Alberta: Wild Roses, Northern Lights.(BRIEFLY NOTED)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)

Alberta: Wild Roses, Northern Lights. Smithsonian Folkways SFW CD 40538, 2006.

If neo-folkie singer-songwriters make you feel a bit sleepy, then you might be forgiven for flipping very quickly past this collection, which bills itself as an introduction to "some of the very best contemporary singer-songwriters and musicians from Wild Rose Country" (and also, even more thrillingly, as "the first time that the Smithsonian Institution has profiled a Canadian province"). But not so fast. True, John Wort Hannam's "Church of the Long Grass" and Ian Tyson's "Land of the Shining Mountains" are exactly what you would expect, but (this being a Smithsonian project, after all) there are also some surprises: Calvin Vollrath's swinging instrumental "Wild Alberta Rose;" a Cree Indian ...