Jeremy Fisher, a two-time Juno Award nominee for adult music, became a first-time father in early 2016, and the child-sized guitar that hangs in his kitchen became a go-to for soothing a fussy baby or entertaining a bunch of kids on a play date. Soon this grew into turning everyday events into musical adventures.
“There is a constant soundtrack going on in my head, it’s been that way since I was a kid,” says Fisher, “and when I found myself spending long days with my young daughter before she could speak, I started to vocalize these sounds to narrate what we were doing.”
Fisher performed at the Centre In The Square three years ago as part of our OnStage series, after he’d just released his fifth album, Mint Juleps, and had already received his Juno nominations. But becoming a father changed his daily routine, starting right when he got up in the morning.
“The days would start with a traditional song, ‘Good Morning,’ my partner’s mother sang to her as a baby,” he says. “Then as we’d go trundling off to the library and I’d ask her in song what she thought we’d find ‘Down At The Library.’ By lunchtime I’d be pulling bread out of the toaster singing ‘Peanut Butter Sandwiches,’ a song I learned at summer camp as a kid. Then of course when we were winding down at the ‘End Of The Day,’ I’d starting singing about ‘Bath Time’ on the way up the stairs to hit the suds.”
Fisher’s first kids’ album, Highway to Spell, came together naturally in Fisher’s studio, The Sugar Shack, located steps from the back door of his home in Ottawa. It’s the very studio where Fisher has produced albums for Sean McCann and Adam Kagan and in-episode songs and the theme for Disney TV’s Billy Dilly’s Super-Duper Subterranean Summer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ld21xR0kA
He recorded many of the instruments on Highway to Spell himself, bringing in guests such as Catriona Sturton on vocals and harmonica, Petr Cancura on sax, clarinet, and flute, and 16 young singers to back him up on the sing-along choruses.
Fisher is bound to follow in the steps of some of Canada’s greatest children’s artists, such as Sharon, Lois & Bram, Raffi, and Fred Penner. Bring the kids out to sing along wtih Jeremy Fisher in two weeks, on Saturday, November 17 at 11AM or 2PM in our studio space!