Jerry Leger & The Situation
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Jerry Leger & The Situation

Toronto, Ontario, Canada | SELF

Toronto, Ontario, Canada | SELF
Band Folk Singer/Songwriter

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"Jerry Leger - "Traveling Grey" Review"

Much like American folk poet Joe Pug, Jerry Leger seems too young to understand and document the human condition so accurately. You wonder if Leger was born too late, missing out on his destined era. His preferred vocabulary and imagery could slide into coffee shops decades ago, when the song writer was embraced not just by the people attending show, but those trading songs in hotel room or back stage guitar pulls as they killed time waiting to take the stage.



Leger’s latest LP, Traveling Grey is a heartfelt blueprint of small town life. Acting almost like a musical accompaniment to Richard Russo’s epic Empire Falls, Leger builds characters that may see moments crawl by and on quick glance assume nothing changes – “Looking out the window of the old hardware store. Twenty-five feels a lot like twenty-four.” – but under the surface the town’s residents are torn apart by love, anger, small town politics and the cutting bite of a neighbor’s whisper. What makes this record feel alive is Leger presents each flaw, each flame without judgment. These are stories he’s heard or dreamed; they aren’t better or worse then him, simply now a part of who he is.



These tales would be engaging backed only by melodic acoustic chords and harmonica, but Leger’s trusted players (The Situation) provide boombast and restraint at just the right moment. Eliminating every superfluous sound on the title track helps push it along, but standing alongside are a fiddle laced, heartbreaking epic (“John Lewis”) and a foot stomping barn burner (“The Joke’s On You”) that benefit from every note the band so tastefully adds. Each arrangement, although alive, feels like if it were put together any other way, it would have felt wrong.



I’ve long thought Leger’s eye and pen would push him into the limelight considering our country’s love of charismatic guitar wielding storytellers, but maybe that path isn’t his desire. Maybe he’s better served watching and listening unnoticed from across the bar, and if that allows him to paint characters as detailed and heartfelt as those on Traveling Grey, I’m hoping for years of obscurity for this young man.
- Herohill


"Jerry Leger is another Canadian songwriting legend in the making.(Print Only)"

It’s one of those moments I dread, having to talk to an artist at the most inappropriate time. In this case, Toronto singer/songwriter Jerry Leger has just endured the funeral for his grandfather, the man he credits for turning him on to Hank Williams and other classic country music.

But to my relief, Leger is more than eager to chat since, at age 23, he has fully committed to venturing down the same “Lost Highway” that Williams and so many of Leger’s other heroes travelled. You can hear that commitment in Leger’s voice on every track of his latest album, You, Me and the Horse, a folk-rock gem co-produced by Josh Finlayson of the Skydiggers, that has earned praised by the likes of Ron Sexsmith and Fred Eaglesmith.

“I can’t really put into words what it means to me to have those guys appreciate what I do,” Leger says. “I’ve always been conscious of the Canadian songwriting tradition, going back to Hank Snow, and I’d like to feel like I’m a part of that. People have told me that I sound older than I am, but then again Bob Dylan wrote Blowin’ In The Wind when he was 20. I think it’s all a matter of how you utilize your imagination.”

Leger certainly stands by that statement in his own songwriting. All of the album’s standout tracks grew from tiny grains of ideas, from the chance conversation with an elderly woman that inspired Round Walls, to a generations-old family ghost story that became Daddy’s Lantern.

“I try to write something every day, even if I don’t end up using it,” he says. “That’s something that Ron [Sexsmith] told me he did and it was great advice. Of course, I always try to be prepared when inspiration comes, but the best ideas are still drawn from personal experiences. We just toured the east coast for the first time, which was a lot of fun, and we’re going out west for the first time in the fall. I feel like I’m just beginning to understand what Canada’s all about, but right now I feel pretty comfortable in my own world.”

The “we” Leger refers to is his band, the Situation, which has been with him since they began playing their first gigs at the small club called Castro’s in Leger’s east end Toronto neighbourhood. It’s a gig that Leger still eagerly accommodates into his schedule on a regular basis. “It’s a great vibe there,” he says. “It’s not a well-known live venue, so we often use it to work out new things. But lately we’ve had people coming from different parts of the city to check out what’s going on there, so that’s been nice too.”

Leger credits some of that to the positive critical reception You, Me and the Horse has received since it was released last November, and he hopes to build on that with his next album, despite his misgivings about the current state of the industry. “We’re talking with a few people about putting out the next record,” he says. “I understand what a risk it is now, especially with the kind of music I make, but I don’t know why it should be. I think people will always want to hear good songwriting, and that’s all I try to do.”
-Jason Schneider is a writer for "The Record", roots editor for "Exclaim! Magazine" and author of the acclaimed novel "Whispering Pines-The Northern Roots of American Music" - The Record


"Jerry Leger - "Traveling Grey" Review"

Jerry Leger’s distinctive voice, deep meaningful lyrics and Ryan Adams-like style seduce your eardrums on this album. His light-hearted, all natural sound embraces the art of folk music with his back-up band, The Situation, providing perfect tonal accompaniment. Hailing from Toronto, Leger is no rookie to the music industry – Traveling Grey is his fourth studio album. Wrong Kind of Girl and John Lewis are some of the more notable tracks, giving a proper representation of what Leger is really all about. Solidifying himself as a prominent Canadian artist, his latest album implants his unforgettable acoustics in your mind, leaving your toes tapping for days. - The Uniter (www.theuniter.ca)


"Jerry Leger & The Situation - Live Review-The Dakota Tavern"

By Randi Beers
Walking into the nearly empty Dakota Tavern at 10 p.m. on a Friday evening to witness the tail end of Jerry Leger's soundcheck, one would never guess that in a mere matter of hours the room would be packed with rowdy fans, singing and dancing between shots of Jameson.

Following the opening set, Leger and his band took the stage. With his ease, warmth and comfortable stage presence, the Toronto songwriter began with a series of country jams that seamlessly glided into one another without missing a note. When the band would take a minute between songs, Leger was keen on entertaining the crowd with a small story told in a nostalgic cadence. At one point, he silenced the room and invited his drummer to make a couple jokes, teaching the crowd that the best time to go to the dentist is at "tooth hurty."

At the end of Leger's first set, he announced he was going to do one more song and then take a break, but after this song was done, his bassist glided right into the solo of "You Are My Sunshine" and the crowd spontaneously began to sing along joyfully, in what became the highlight of the night.

After a small break, the room was packed and the audience was comfortably drunk and ready to dance. Leger's set by this point had become much more jammy, filled with originals and, every once in awhile, covers of Big Joe Williams, the Clash and Hank Williams (for the "Hanky Panky" fans). As 2 a.m. rolled around, Leger announced last call at the bar and closed the place down with a few final jams, surely transporting any Toronto urbanite to a rural soundscape. - Exclaim.ca


"Jerry Leger on songwriting and power of praise"

Beaches-bred troubadour Jerry Leger is as about as hard-working as hard-working musicians get, cranking out records at a furious rate and tirelessly gigging whenever and wherever they'll have him because he recognizes the value in the old showbiz adage “they're not gonna come to you.”

A tireless self-promoter, Leger won't shy away from telling you he feels he deserves to be better known — and the 27-year-old singer/songwriter manages to get away with such bravado because he's probably right. Ron Sexsmith and Fred Eaglesmith have been in his corner for a few years, anyway, and his last couple of releases — 2010's rustic, Dylan-esque Traveling Grey and the recent, rockabilly-leaning digital EP The Good Old Days Are Back in Drag — were the work of a gifted young storytelling sure-footedly coming into his own. If he keeps at it as relentlessly as he has, it'll happen.

Leger has held down a Thursday-night residency at East End haunt Castro's Lounge forever, but now he has also sets up shop at the Magpie on Dundas West for Mondays in May.

Q: The designation “singer/songwriter” has become completely reductionist, as you and I both know. What differentiates Jerry Leger from the rest of the singer/songwriter pack?

A: The term was sort of boring-sounding even when Neil Young was given that crown during the Harvest days. I sing and I write songs and maybe that's overdone. I don't really know if I'm different, I just don't overthink much.

One big thing for me is that I'm never dishonest with the approach and how it ends up on record or the stage. Nothing is made to fit or for easy digestion. I just don't care about trends or if a song will fit in a certain group or if I wore my pants the right way today. I just write a song and play it. It may be a folk, country, or rock 'n' roll number, I never think about it.

Q: You've cranked out four albums in a ridiculously short period of time. What is the secret of your prolificacy?

A: I just write a lot and thankfully I've never had writer's block. I do like to try to write words most days. I think it keeps my mind fresh and sometimes I'll get a whole song finished and ready or there might be a few lines from pages of words that spark something else.

The reason why I've put out so much material is that I need to unload my mind and clear the attic. Sometimes I forget about songs so I like to get them down and out there. Even in high school I had tons and tons of songs.

I also just like putting out albums. It's like a new lease on life.

Q: How does it feel to be the subject of glowing endorsements from such “songwriters' songwriters” as Ron Sexsmith and Fred Eaglesmith? Especially knowing that “songwriters' songwriters” are often lamented as being too good for their own good and not reaching the audiences they deserve?

A: Well, in my case I don't sell a ton of records or play to a ton of people so having folks that I respect say that they like what I'm doing gives me a little fuel during the rough patches. Actually, Fred has mentioned that I remind him of a young Rodney Crowell, who I think spent most of his career in the shadows.

I don't know, I want to connect with a big audience but I also can't alter how I make records or how I sound.

Q: Your new EP, The Good Old Days Are Back In Drag, is surprisingly rockin' in the prototypical sense of the word. How did this turn for the rock 'n' roll come about?

A: It wasn't something that was meant to come out. Back in the fall, I had these songs laying around, bluesy kinds of numbers. I decided to call up a couple of friends, my regular drummer Kyle Sullivan and producer/musician Tim Bovaconti, and just record them for fun.

I picked up the electric, which I hadn't played on record since the first two albums. It was fun and it turned out well so I decided to put it out as a seven-track digital release and sketched a cover for it.

Q: Everything you do seems a touch suspended in time.

A: I don't think of myself that way. Growing up, I just really gravitated towards those old records. My parents had a great record collection: Dylan, Lightfoot, Beatles, Zombies, Buddy Holly, you name it.

And my grandparents had the best country: Hank Williams, Hank Snow, Patsy Cline, Lefty Frizzell. Those records I just couldn't get enough of. The new music that was around when I was growing up just seemed artificial and I felt disconnected.
- Toronto Star www.thestar.com


Discography

Jerry Leger & The Situation (2005)

Farewell Ghost Town (2006)

You, Me and The Horse (2008)

Traveling Grey (2010)

The Good Old Days are Back in Drag Mini-Album (2011)

Some Folks Know (Fall 2012)

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Bio


The best part about being a music fan is experiencing the growth of an artist you really care about with each new release. When you take that often-inevitable next step from being a fan to becoming a critic, those personal relationships with a favourite artist’s songs commonly break down. Part of a critic’s job entails pinpointing flaws—moments that, for whatever reason, do not provide the same rush that made an artist interesting in the first place. In some cases these flaws painfully reveal that said artist’s true intentions were not as noble as initially thought. From there, it’s up to the marketplace to judge.
The great artists aspire first and foremost to create a lasting body of work, and after hearing Jerry Leger’s sixth release, Some Folks Know, I am convinced more than ever he is well on his way to achieving that goal. The field of singer-songwriters continues to attract scores of kids infatuated with the troubadour lifestyle. But folk and country music is in Jerry Leger’s blood. His songs have always revered the past even as they paint vivid pictures of not only his life, but more importantly, yours as a listener.
It’s redundant to say that Some Folks Know is Jerry’s best album to date. That’s as it should be. I said it about his previous full length, Traveling Grey, which in places expressed truth in ways that moved me more than anyone else had in a long time. Perhaps the last was Fred Eaglesmith, since we all three share a rural Ontario sensibility. I heard Fred once say during a solo concert in a small church auditorium that one day southern Ontario songwriters will be regarded in the same way Texas songwriters are. I’m sure Fred would include Jerry in that group.
Another way of looking at it is what Daniel Lanois once called “the tobacco belt sound,” that is, the legacy of music made by the men—men filled with conflicted emotions—to alleviate the strain of the backbreaking work in the once-expansive Ontario tobacco fields. It was the part of the province where The Band’s Rick Danko and Richard Manuel were raised, and it became their filter to interpret the mysteries of the American music they heard over the airwaves in their youth. Jerry Leger’s songs all contain that essence of rowdy Saturday nights in the tavern, followed by repentant Sunday mornings.
Even though Jerry has never sounded more assured as a writer as he does on Some Folks Know, the characters who populate the album seem dangerously unsatisfied, being pushed to the brink, if not already there. Getting to know these people led me to realize for the first time the twisted irony of Jerry dubbing his backing group “The Situation.” But multi-instrumentalist James McKie, bassist Dan Mock and drummer Kyle Sullivan have clearly matched Jerry’s development stride for stride. Whether it’s laying down an easy-swinging groove on “When The Master Calls” (on which McKie particularly shines on violin), or digging deeper on bluesier numbers like “Midnight Ride,” the group proudly wears its badges earned through countless tours and one-nighters around North America.
It’s a fiercely competitive singer-songwriter scene in Toronto, possibly more so than anywhere else in North America other than Nashville or Austin, and Jerry has applied the lessons he’s learned here toward making serious inroads south of the border where he’s forged alliances with singer/songwriter Jim Lauderdale and Nashville’s leading Americana radio station WSM. That’s on top of his strong Canadian ties to Ron Sexsmith, whose longtime guitarist Tim Bovaconti has become Jerry’s trusted producer. Sexsmith also plays piano on “Den of Sin” which opens Some Folks Know, reprising a role he filled on Jerry’s second album, Farewell Ghost Town.
Another of Jerry’s close friends is Atlantic Records recording artist Serena Ryder, and their collaboration “All Over Again” is sure to be among the first tracks on Some Folks Know that radio programmers will notice. While that song is an unflinching rumination on long-term love that swells like a classic Gram Parsons-Emmylou Harris duet (or perhaps more accurately, a Bob Dylan-Emmylou duet from Desire), the signs of Jerry’s brimming confidence and maturity don’t stop there.
I admittedly had high expectations for Some Folks Know after Jerry’s last release, a seven-song mini-LP entitled The Good Old Days Are Back In Drag. On it, he and Bovaconti experimented with a small combo sound seemingly transported directly from Memphis, circa 1955. It was an invigorating blast that fully exposed something that was always lurking just below the surface of Jerry’s songs. The ripples of that experience are evident all over Some Folks Know, most prominently on “Motel Letter Blues.”
In a more subtle way, it’s also at the heart of the album’s centerpiece, “Filthy Mouth,” a song that’s been the highlight of Jerry’s live shows for some time. Again, it’s a common small-town tale: a guy returns home after time away to discover his former love has been engagi