New book explores the relationship between energy industry and Calgary roots music scene

The connection between oil and gas and Calgary's roots music scene is the subject of a new book. It's called Sonic Booms: Making Music in an Oil Town.

The book, by former Calgarian and Ryerson University music historian Gillian Turnbull, explores the relationship and connecting threads between our energy industry and our roots music scene.

"When Ilived here as a younger person, I was going out to hear music all the time, andI realized there was a magical thing happening here,"Turnbull said, in interviews with The Homestretchand CBCNews at Six on Wednesday.

"Everybody knew each other, played with each other, they were really supportive of each other's endeavoursand it was a scene that turned out to be unlike any other I've encountered across Canada. Really tight knit and supportive just a great place to make music," she added.

What connected the scene, she said, was its proximity to booking lucrative gigs through the oil and gas industry.

"They get hired for Stampede lunches and night parties they get just one offs Christmas parties and things like that," she said.

"I think that frees them up to be a little more creative in their off time and make the music they really want to and and write the songs that they're really interested in it kind of provides the creative freedom for them."

In the book, Turnbullfocuses mostly on the period from the 1990s through the 2000s, talking about musicians such as Tom Phillips, Emily Triggs, Steve Coffey, Brooke Wylie, Dave McCann, Carter Felker, Amy Nelson, Mike Todd and others, with a particular interest in songwriters.

One that she says embodies the city's roots music scene is Phillips.

"He's a great representative of Calgary at large but also the diversity in Calgarythat often doesn't get talked about in the national consciousness," she said.

He's veryliterate person, well read, very smart, well educated a progressive thinker but also plays country andfolk music, which is the sound of Calgary. He embodies all these things I think Calgaryfeels about itself."

What constitutes the Calgary sound?

Well, you can probably start with a twang, she said but built into those country chord structures is a contemporary sensibility.

"They take the traditions of country music seriously," Turnbull said,"and even if they're not necessarily oriented towards that music they recognize that it's an important part of the city's culture and history. So there's littlereferences to that in their lyrics or in the sounds that they make, but they also can see the world at large changing.

"They're responding to that through song becoming more political with their lyrics and talking about the environment climate change things like that."

Turnbullis launching the book Wednesday night at Mikey's on 12th. She'll also be doing a book signing Saturday at Indigo Books inDalhousie from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

With files from The Homestretch and CBC News at Six