Getting inspiration in unusual places
Published Thursday June 25th, 2009
Darrell Grant has flourished from tragedy with his latest release.
Darrell Grant was once a very busy musician. As a member of Fredericton's Madabo in the 1990's, he was often on the go traveling to gigs, working on recordings and plotting the band's future direction. When Modabo decided to call it quits in December of 1999, Grant was looking forward to exploring new musical avenues when he came face to face with every musician's worst nightmare.
"I had what was called a neuropathic pain," said Grant. "One little injury sets your whole nervous system on fire."
A quick slip on a flight of stairs damaged a nerve in his arm, making guitar playing an impossibility. In fact, for several months Grant wasn't sure he'd ever be able to play the instrument again.
"I live out in Harvey and didn't have my driver's license at the time so there wasn't a lot to do. I found that music gave me something to concentrate on."
Despite the frustration of having his favourite instrument turn from close friend to decoration, Grant managed to continue his pursuit of music as a form of therapy.
"I wrote a lot," he said, "and turned all my energy to creating instead of becoming absorbed with all the negative stuff. On days that I could, I'd go into my studio in the back of the house and I'd sing. I worked on my voice a lot, all the while hoping that I'd be able to embrace a guitar again."
Eventually, Grant's ability to play the guitar began to return and with it came new inspiration and a new musical direction.
"The best thing that came out of this was that it made me be a stay-at-home dad," said Grant, "and so my son Ben, he's seven years old now and we're super tight."
While other musicians may have to seek out inspiration on mountain tops, in secluded cabins, or through religious pursuits, through his time at home surrounded by his wife Melanie and his son Ben, Grant came to realize that a lifetime on inspiration was right in front of him.
"My son Ben is a predaceous rhymer," he said. "He's finishing grade one and reads at a grade five level. He reads with lots of expression and even does all the voices. He also laughs at my bad jokes, which helps."
An accomplished poet in his own right, having studied at St. Thomas University and later at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Grant has always had a strong appreciation for writers and poets and classic works of literature.
Earlier this year, Grant released The Heart is Like a Wheel, his second solo recording since the demise of Modabo. Several of the tracks recorded for this project involved setting old pieces of literature to original music, something that has developed into a new creative passion for Grant.
"On this album there's a poem by Lord Byron called 'So, we'll go no more a roving' which was written back in 1826 or something. Different people have used that poem for the same purpose," he said. "Leonard Cohen and Judy Collins have both used it, putting completely different music to it. Lots of folkies do this kind of thing. I try to look around for works that exist in the public domain because there are several and they're free for anyone to use."
Following the release of this collection of work, Grant played a short tour of southern Ontario, where Modabo once had a strong following. The series of house concerts and soft-seaters was well received and he hopes to return to Ontario later in the year.
Although he is very pleased with The Heart is Like a Wheel, recorded almost entirely in the comfort of his own home, featuring guest appearances by Michael Doherty and Tom Easley, it's his next project that has really captured his attention.
Grant's latest project is a musical adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic children's collection, A Child's Garden of Verses, a famous collection of poems he discovered in a most unlikely way.
"I was watching Rocky and Bullwinkle with Ben," said Grant, "and there was a part of the show called 'Poet's Corner' where Bullwinkle recited one of Stevenson's poems. Ben thought it was hilarious. He'd never heard the poem before and he'd never seen Bullwinkle before. It was just a winning combination, so I thought maybe I could set it to music and he'd get a kick out of it.
"I wasn't even aware of the book," said Grant. "I thought it was an isolated poem that he'd done until one day Melanie came home with the book under her arm. She'd found it at a yard sale."
Grant immediately found a connection to these poems and set off writing music to accompany them.
"When I sat down to read through them, the music was just leaping off the page," he said. "That's what poets struggle to do, putting musicality in their verse to make every line and every word count. It just hit me really hard. I picked up my guitar and the words were falling into melodies. In one weekend, I put eight poems to music."
In total, Grant has arranged more than 20 of Stephenson's works for this project, exploring the wide range of emotions presented throughout the book.
"I'm hoping that with this CD out, I'll get to play for kids in the school system," he said. "I think it's a good way to get kids fired up about poetry, which is very hard to do. I think this is the best thing I've done"
To learn more about Darrel and his work, visit his website at www.darrellgrant.ca
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