Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
This band has no press
Discography
Modabo, Modabo, 1997: nominated for ECMA album of the Year
The Many and The One, 1999
Handmade Instrumentals: Acoustic Guitar Recordings, Volume 1.
Two New Albums on the way!!
Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Music by Darrell Grant. Selections from "A Child's Garden of Verses" by R.L. Stevenson. Set for winter release.
"Arrow and Wheel", a singer-songwriter album, featuring "The Weaver" (lyric by Grant Colfax Tullar), "My Favourite Place', "Lasso the Moon" and "The Song of the Wandering Aengus' (lyric by WB Yeats)
Photos
Bio
He's Back !!
For seven years, Darrell was the singer / songwriter / guitarist behind the exciting contemporary folk trio, MODABO. Known in the 1990’s for their powerful live performances, heartfelt songs, and a quirky sense of fun, the lads were twice nominated in the East Coast Music Award Category, Group of the Year. Their enduring self-titled debut cd (produced by Garnet Rogers, penned by Grant) was nominated for an ECMA Album of the Year. After many performances coast to coast, and one more acclaimed release, MODABO disbanded in 1999.
Since then, Darrell’s been working away, creating and recording music in a relaxed project studio he calls The Digital Pitchfork. Here he's built a catalogue of almost 300 songs, instrumentals, and experimental soundscapes. At The Fork, he has created, produced, and recorded music for three documentary / information films, and also one dramatic NB Film Co-Op production, Reading Tom Sawyer. He's just finished a gig as the Director of Music for an hour long social documentary, in which 11 original compositions were placed or created. Darrell's music publishing company, Turn Up That Music Inc. (1997) administers rights for his own music as well as the Modabo catalogue of tunes.
Darrell’s lyric sense of music lures the listener into the simple beauty of the acoustic guitar, and then into colourful splashes of electric and virtual guitar technology. Intricate finger picking and percussive right hand techniques span realms of alternate tunings, and explore partial capo effects. The deep energy of his verse is forged into sure melodies by a strong and distinctive voice; his phrases are infused with a “poet’s heart.” This strength is informed partly by his academic background: Grant is a summa cum laude English graduate of St. Thomas University. For his graduate work, he was awarded a Special Canada Council Masters of Arts Scholarship (awarded annually to Canada's top 100 students).
Darrell’s love of a lyrical story has led him to cast some beloved poems into song. On his solo album, Arrow and Wheel, for example, there is a Yeats favourite, "The Song of the Wandering Aengus", and also Lord Byron's classic, "So We'll Go No More A-Roving." "The Weaver", A poem of spiritual consolation, written by Grant Colfax Tullar, recieves a simple, uplifting musical arrangement. And then there is "A Musical Garden of Songs: Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Music by Darrell Grant", an altogether special project. Here are 17 poems selected from Stevenson’s outstanding children’s book, A Child's Garden of Verses, set to melodic and intimate folk-styled music. It is his favourite musical project to date, for the album is inspired by the witnessing and nurturing his own son’s growing love of music and rhyme. The creation of both new albums have been generously supported by artsnb, and the Province of New Brunsick.
In terms of his own craft with words, Darrell hopes to release Collected Lyrics and Poems, before too long.
A gentle collection of compositions for acoustic guitar, Handmade Instrumentals, is also currently available.
Darrell is available year-round for festivals, songshops, special events, school programs, shows of all kinds.
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