Gary Fjellgaard

Gary Fjellgaard wrote about a world he had lived in. Prairie farms, logging camps, horses, cattle drives, rivers, mountain trails, abandoned homesteads and the west coast run through his songs as the geography of a life that stretched from rural Saskatchewan to northern British Columbia and finally to the Gulf Islands. That perspective held steady through four decades of change in Canadian country music.

Born August 14, 1937, in Rose Valley, Saskatchewan, to Scandinavian immigrant parents, Fjellgaard spent his first fifteen years on farms in and around the town, farming with horses as a boy and singing in a church choir. Comic books and an old battery radio were the only entertainment. He loved Little Beaver, Kid Colt, Two-Gun Kid and Billy the Kid, and the radio brought in Wilf Carter and the Carter Family, along with a few American stations on a clear night. He always wanted to be a cowboy. By his own account he became a pretend cowboy, drawn to the romance of the life more than its hard work, and he thinks of himself as a balladeer. Many of his songs came out of the prairie years, and ‘Ten Years Old And Barefoot’ was written there.

He left for British Columbia to work as a faller in the bush, and it was in the logging bunkhouses, with a chainsaw by day, that he started writing songs seriously. ‘Colour Of Your Collar’, recorded years later on Heart Of A Dream, is one of his songs about that work. He settled in the Prince George area and played clubs and country shows at night and on weekends with northern British Columbia bands including Gary and the Valentines, Legend, Chilco and Bitterwind. He also worked with veteran country entertainer Evan Kemp and the B.C. Trail Riders, a link to the province’s older country and western tradition, and one account has him performing with Kemp in 1958 as Gary “Rock and Roll” Rogers. A back injury eventually forced him out of logging, and by 1970 music was his full-time occupation. That meant years of working the bars, some of them pretty sketchy, because playing was how he made his living.

In March 1974, RPM reported that Royalty Records was preparing an album by the Prince George singer-songwriter made up entirely of his own compositions. The debut, Me & Martin, carried a 1976 phonographic copyright. Produced by R. Harlan Smith and Fjellgaard and recorded and mixed at Sundown Recorders in Edmonton, it introduced ‘How Much Of Me’, ‘All For You’, ‘Ride Away To The Country’, ‘Me & Martin’ and ‘Old Fashioned Cowboy Song’. Fjellgaard wrote every song except ‘Universal Girl’, a co-write with Frank Penner, and the themes that would stay with him for decades were already in place: independence, rural life, romance, memory and the pull of the countryside. When the album drew national attention in 1977, Fjellgaard was also being noticed as a writer whose songs could work in other hands.

His second Royalty album, Ballads & Beer, followed in 1979. R. Harlan Smith produced again, with a larger studio cast that included Mavis McCauley, Ron “Rocky” Vaugeois, Frank Walls, Wayne Sketchley, Richard Chernesky, Bill Hardie, Ernie Pawliuk, Steve Pugsley, Peter Padden and Wayne Saunders. Fjellgaard wrote nine of the ten songs, with Howie Vickers contributing ‘Real Contender’. Titles such as ‘Caribou To Nashville’, ‘Cowboys Are Crazy Tonight’, ‘Heroes’ and ‘Piece Of Country Pie’ set western Canadian imagery inside contemporary country arrangements.

His career picked up speed in the early 1980s. ‘Ten Years Old And Barefoot’ became one of his defining songs and was named Song of the Year by the British Columbia Country Music Association in 1982. He returned to it again and again, eventually cutting a new acoustic version for The Best Of Gary Fjellgaard in 1997. In 1984 the BCCMA named Time And Innocence Album of the Year and ‘Finest Dancer’ Song of the Year.

Time And Innocence put Fjellgaard among the west coast’s leading studio players, including Jim Vallance, Doug Edwards, David Sinclair, Bob Buckley, Dave Pickell, Joani Taylor, Nancy Nash, Frank and Tim Lent, Terry Davidson and Wayne Basset, with Howie Vickers producing. The songs were still his own, and ‘Ten Years Old And Barefoot’, ‘Mountain Girl’, ‘Handicrafts’, ‘Never Leave The Farm’ and ‘She Can Survive’ drew on memory and lived experience as much as on country romance.

In 1985 the Canadian Country Music Association named ‘Riding On The Wind’ Single of the Year, establishing Fjellgaard nationally just as Canadian country radio was growing more competitive.

No Time To Lose followed in 1986. Produced by Howie Vickers and recorded at Ocean Sound, it included ‘As Rivers Run (Saskatchewan)’, ‘Walk In The Rain Tonight’, ‘Once Upon A Time’, ‘Rocky Mountain Trail Ride’, ‘Pride Of The Prairie’, ‘Tears On Mainstreet’, the title song and ‘Riding On The Wind’. The production suited contemporary country radio, while the place names and landscapes stayed his own.

In 1987 ‘Heroes’, recorded by the Mercey Brothers, earned him the CCMA Songwriter of the Year award, recognition that his songs carried weight apart from his own records.

Heart Of A Dream appeared on Savannah Music in 1989, produced by Howie Vickers and recorded at Little Mountain Sound in Vancouver. It held ‘Cowboy In Your Heart’, ‘The Moon Is Out To Get Me’, ‘Colour Of Your Collar’, ‘Cry In The Wilderness’, ‘In My Heart’, ‘Dance With This Old Cowboy’, ‘Somewhere On The Island’ and the title song.

The same years brought the most important musical partnership of his career. Linda Kidder moved well beyond backing vocals, and their duets became a fixture of Canadian country music. The CCMA named Fjellgaard and Kidder Duo of the Year in 1989 and 1990 and gave them Vocal Collaboration of the Year in 1992, and Fjellgaard himself was the CCMA’s Male Vocalist of the Year in 1989. He also won three consecutive West Coast Tribute Male Vocalist awards from 1987 through 1989, along with composer honours from RPM. ‘The Moon Is Out To Get Me’ and ‘Fire And Lace’ are the best-known Fjellgaard and Kidder recordings, and she returned decades later on Caragana Wind and All In The Journey.

His songs were increasingly treating the land as something vulnerable. ‘Somewhere On The Island’ became closely tied to environmental awareness, and in 1990 the CCMA presented him with the TMI/Fender Humanitarian Award for the song’s contribution to the cause. It was a natural step for a writer whose songs were full of ranchers, farmers, loggers, rivers, coastlines and people whose livelihoods depended on the landscape.

Winds Of October followed in 1991, again produced by Howie Vickers, with Peter Clarke, Rene Worst, Jerry Adolphe, Jim McGillveray, Nolan Murray, Charlie Hase, David Sinclair, Peter Berring, David Hoerl, Peter Padden and Linda Kidder among the players. It contained ‘Heartbroken Hero’, ‘Drifting Cowboy’, ‘Fire And Lace’, ‘Remember When’, ‘Two Gun Kid’, ‘Island In The Storm’, ‘The Last Hurrah’ and the title song. The BCCMA named it Album of the Year for 1992 and ‘Drifting Cowboy’ Song of the Year, and Fjellgaard took BCCMA honours that year for Male Vocalist, Entertainer, International Achievement and Composer, the last shared with Kidder.

In 1993 Fjellgaard won the Juno Award for Country Male Vocalist of the Year. He had been nominated for Most Promising Male Vocalist in 1980 and for Country Male Vocalist in 1987, 1990 and 1992, and in 1993 he was also nominated with Linda Kidder for Country Group or Duo of the Year. RPM reported the win and his promotional appearances in Toronto that followed.

Believe In Forever in 1994 kept pairing contemporary country production with songs about movement, landscape and endurance. ‘Train Of Dreams’, ‘Islanders’, ‘The Falcon And The Cowboy (Keepers Of The Earth)’, ‘Wild Summer Rose’, ‘The Old Green Wall’ and ‘Trace Back To You’, a duet with Anita Perras, carried forward themes present since his earliest records.

Under Western Skies, released by Stony Plain Records in 1996 and produced by Fjellgaard with Miles Wilkinson, moved his western and folk elements to the centre of the sound. Peter Padden, Doug Edwards, Rene Worst, Diane Lines, John Reischman, Keith Bennett, Jeff Bradshaw, Andreas Schuld, Peggy Lee, Chris Stevens and Charlie Hase were among the contributors.

Thirty-five of his songs reached the RPM country chart between 1977 and 1996. Among the most successful were ‘Walk In The Rain Tonight’, ‘The Moon Is Out To Get Me’, ‘Cowboy In Your Heart’, ‘Somewhere On The Island’, ‘In My Heart’ and ‘Train Of Dreams’.

The Best Of Gary Fjellgaard followed on Stony Plain in 1997. Alongside his most-requested recordings it added three new songs, ‘Love To The Wind’ (a duet with Cindy Church), ‘Summer Heat’ and ‘Cowboys And Indians’, plus the new acoustic ‘Ten Years Old And Barefoot’. In his own note, Fjellgaard described the songs as reflections of the cowboy, his early years on the Prairies, love and the sea, and said he never tired of singing them because people kept asking for them.

The next chapter paired him with Valdy. Both men had deep roots in western Canadian folk and country, approaching it from different directions, and their first album together, Contenders, appeared on Stony Plain in 2000. Valdy’s folk sensibility and Fjellgaard’s country approach fit easily, sharpened by the touring they had done together. Contenders Two: Still In The Running followed in 2007, and Contenders 3: Off The Floor arrived in 2015, recorded live off the floor with no overdubs to keep the conversational feel of their stage show.

On September 11, 2005, Fjellgaard was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in Calgary. Valdy made the presentation, and the two performed ‘Contenders’ afterward.

His own recordings were becoming more personal and more independent. Grande Olde Ride in 2001 drew on cattle drives, wagon treks and the western stories that had fascinated him since childhood. In his liner notes he tied the album to experiences he and Lynne had shared on horseback, on cattle drives and on journeys with covered wagons.

Caragana Wind in 2005 may be the clearest late statement of his musical world. The title song came from a return to the family homestead at Rose Valley, empty for roughly half a century and overtaken by the caragana once planted as a prairie windbreak. ‘Steel Horse Lullaby’ looked back to prairie migration and the railway. ‘Barefoot Days’ returned to childhood. ‘Raw Courage’, based on a poem by Mike Puhallo, answered the British Columbia forest fires of 2003. ‘Pop Campbell’s Barn’ recalled another fragment of prairie life, and ‘If The Cowboy Goes Away’ asked what would become of remote western places if the working cowboy disappeared. Even the lighter songs about Mexico and the Baja came from trips he and Lynne had taken.

He underwent quintuple heart surgery while the album was underway and came back to the recordings with what he called a renewed perspective. The finished record leaned on acoustic instruments and exposed vocals.

He took that approach further on All In The Journey in 2009, recording the basic performances with only voice and guitar or mandolin, without headphones, because he felt it kept an emotional energy that could otherwise disappear in the studio. Producer David Sinclair built the accompaniment around those takes with Linda Kidder, Rene Worst, Brian Newcombe, Shawn Soucy, Elliot Polsky, Cam Wilson and Finn Manniche.

The subjects ranged widely. ‘Back When Billy Robbed Trains’ set western outlaw history against reflections on modern power. ‘Horses In Heaven’ grew from a collaboration with Darrel Delaronde. ‘Run Little Guy’ dealt with the death of a beloved dog. ‘Have We Been Here Before’ came from a visit Gary and Lynne made to Barkerville and became linked to their fiftieth anniversary.

‘I Apologize’ addressed the residential school system and its impact on First Nations people. Fjellgaard described it as an apology to victims and survivors and acknowledged his own generation’s responsibility for letting the abuse continue. He made it available as a free download through his website.

By then his fingerstyle guitar, storytelling, humour and sparse arrangements sat comfortably within western roots and folk music, while his songs kept the language and imagery of country. In 2017 the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame added him to its StarWalk, citing the western heritage and life among people tied to the land that shaped his lyrics.

The Collection: Solo Acoustic in 2011 revisited favourite cowboy songs with voice and guitar alone, recorded live in St. Andrew’s United Church in Nanaimo: ‘Heroes’, ‘Buckskin Jacket’, ‘Reins Of Glory’, ‘Falcon And The Cowboy’, ‘Caragana Wind’, ‘Zane Grey’, ‘Dance With This Old Cowboy’, ‘Ten Years Old And Barefoot’, ‘Drifting Cowboy’ and ‘Cowboy In Your Heart’. Many of the songs had started out in exactly that form. Writing songs had always brought him joy, but by 2020 he had stopped. Performing he still loves.

Fjellgaard and Lynne raised four daughters and have lived on Gabriola Island, off Vancouver Island, since 1983. Lynne turns up throughout the stories behind the songs, from long tours and Baja trips to cattle drives and Barkerville. His musical relationships lasted just as long. Howie Vickers produced his major records of the 1980s and early 1990s, Linda Kidder sang with him for decades, Peter Padden played on his records from the Royalty years into his independent work, David Sinclair went from session guitarist in the 1980s to producer of All In The Journey, and Valdy became a partner across three albums and years of touring.

The young songwriter wrote about country life from inside it. The older one wrote about what had disappeared, what remained and what was worth carrying forward, and read in order, his catalogue works almost as an autobiography. ‘Ten Years Old And Barefoot’ holds childhood. ‘As Rivers Run (Saskatchewan)’ goes back to the Prairies. ‘Somewhere On The Island’ ties landscape to responsibility. ‘Caragana Wind’ looks back at the abandoned homestead. ‘Have We Been Here Before’ measures a marriage against the remnants of an older British Columbia. ‘Knowin’ When To Quit’ faces the strain of life on the road, and ‘All In The Journey’ makes the travelling itself the subject.

-Robert Williston