We posted James Keelaghan's second tape a few months ago, and we were super excited (we get super excited a lot - it's like Gene's super power) to find this in a thrift store. It's gems like this that keep up digging through piles of Pearl Jam and Mom and Dads tapes. Timelines is available for [url=https://jameskeelaghan.bandcamp.com/album/timelines]download through Keelaghan's bandcamp[/url]. [img width=696]//7ca49eb9f67ba1319ef136f9d52cd8b8.cdn.bubble.io/f1734295035609x569369081398953600/richtext_content.jpeg[/img] [b]Folksinger strives for musical link of past, present[/b] By James Muretich (Herald staff writer) James Keelaghan is a time traveller. No, he hasn't built a time machine in his basement. The local singer/songwriter does his time travelling through the folk songs on his independently released debut disc entitled Timelines. "I don't feel that my personal life is that interesting to any- body, least of all to myself," Keelaghan says in an interview at his northwest Calgary home. "I find that writing about historical events, or things written in a historical context, gives me a good vehicle for expressing myself." And while the songs may be historical, or even nostalgic at times, it doesn't mean that they don't have any relevance to today. "A song like Boom Gone To Bust shows the circular nature of history. It's about someone's father who left Western Canada for the east in 1935 in order to find work. Then, nearly 50 years later, his son is forced to do the same thing in reverse and travel from east to west to find work." Keelaghan is performing at the Kensington Delicafe tonight, the Unicorn Friday and Saturday and at the Calgary Folk Club on Nov. 13th. Many followers of the folk music scene consider Keelaghan to be one of Canada's best new songwriters. His tunes on Timelines are warm, inviting and insightful, though occasionally his passion for history outweighs the appeal of a melody. Still, Timelines is a strong debut disc. It's available at such local record stores as Sound Swap, The Record Store, Sounds Good and A & A downtown. Keelaghan's subject interest such as the British being hemmed in on the west coast of France during the Second World War comes naturally as he's a history graduate from the University of Calgary. "I think people are too caught up in the present. How people can divorce the present from the past has always been beyond me. "Certainly, the overwhelming immediacy of culture today encourages that. People's attention span has been whittled down to the three minutes it takes to watch a rock video." However, there also is a romantic side to several of Keelaghan's compositions. His best- known song to date is the haunting ballad entitled Jenny Bryce. written in a medieval poetic style and tells the tale of a man whose one true love dies during childbirth, leaving him alone with a daughter bearing his wife's name-Jenny Bryce. The song is on Keelaghan's new album/cassette, but also appeared last year on a recording by Canadian folk artist Garnet Rogers. "I've never told anyone this before, but deep down I kept thinking of (the 1968 hit song) Honey by Bobby Goldsboro when I was writing Jenny Bryce. I can't help but see Jenny Bryce Keelaghan only began playing professionally in 1983 when he joined the backup band of fellow Calgary folk artist Margaret Christl. He now performs across Canada on a weekly basis either as a solo act or with several other Alberta musicians in his "inflatable band." His style is most often compared to the late Canadian folk artist Stan Rogers. "I can't say that he didn't influence me because he was the most influential folk figure of my generation," the 28-year-old Keelaghan says. "But I really don't hear the strong similarity that other people do. The only thing I can think of is that my material is in a similar storytelling vein and delivered with integrity. I'm sure, though, that when Stan started off people told him he sounded like other artists, too."
