Jory Nash

Jory Nash - Hugh's Room, Toronto, November 5, 2011



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Putting on a trademark hat for the second set

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"LC, I think you might dig him. Kinda clean-cut/polished folk. Make sense? Think Paul Simon...meets Gordon Lightfoot...meets Joni Mitchell. Incredible/unique voice and live performer...and wicked lyrics. He's a classy musician and full of integrity." - CW, giving me the introductory lowdown on Jory Nash, October 2009


"Jory Nash - he made me laugh, he made me cry and then he made me laugh again. Good times." - Jakki, post-show FB status update, November 5, 2011.
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The two quotes above, are among a long list of reasons you need to get yourself to a Jory Nash show....for the music, the stories, and the fantastic post show feeling you take home with you. I've written about Jory Nash before, so this will be my second heaping of praise for his live performance. (read my previous blog from last fall here). I've actually had a hard time putting into words what I felt about this show. Sitting here several weeks following it, I wondered why that was and why I couldn't just pour my thoughts out as I normally do for these posts: direct brain to keyboard. Maybe because over the past year I've gotten a bit of a sense of who Jory Nash is and how that relates to what he puts out into the musical universe. I think he's "good people". From what I can glean, he is a real, genuine, stand-up guy and an artist in the best sense of the word. He is creative and limitlessly talented. And this is a life to him, and not just a business. So this post actually means something to me in that I want to get it right and more importantly...I want to get it "true". What I can say without question, right off the bat without further thought is this: I don't believe there was a single person in attendance who was not completely charmed by the man and the uniquely enjoyable show he put on. He's just got that quality in him that draws you in, you know?


As with the last show, he made his rounds to chat with people before things got started, and I did speak with him briefly. He made an excellent point about the venue, Hugh's Room, and how it is an important place for artists like himself. It's the Goldilocks solution really - not too big and not to small, but "just right" for an artist like Jory who has a loyal following requiring something larger than a small bar, but not too large as to lose the intimacy that a show like Jory's absolutely thrives on. Hugh's is a great venue that I really need to make a point of frequenting more often. - Lindsay's Music Musings

Jory Nash: Little Pilgrim. When I listen to Little Pilgrim, Jory Nash’s seventh (very) full-length CD, I think of those classic folk-pop songs of the 1970s, written by Boz Scaggs, Jackson Browne, Paul Simon, Jim Croce, and James Taylor. Each and every one of Little Pilgrim’s fifteen tracks stands firmly on its own two feet as a whole creation, its own hit. It reminds me of something once said by the late brilliant writer Paul Quarrington during a piece we filmed in 2009 for this website. Upon receiving a compliment on his songwriting from the legendary Andy Kim, he responded by reaching out his hand toward an imaginary car-radio, and said to Andy, “yeah, but your songs like Sugar Sugar make me wanna turn up the volume, you know?”
These songs have that effect on this reviewer; after the obligatory three full listens, I found myself wanting to turn every song up, except I was already at max. Like Nancy Dutra, Jory employed some heavy talent on this record, including his trusty guitar sidekick Jason Fowler, Michael Johnston, and his co-producer, Chris Stringer, as well as backing vocalists (among others) Amanda Walther (Dala) and Lori Cullen. This might also be the slickest sounding record I’ve heard this year from our Canadian folk/roots community, and flat out, one of the finest discs of 2012. - Roots Music Canada