By Darlene Barss

Playlist Friday brings us the Nuances of Nova Scotia playlist. It seems to be another province with a hotbed of  talent in it. For a small province I sure ended up with a full playlist and I deleted some. There is lots of great music to entertain you for nearly 3 hours. There are also a lot of hip hop artists  from Nova Scotia I discovered.

 

From The Guardian:

“Nova Scotia’s dynamic music scene is filled with a distinctive array of musical influences and an eclectic mix of genres. It is centered around Halifax, a city with a large student population. Sitting on the edge of the world’s second-largest harbour, it is a city steeped in history, from the Halifax explosion in 1917 that killed thousands, to the hundreds of bodies laid to rest there after the sinking of the Titanic. It’s a place that has inspired many musicians and singer-songwriters (Sarah McLachlan spent her formative years here, while folk singer Anne Murray based her career in Nova Scotia), and has deep ties to Scotland and Ireland, dating to the Gaelic diaspora who first settled there in the late 1700s.”

 

From Wikipedia:

“Music is a part of the warp and weft of the fabric of Nova Scotia’s cultural life. This deep and lasting love of music is expressed through the performance and enjoyment of all types and genres of music. While popular music from many genres has experienced almost two decades of explosive growth and success in Nova Scotia, the province remains best known for its folk and traditional based music.
Nova Scotia’s folk music is characteristically Scottish in character, and traditions from Scotland are kept very traditional in form, in some cases more so than in Scotland. This is especially true of the island of Cape Breton, one of the major international centers for Celtic music.”

When putting the playlist together, I generally try to keep it to current artists and put in one of the artist’s latest tracks but occasionally you will hear an older track in there as well. (I can still hear Grant’s embellishments when listening to Mo Kenney’s Telephone).

Some of the artists are nominated for East Coast Music Awards that are being held April 26-30 2017 in Saint John, NB. You may also want to check out Halifax Music Archives instagram for reminders of artists that were part of the Halifax music scene earlier.

 

Who is your favourite artist from Nova Scotia? Did you find a new favourite on the playlist?