Garnet Rogers (born May 1955) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

folk musician, singer, songwriter and composer. He was born in

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of T ...

with roots in

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

. He began his professional career working with his older brother, folk musician Stan Rogers, and arranging Stan's music.

Career

Despite Stan Rogers' death on June 2, 1983 (just a few weeks before Stan, Garnet and bass player Jim Morison were to tour the US), Garnet Rogers has pursued his own career since then. At first, Rogers 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 Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and a civil rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire co ...

, ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'', 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, Rogers' style is more modern, utilizing influences from

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

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/ bluegrass, and classical. 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). Rogers' 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, 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 Roy Charles Forbes (born February 13, 1953) is a Canadian folk music singer-songwriter, whose music bears heavy influences from classic American genres of acoustic blues and traditional country. Forbes is known for his high soulful voice and p ...

' (Bim's) ''Woh Me'', and

Archie Fisher Archie Macdonald Fisher (born 23 October 1939) is a Scottish folk singer and songwriter. He has released several solo albums since his first, eponymous album, in 1968. Fisher composed the song "The Final Trawl", recorded on the album ''Windwa ...

's ''The Final Trawl''. His collaborators include Doug McArthur and Doug Long. Rogers has also written "Night Drive," a memoir of his travels with his brother Stan, who died in a fire aboard an Air Canada flight in 1983.

Personal life

Garnet lives on a farm in

Brantford Brantford (Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population: 104,688) is a city in Ontario, Canada, founded on the Grand River (Ontario), Grand River in Southwestern Ontario. It is surrounded by County of Brant, Brant County, but is politically separate with ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, where his wife Gail raises champion thoroughbreds. They also own a house in Nova Scotia.

Solo albums

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

Other albums

* ''Off the Map'' with

(1986) * ''Doug McArthur with Garnet Rogers'' (1989) * ''All That Is (The Songs of Garnet Rogers)'' (2002) ed House Records* ''

Live at the Black Sheep ''Live at the Black Sheep'' is the title of a live album by folk singer/guitarist Greg Brown. Performing with Brown are Garnet Rogers, and the duo of Pete Heitzman and Karen Savoca. After all four musicians had performed at the Ottawa Folk Fest ...

'' (2003) * ''The Best Times After All'' ivewith Archie Fisher (2019)

References

External links