The Best Of

Liner notes
These songs are a reflection of the romance and the spirit of the cowboy, impressions of my early years on the Prairies, love songs and songs of the seas. I never get tired of singing them, folks keep requesting them and to me that means they are standing the test of time. I hope the three new songs added to this collection will do the same.

Special thanks to duet partner Linda Kidder, Peter Padden, Diane Lines and all those musicians I have had the privilege of working with over the years both in the studio and on the concert stage. Thank you each and every one.

Thanks to my Producers Howie Vickers and Bill Buckingham along with Co - Producers Miles Wilkinson and Gary Koliger for treating my songs with such respect.

To Cindy Church and her ethereal voice on “Love To The Wind” I’m honoured.

Also, a special thanks to Holger, Karen, Louise, Anthony and Alvin at Stony Plain for allowing me to be an individual in this business called music. It’s not always the easiest path.

To Randy, Stan and everyone at Warner Music Canada., thanks for being there and believing.

The Cowboy experience of being part of a Cattle Drive every summer for many years now has been an inspiration for numerous songs, some of which are on this album. To the Cattle Drive Committee, staff, volunteers, the ranchers and the Cowboys of the Kamloops and surrounding area, thanks for the privilege of riding along.

To my wife Lynne, my companion on the trail for over forty years. Thanks for being the greatest “Side-Kick” a man could ever want.

To you the listener, I hope you can find a little bit of yourself in these songs. If you do, bless your heart for being a sensitive soul.

A few words about “a national treasure”
Gary Fjellgaard is one of Canada’s national treasures. He is a songwriter whose music tells stories with both passion and compassion, and a performer whose music bridges the worlds of western roots music and the folk traditions.

Now, with his ninth album, and his second for Stony Plain, he offers a collection of his most-requested and most familiar songs—it is, in fact, a gentle, quiet, almost understated invitation to get to know an artist and a poet who represents the best aspects of a good life well lived. To call Fjellgaard much-loved by those who have been touched by his music is in itself an understatement; he is one of those rare men who makes friends wherever he goes, but who relishes the special peace of a quiet life on an island on the West Coast.

His strong sense of self-worth has always meant that his songs ring as true as the man himself. He has always written and sung his songs his own way, and if his music is in tune with what is “current” on the scene, he’s pleased—but he is not going to turn handsprings to change his music to match other peoples’ preconceived notion of what it should be.

There are three brand new songs on this album—Love to the Wind (a duet with Cindy Church), Summer Heat, and Cowboys and Indians—as well as a new acoustic version of one of his most popular tunes, Ten Years Old and Barefoot. The rest have come from his recent Stony Plain album, Under Western Skies, and three earlier albums, all now out of print and extremely hard to find.

Many of these songs were charted radio hits; between 1982 and 1992, no less than seven of his tunes were picked “Song of the Year” by various music organizations. Tunes like the two duets with Linda Kidder (Fire and Lace, The Moon is Out to Get Me), as well as Heroes, Dance With This Old Cowboy, and Somewhere on the Island all brought him to a wider audience.

He has earned honours from the B.C. Country Music Association, the Canadian Country Music Association, the Dutch Country Music Association, RPM Magazine, the Canadian Music Publishers Association, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (three West Coast Tribute awards, and the 1993 Juno Award for Country Male Vocalist). In 1991 the CCMA honoured him with the TMI Fender Humanitarian Award, in recognition of his contribution to environmental awareness; it remains the award of which he is most proud.

Gary Fjellgaard’s long career continues. He does, true enough, spend a little more time on Gabriola, off Vancouver Island, than he once did—and if you were to see the view from his living room you would understand why. His family remains integral to everything he does—he and Lynne have been married for more than 40 years and there are four daughters and a baker’s dozen grandchildren.

This, perhaps, is why his music sounds so serene. As one writer put it: “His music is so rich that his art is free of bitterness, whining, self-pity and manufactured pathos. He is the poet of the extravagantly good side of the human spirit; breathtakingly sane and compassionate.”

Listen to these songs—and to this singer—and you will surely agree.

—RICHARD FLOHILL

Richard Flohill is a Toronto writer and publicist, who works too far away from Gabriola Island