve produced Things About Comin’ My Way: A Tribute
to the Mississippi Sheiks in 2009. It featured Bruce Cockburn,
Van Dyke Parks, Danny Barnes, Geoff Muldaur, Bob Brozman, John Hammond,
Bill Frisell, Madeleine Peyroux and many more. Several high-profile
concerts with various participants took place in 2010, and an award-winning
in-concert DVD was released.
Nightshade hit the streets in March, 2011. A new
solo album from Steve is always something special. Although it continues
in the vein of Steve’s previous solo recordings, it expands
upon the language of his guitar work and offers more complex and
fully realized songs than ever before. It represents a significant
leap forward and is destined to become one of the most admired albums
in an already impressive body of work.
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