Low Down Articles
Artist Profiles - Doug McArthur
Article 42 of 73
From the book Artists of the Gatineau Hill by Catherine Joyce. This article first appeared in the "Artist Profiles" column in the January 17, 2007 issue of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
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In Full Flight
It can take a life time to sing with one's own pure sound in a voice that echoes with the gift and the journey of the artist. With his new CD, Thunder into Heaven, Doug McArthur has come into his own, singing with a subtle, lyric authority that haunts the listener long after. Each cut rings true, clear as "The Trembling Bird" that flies down the wild river in search of its lover -
"Just like this river I used to run wild
I was thoughtless and reckless and lived like a child
But time wore me down, you see what it's done
I'm down to my bedrock - see what I've become..."
A singer-songwriter who has lived by music all his life - a rare feat in a country where few musicians survive - Doug McArthur began riding the wild river of song at 17 when he wrote his first lyrics. Born in London, Ontario, in 1946, he grew up visiting his Quaker grandmother in nearby Coldstream, a small village he still thinks of as home. There he listened to country music, read ballads and historical narratives, and imagined himself becoming a cowboy singer.
In high school in Goderich he started a folk group, The Dromen Trio - they all wore identical shirts and fashioned themselves after The Kingston Trio. "It was the late 50s, early 60s and the finest musicians were coming through town - Ronnie Hawkins & the Hawks (soon to become The Band), Little Caesar, David Clayton Thomas. We heard them all." By his 20s, running a small music club in the basement of the St. Catharine's YMCA, he launched himself on the road playing folk rock in local bars.
"We all begin with imitation until we can find our own voice. I've played professionally all my life, writing my own material. But it wasn't until I went to California and began singing with Jeffra - a singer and pianist who has her own albums and toured in Les Mis' - exploring the great stories around San Francisco, that I began to sound like myself." In an album entitled Angels of the Mission Trail (1996), Doug found that perfect blend of lyric poetry and dramatic narrative that has become his trademark.
From mountain-climbing in Scotland through running a youth hostel in London, England to adventuring for a year around Europe, Doug has steeped himself in the troubadour tradition of traveling light and witnessing life in song and story. His lyrics have been sung by Stan Rogers, Randy Bachman, Valdy, Nancy White, Garnet Rogers, Bill Hughes, Bobby Watt and Colleen Peterson, to name but a few.
With his 40 years of experience on the road in the music business, Doug is regularly courted as artistic director or events manager for major music festivals around the country - the Eaglewood Folk Festival, the Hamilton-Wentworth Festival of Friends, the duMaurier Jazz Festival the Winnipeg Fo1k Festival and Roy Thomson Hall. He is a past President of the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals.
At home here in the Chelsea/Wakefield area for the last three years, Doug is helping to build the village we all want to live in - rich in history, alive in community spirit, connected by the wild river that is our common language. Our native song.