Yukon music teacher's songs to transport you

This story is part of a web series called Music that Matters with CBC Yukon's Airplay host Dave White. Dave sits down with Yukoners to talk about five pieces of music that inspire them. 

When Alex James moved to the Yukon four years ago, he brought a few things from his home in Ontario — music and memories in particular.

So when we asked him for five songs that matter to him, he seized on the role music plays in transporting him.

"With the pandemic and everything that's [going] on, I really took that word 'matters' — what matters to me," he said. "Right now the place that I'm in now matters to me, and also people and places from my past matter to me."

His first choice came from Canadian icons The Tragically Hip and their song Gift Shop.

"Gift Shop brings together the feeling of wonder for the world and the place that we get to live," he said. "Whenever I get down, that song can pick me up and make me feel so grateful for what we have."

Bruce Cockburn's Going To The Country provided James with his second choice.

"The song really makes me think about the drive from Pickering [Ontario], where my family lived, to Prince Edward County, which we'd probably do every weekend from the spring to the fall. Every lyric just fits the drive from the time I was a kid until I became an adult. That song just brings me back to the county."

James selected Little Wing, a classic track by Jimi Hendrix as his third choice. He first heard the song when a friend of his was trying to learn the version recorded by Stephen Ray Vaughan, and then James traced the song back to the '60s original. That, in turn, inspired him to pick up a guitar.

"I'm a person of colour, and it really is meaningful to see people who are successful who look like you ... it really pushed me to learn that tune. And it still brings me a tremendous amount of triumph when I sit down to play it, even 20 years later."

James calls Oscar Peterson is favourite musician, and his song Land of the Misty Giants, is something of a family favourite. James's brother was a musician and played the song as part of his final recital for his music degree.

"That piece will always bring me back to sitting in my parents' house late at night, or even early in the morning, listening to him go through those changes. And now that I live out here I feel that music every day."

For his final selection, James chose Electric Pow Wow Drum by A Tribe Called Red. He remembers listening to the band play that song when they were in their early days and performing at a club in Peterborough, Ont.

Then, only a couple weeks into teaching in Yukon, James was at a school dance in Haines Junction and heard it again.

"It was one of those dances where the boys are afraid of the girls, and the girls are afraid of the boys. This tune came on and all these kids rushed the dance floor. All of a sudden it was like their identity mattered," James said.

"They were pulling me on to the dance floor. I learned how to dance the way Crow Clan in Selkirk First Nation dance. One student taught me how to do that, and it really solidified why I'm here and it's about the kids. I can't believe the way that group and that tune has spread across this country."