The artists performing on War & Love include Murray Chappell, Chris Coleman, Wes Garland, Steve Gillen, Sharon Hinbest, Jay Jantz, Bob MacKenzie, Eriana Marcus, Ian Montgomery. Tracie Morgan, and Kate E. White.
Influences
Bob cites influences in music and poetry that include John Donne, Leonard Cohen, Edith Piaf, Jaques Brel, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Hank Williams, Felice and Boudreau Briant, Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, Mystic Moods Orchestra, Ogden Nash, Dr. Seuss, T. S. Eliot, Barry White, Lawrence Ferlingetti, Clannad, Tangerine Dream, and hundreds of others. High on the list are Cohen and Holly.
Into this stew of musical and literary influences, each member of Poem de Terre brings his or her influences, most often as broad and eclectic as Bob's, to create an exotic blend of sounds and images that is unique to this Canadian performance collective.
Sounds Like
Bob MacKenzie
Bob MacKenzie's performances have been compared to artists as diverse as Jim Morrison, Leonard Cohen, Burl Ives, Glenn Yarbrough, William Shatner, Jerry Garcia, Red Sovine, Alan Ginsberg, Barry White, and many others spanning the worlds of roots/popular music and modern literary poetry.
Poem de Terre
Poem de Terre's performances have been compared to The Doors, Pentangle, Cranberries, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Moody Blues, Spirit of the West, Baz Luhrmann, The Grateful Dead, A Wing and a Prayer, Judy Collins, Melanie Safka, Joni Mitchell, and diverse other artists.
Readers and listeners either love him or hate him. Its hard to be ambivalent about this Canadian writer who often mixes his media and messages in unexpected ways. Beginning with readings of poetry over flute or piano, Bobs art has evolved into a multi-media format that brings together printed, spoken, and sung words; music performance; and visuals including photography, painting, print making, and collage.
Bob believes that the individual arts and crafts are part of a greater whole, are simply Story. A time-honoured unified tradition of the arts is the basis for Bob's multi- media approach, integrating his written and spoken words with various other artistic approaches. This is the art of the travelling Bard, of the Shaman adding elements of magic to every tale.
Born on Canadas west coast, son of a photographer/ musician and a photo-colourist, and raised in Albertas parklands, Bob has followed his family roots East as far as the Maritime Provinces and visited every province along the way. He has been writing and performing his words since he was five, making a short 16 millimetre movie by the time he was eight and combining his words, music, and images ever since.
Bob also reviews new CD releases and writes commentary for the popular online magazine of news, reviews, and commentary: Blogcritics.
Since it was formed by six artists in the summer of 1993, Poem de Terre has organically evolved a unique sound and style with a powerful repertoire of original material as well as new interpretations of music and spoken word pieces previously performed or recorded by other artists.
While the musical style of Poem de Terre's material transcends genre, at heart the music is folk. Building upon this foundation of folk music, Poem de Terre draws upon many influences to create dramatic music for the new millenium.
As much as the music, words are central to Poem de Terre's work, presenting compelling stories and ideas to the community in the form of live performance.
A musical collective usually performing with eight to twelve people on stage, over the years Poem de Terre has featured more than fifty artists. Each artist brings to the performance his or her own creative sensibility and subtly changes the quality of the performance and the clarity of the message.
Poem de Terre's third release and first CD, Assume Nothing (click) now on MySpace.
Check out the personal music MySpace of Canadian poet Bob MacKenzie. (click)
Discography
2006: War & Love, compact disc, 18 songs [16 original]
Hi! FREE DOWNLOAD available for the bonus track of my debut solo album "Something Different" (released by Lion Music in 2008). The track's called "Glory Of Life - Bass only version". Enjoy!
Hey!! Here are our show dates for September and October. Hope to see you there! Check our mypace for a two-minute teaser of our newly recorded tracks and our tour and studio videos!
