Three words - Juno Aware Winner! Old Man Luedecke won the 2009 Juno for Best Roots Traditional solo album of the year. Although you may say Banjo?, it will be a great night of music! The tour will be completed, from venue to venue, on a bicycle making this the “Greenest” tour in Nova Scotia. No pollution, no carbon footprint, and no waste. Just good music and a great evening’s entertainment. Support the arts and the environment…come to the Astor on Oct. 2 at 8 p.m.
A banjo songster like Old Man Luedecke is a rare type of musician. A songwriting one of such hopeful goodness, rarer still. In the tradition of solo banjo men and women of days gone by like Dock Boggs, Bascom Lunsford and Roscoe Holcomb, Old Man Luedecke sings his songs accompanied only by his loving five string, foot stomps and the occasional yodel. His songs are melodic gems blending old time sensibilities with an unusual vision and poetic sense. His music belies someone more than slightly ill at ease with modern life. This is a bizarre type of music Dock Boggs might have made if he'd studied poetry.
Old Man Luedecke left the big old city of Toronto, met a girl in the Yukon, fell in love, bought a banjo and fell in love again. After a couple of years of love and banjo and the makings of a brilliant performing career in sunny Halifax, he returned to the Yukon with his sweethearts. There he woodshedded. He wrote a tonne of songs over the next year and a half. He held regular gigs playing banjo in a gambling hall with can-can girls and in a honky tonk called the Snakepit accompanying piano Barnacle Bob. He even made an appearance at the Dawson City Music Festival.
After a time, he left again for Halifax to renew musical acquaintances and record his debut CD Mole in the Ground. That CD has become a smash on college radio, was featured on CBC's Atlantic Airwaves and is a hot item in stores and at shows. He continues to live in Halifax and perform there and around the country to ever-wider acclaims. His stage show blends hokum and inspiration into powerful and fun entertainment that will delight young and old. He's still sweet on the girl he met up there in Yukon, and the banjo.
Bicycling to the Astor
Bicycling to the Astor
Old Man Luedecke
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