advertisement
FYI

Tami Neilson: Manitoba Sunrise At Motel 6

Now a major star in her adopted homeland of New Zealand, the Canadian-raised roots singer/songwriter previews a new album with a killer old-school country ballad that'll hit your tear ducts.

Tami Neilson: Manitoba Sunrise At Motel 6

By Kerry Doole

Tami Neilson: "Manitoba Sunrise At Motel 6" (Outside Music): Now a major star in her adopted homeland of New Zealand, this Canadian-raised roots singer/songwriter is deservedly beginning to have an international impact.


Her next album, Sassafrass! , comes out on June 1, and the first single, "Stay Outta My Business," was a big and brassy R&B romp. Neilson, a stylistic chameleon, returns to her country roots for this second single. A real album highlight, "Manitoba Sunrise At Motel 6" finds her channelling her inner Patsy Cline, delivering a tear-jerking ballad in emotionally convincing fashion.

In a recent FB post, she recalls the origins of the song: "It was a freezing cold February morning in the middle of a cross-Canada winter tour. I was missing my boys terribly and I took a photo of the sunrise upon waking, captioning it with 'Manitoba Sunrise from Motel 6,' and immediately began the lyrics. They sat in my notebook for months until the day I heard the news of Glen Campbell’s death.

advertisement

"I was so saddened and felt like I’d somehow lost a part of my childhood, another part of my father, who had died two years earlier. I picked up my guitar and wrote the music and melody in homage to him, a way to express my sadness, celebrate his legacy of music and thank him in my own little way."

Given the Canadian setting, you'd think this would be a natural fit for country radio here, but the sound may well be too old-school to belong on banal current playlists (the video did get a premiere on Rolling Stone Country). Steel and strings are employed judiciously, but Neilson's force of nature voice rightfully holds centre stage. The track showcases her strengths as a songwriter too, via lines like "lonesome prairie wind, won't you blow me home again").

advertisement

Neilson plays the Mariposa festival (July 6-8), followed by Ontario shows in Gravenhurst, Burnstown, and Corbyville. Details here

Links

Artist website 

Facebook 

Twitter 

YouTube 

Label Publicity: Stephanie Hardman  stephanie@outside-music.com

advertisement
Major Music Streaming Companies Push Back Against Canadian Content Payments: Inside Canada's 'Streaming Tax' Battle
Photo by Lee Campbell on Unsplash
Streaming

Inside Canada's 'Streaming Tax' Battle

Spotify, Apple, Amazon and others are challenging the CRTC's mandated fee payments to Canadian content funds like FACTOR and the Indigenous Music Office, both in courts and in the court of public opinion. Here's what's at stake.

Some of the biggest streaming services in music are banding together to fight against a major piece of Canadian arts legislation – in court and in the court of public opinion.

Spotify, Apple, Amazon and others are taking action against the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)’s 2024 decision that major foreign-owned streamers with Canadian revenues over $25 million will have to pay 5% of those revenues into Canadian content funds – what the streamers have termed a “Streaming Tax.”

keep readingShow less
advertisement