Our Bob is a FolkFest finalist

By Licia Corbella

April 19, 2011

Calgary Herald columnist and editorial board member Robert Remington is a multi-talented fella. Not only does he write like a dream but he's a fabulous musician too and an even better person. The Calgary Folk Music Festival has just nominated Bob's song Kandahar as one of 51 finalists in three categories from a list of 300.

Bob performed his song live for his Herald colleages on Dec. 30 last year on the one year anniversary of our colleague Michelle Lang's death from a roadside bomb in Kandahar in 2009 while she was covering the war there for the Herald.

It is a haunting and moving song. As newsroom staff gathered around the beautiful Michelle Lang memorial site in the newsroom and Bob started to sing there wasn't a dry eye in the crowd. Bob has recently added another verse that he will perform at the finals on May 14 at Calgary's Ship and Anchor. "Winning is not important," says Bob. "Honouring Michelle's memory and the lives of other Canadians killed in Afghanistan, is good enough."

Winning would be nice though as more people would then hear this song. If you want to listen to it got to Bob's blog and then click on the music tab.

http://www.robertremington.net/blogs.php

Telling a story one way or another

By Hamish MacLean
March 17,2011
Canmore Leader

He's a journalist.

And he's the kind of journalist that injects life, his own, into his stories.

When the Calgary Herald lost a reporter on assignment in Afghanistan, a woman with whom Remington had shared a desk for six years, he wrote about how it affected him openly: "Hell, I can barely see the keyboard through the tears."

He's filed from his backyard here in Canmore, and from faraway ground, from Africa, from the Middle East, from Central America.

He is a storyteller.

And, as many here know, he is a songwriter.

But, Remington said last week, the songwriting's not something that came naturally, or easily, at first.

"People would always say to me, 'You're a writer, you're a journalist, you should be able to write songs,'" he said. "But I couldn't do it.

"There was just something about it; I just couldn't get my head around songwriting — and I would try.

"In journalism, you try to put as much as you can into the space that you have. And I finally learned in songwriting that it's not important what you put in, it's often what you leave out. You have to let the listener fill in the gaps sometimes."

He said though that his journalism background has helped him.

Remington recently placed second in a Calgary Folk Music festival songwriting competition with a song based on the true account of the only woman hanged in Alberta history. Bootlegger's Bride he said was "all there" in that it was historically based and he likened the process of songwriting there to "song editing."

He's done a little song editing with the Bow Valley's Cori Brewster too.

The history revealed in that tune was from her relative's diary account of William Twin's funeral, a Stoney man from Morley who showed the early Brewsters the lay of the land.

He said that at that point all of the writing was done.

"Back in those days, people were really good writers," Remington said. "It was really vivid, their writing.

"When people wrote letters, they were really thoughtful and well composed."

Remington's based a song on the characters that inhabit a trailer park in Arizona.

He's written about the feeling of youth expressed in desiring freedom for a pit pony in a mine.

He's even tried his hand at a love song.

"Everything has to have at least one foot in reality," he said.

Remington's a member of The Free Rangers — Rockies cowbilly. He's a mandolin and guitar teacher.

And he's a local.

Remington's been in Canmore since 1998, he played at the Canmore Folk Music Festival when it first moved to Centennial Park, before the days of the Stan Rogers Stage.

Remington's one third of the next installment of singer songwriters who will take part in Larry Whan's series that showcases Bow Valley talent.

This April, Remington, Andrew Ibanez and Garry Gonis will perform in the dark night during the Pine Tree Players' spring run.

Remington alone would likely draw another full house.

But he's too modest to say that.

"I'm an OK guitar player and I consider myself to be an OK songwriter or storyteller, I guess," Remington said last week.

"I'm an OK mandolin player . . . ."

To find out for yourself get down to the Canmore Miners' Union Hall Monday, April 11.

The all ages show opens its doors at 7 p.m. There is a $10 donation collected at the door.

All proceeds go to the Canmore Miners' Union Hall Centennial Project.