A few years ago, I was fortunate to be involved with a rather interesting project that gathered some of Manitoba's most talented country writers and performers. The Country 630 "Hit Kickin' Country" CD was the culmination of a massive talent search. We selected ten incredible individuals to record original works under the watchful eye of Randy Hiebert.Randy, at that point, was a locally reknowned guitar player and had cut his chops on a couple production projects. These days...Randy spends his time playing guitar for Howard and David Bellamy. Guitar players fascinate me. Good ones are hard to find...and GREAT ones are those rare souls who can own a room and make the hair on your arms stand on end. Randy is one of the great ones.
The CD was cut at John Hildebrand's studios in Winnipeg and released across Canada in the early 90's. We were pretty pleased when a few of our artists picked up national airplay. A flood that struck the Winnipeg area a few years later claimed the only copies I had of the project. I sent a quick email to Randy asking if he had a copy of the disc. He said, "No, I don't". And then he added, "...but I have the masters." Randy dug out the masters, reworked them, tweaked them...and fired them off to me. I can't thank him enough.
The songs below are the work of some amazing, talented performers and I'm really happy that I was able to collect and share the songs. A couple pieces have some special undertones as the artists were, as it turns out, a little larger than life. I have some favorites among the cuts below...it would be great to know yours.
Now, I'm missing the cover art and, as a result, I'm short a few names; if you've stumbled across this post and can fill in a couple blanks for me...I'll happily update the information so the people responsible get the appropriate credit. Contact is as easy as filling in a comment box.
Thanks....and enjoy.
Cool Slick Country Dude (Brad Mazur)
Turn It Up (Chris Bigford)
No Way
She’s Still Mine (Chad Henry)
Crash Landing (Norbert Ducharme)
Getting’ Suspicious (Sandy Serle)
The Greatest Gift (Steve Bell)
What If It Was Love
Ride This Stage (Ron Karlowski)
The Way Love Goes (Sheila Drysdale)
The Way Love Goes (Sheila Drysdale)
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1 comments:
Doug! "Cool Slick Country Dude" performed by Brad Mazur...originally from Manitoba...I'm thinking Roblin or Dauphin area. I can't quit remember. But Brad was the original GX94 Star Search winner when you and I worked there. I went with Brad to oversee the recording of this up at Audio Art in Saskatoon.
A very cool find!!
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