Jon Brooks brings songs from his new album The Smiling & Beautiful Countryside to Halifax’s Company House on Saturday night.
The Toronto-based musician revisits the folk/blues tradition of the murder ballad, with a collection of several new and original rural tales of death and grieving, filtered through today’s headlines and Brooks’ own dark, literate sense of humour.
Brooks’ shifting viewpoints range from the laissez-faire attitude of a Gun Dealer to the perpetrator of a workplace mass shooting, in the 12-minute epic, The Only Good Thing Is an Old Dog.
Winner of Kerrville Folk Festival’s 2010 New Folk Award, Brooks is also a three-time English songwriter of the year nominee at the Canadian Folk Music Awards, and has earned praise for his work from publications on both sides of the Atlantic.
Show time for Brooks at the Company House is 9 p.m. Tickets are $20 at the door. For more information, visit jonbrooks.ca
March, 2015