Go on a musical road trip with this coast to coast to coast playlist
Chris Picks Music is a weekly playlist of songs that have aired on CBC Radio's Morning Edition
With summer in our midsts, many of us might be eyeing the road for an extended holiday or day trip.
To help sweeten that road to adventure, I suggest you take advantage of how this playlist has grown over the past six months. With more than 370 songs running over 22 hours, you can cover a lot of highway immersed in music.
Drawing from all compass points, I've added a few more road-ready tracks for your listening pleasure.
Starting south of the border, U.S. singer-songwriter and upright bass player Scott Mulvahill taps into that yearning for something more and the possibilities a change of place can offer. The title-track to his new album Himalayas has a sparseness and simplicity in its bass-dominated arrangement that creates both a sense of inner and exterior space. You might actually see the Himalayas in your mind as you listen to this track.
Looking to the west coast, the latest single from Vancouver singer-songwriter Joshua Hyslop is called "One Shot In The Darkness." You can feel the miles roll on by as you sit back listening to this track.
Heading north, Inuk folk-pop singer-songwriter Elisapie offers up a track called "Wolves Don't Live by the Rules." It's off her latest album The Ballad of the Runaway Girl. This week, that album made the long list for the Polaris Music Prize.
Saskatchewan's own Colter Wall will be performing on the mainstage of the 50th edition of the Regina Folk Festival this coming August. His song "Sleeping on the Blacktop" has been featured in Hollywood films such as Hell or High Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Now, that song, recorded at the CBC broadcasting centre in Regina, has been featured in the trailer for HBO's Deadwood: The Movie.
Let's take a break and grab a fishing pole! Saskatchewan duo Kacy & Clayton offer up a cover version of the Gordon Lightfoot classic "Bend in the Water."
Looking to our eastern neighbours, Winnipeg singer-songwriter Madeleine Roger co-produced and co-engineered her debut album Cottonwood. The album contains her reflections on femininity and equality and she's proud of the fact that it was created with gender parity. Her tune "Automobile" keeps our playlist moving.
Let's put it in cruise as we hit a straight piece of open road. "Straight Ahead" is the lead-off track to the latest album, In Our Time, from Toronto singer-songwriter AHI (pronounced "eye").
A Tribe Called Red has remixed the classic "N-D-N Kars" by Keith Secola. It was a hit on tribal radio back in 1992 and will definitely get you bouncing in 2019.
Heading farther east let's check out some music from soul-jazz innovator Elizabeth Shepherd. After four years of collecting interviews with strangers from around her hometown she has woven them into the music of her latest album called Montreal. I've added her track "The Good Lord's Work" to our road trip.
The playlist rolls on but I'll finish up here with East Coast Music award winner Makayla Lynn. She has a road ready track for us called "Joyride."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
