George Harris is known for his award-winning grasp of the visual arts, but he is putting courage before comfort and is showing colours never seen before, even by those who know him well.
Harris, the head curator and artistic director at the Two Rivers Gallery, is releasing his debut album. He has become a recording artist. Courage Before Comfort is his first CD.
"My music tends to deal with experiences I've had with people and things," he said. "A lot of it traces the footsteps of the places I've lived (Vancouver Island, Whitehorse, Prince George, etc.). But also a lot of them are about people I've known. And some are those magical fleeting moments you have that linger with you and help make life wonderful."
The song Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down, for example, is an ode to his friend George Sawchuk, the late artist who put so much effort into painting the labour and landscape of the local forest industry. Sawchuk, said Harris, would often use the mock-Latin phrase "non illegitimae carborundum" which roughly translates to his song title.
Like Sawchuk, Harris's artistic skills are given a folk treatment. The songs are tight little ballads, easy to listen to and some quite easy to sing along with. Most are Harris on vocals and acoustic guitar, but he did call in some friends for their collaborations like vocalist Carmen Beattie and multi-instrumentalist Raghu Lokanathan.
Harris understands that some surprise will accompany this album release. He hasn't been extroverted about his burgeoning music. It literally started as quietly as possible. When one of his children was born, he finally acted on a longtime impulse to learn the guitar so he could soothingly strum for baby. That was 11 years ago. His family has grown, and so have his skills. Eventually he grew past just strumming, then past noodling on other artists' songs, and into crafting his own material.
"Even the songs I loved to listen to didn't always feel like they represented my voice, so when I became more familiar with the guitar I started cobbling together words to go with it, and eventually the songwriting took over the priority for me, above just playing the guitar for its own proficiency," he said.
He was already a vocalist, however. He grew up with choral singing as a school pastime and personal hobby. He was even part of the Canadian Honour Choir in high school. Music has always formed some of the strongest fibres of his life. He married a professional performer-composer (Anne Scarlett has been a featured player at the Casse-Tte Festival of Experimental Music and is a leader in the PGSO violin section). And his personal music collection spans classical to punk.
"Well, in fact, I never started songwriting with an eye to putting a CD out at all," he said. "Songwriting is kind of a funny thing. You end up with this song. You had to mull it over in all kinds of ways, do it and re-do it. You have to learn, yourself, first, how to perform it. And I'd find myself making a quick recording at home to help with that process, and as I did this I was becoming more and more intrigued with that process and more and more frustrated by the quality of what I was doing, so I eventually reached out to Rick Irvine at Cheslatta Records."
That's when Harris took the music up yet another notch. He and Irvine produced about 15 full tracks, paring it down to a baker's dozen to put on the CD. Well known B.C. musician Corwin Fox mastered the lot. Prince George performer Trina Chivilo kept him on track, Elizabeth Gibbs and Theresa Sapergia contributed some visual art efforts to the packaging, and Lokanathan raised his hand to be Harris's opening act when the time came to unveil the project.
That time has come.
On Saturday at 7:30 p.m. the debut singer-songwriter concert by George Harris will take place at the one place with which he is synonymous for all the other artistic reasons in the world: the Two Rivers Gallery.
Admission is $10 at the door. Courage Before Comfort will be available, and Harris will happily autograph anything associated with this auspicious event.
