Albums – Solo

By Barry Truter

Traveller is a smorgasbord of international offerings with a common theme: connection through music. With its interleaving of 10 nonfiction stories and 15 original songs, a sprinkle of poems, and a dessert of 8 instrumental pieces, this collection flows loosely from tales of land journeys to sea adventures and from short trips to long voyages while winding gently through times past and present. There are works to touch the spirit and turn the brain, test the heart and protest the way of the world. Anecdotes of encounters with fellow musicians sit comfortably with songs that range from the personal and political to the historical, environmental, and social. Musical styles run from ragtime, folk, and blues to Caribbean, rhumba, and swing.

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By Roger Holdstock

The single In Times Like These evolved from a song-writing workshop taught by Susan Crowe at a Georgia Strait Guitar Workshop. The lyrics are a reflection on more than 25 years of a relationship, going back over rough and smooth times and the pleasures of long-term closeness. Although written and sung by Roger Holdstock, this is still a Fraser Union project with Barry Truter on guitar, Henk Piket on dobro, and our good friend Michael Burnyeat on violin. Recorded and engineered by Victor Smith.

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By Barry Truter

Barry Truter has been a traveller for most of his life. He was born the son of a diplomat whose assignments took his family to a new home every few years. But Truter’s wandering lifestyle didn’t cease when he moved into adulthood; his first job was as a deck cadet on a merchant ship sailing from Europe around Africa and into the Red Sea. His journeys are reflected in the musical style and diversity of this album of seven originals and seven carefully chosen covers supported by guest appearances from musician friends including Fraser Union bandmates Roger Holdstock, Henk Piket, and Dan Kenning.

Truter’s lead vocals accompanied by guitar, octave mandolin and ukulele shine on the album’s arrangements, from sparsely emotive versions of Bruce “Utah” Phillips’ “The Killing Ground” and the Fijian farewell song “Isa Lei” to tasteful licks and soulful backing vocals by some fine Vancouver musicians on the self-penned “Levuka Town” and Leadbelly’s “The Bourgeois Blues.”

There is no dearth of content on the album. Originals such as “Song for Robert Dziekanski” and “Ships of the Deep” are reminders that we live in an insecure world of increasing inequity. But there is also hope and spiritual regeneration on offer in the lyricism of “Roll River Free,” the east/west musicality of “Dravida” and the anthemic chorus of “This Old World.”

Song titles

Levuka Town, Walking Blues, I Wandered By a Brookside, Duncan’s Dream/The Soda Jig/Siobhan’s Gallop, The Killing Ground, The Bourgeois Blues, Song for Robert Dziekanski, Roll River Free, Dravida, The Amphritite, Ships of the Deep, This Old World, Time to Go, Isa Lei.

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By Barry Truter

Contemporary news event of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski’s death at the Vancouver airport motivated this song, reflecting on the misuse of power in the name of security–and its consequences.

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