Even though none other than Stompin’ Tom Connors himself has said he wants to pass the torch of Canadiana songwriting to Tim Hus, he remains grounded.
So it is great to be able to e-mail him and have him call within a half hour.
“Hello, this is Canadian cowboy poet Tim Hus speaking,” he says over they phone from Calgary, taking a quick breather from a year which usually includes about 300 concert dates “We’ve played Lethbridge lots of times at the rodeo, at the University and the Tongue N’ Groove. And we’ve played Taber a lot. So we’re definitely familiar with Southern Alberta,” he continues.
“I think we’ve even played the Folk Club,” he continues adding he is looking forward to returning the Lethbridge Folk Club’s Wolf’s Den, Feb. 19.
He never expected to become known as the torch bearer for Canadiana music, let alone, recording for Stony Plain, the record label Ian Tyson calls home, or to tour with Stomping Tom Connors, let alone have him heap lavish praise on him.
“It’s not a joke for a Canadian country singer to tour with Stomping Tom Connors. It’s like a hockey player getting to play with Wayne Gretzky,” Hus marvels adding his first tour with Stompin’ Tom was from Ontario to Newfoundland and they enjoyed it so much that they decided to do the other half of the country the following summer from Thunder Bay to Vancouver.
He has since added Stomping Tom’s fiddle player and guitarist, Billy MacInnis to his band.
“He’s from Prince Edward Island. I kind of stole him from Stompin’ Tom because Stompin’ Tom doesn’t tour as much anymore. So I asked him if he wanted to join my band. Now it’s been better than it ever has been,” he said adding Macinnis has been in Hus’ band since the fall.
“And Stomping Tom is 75 today ( Feb. 9) and is going to retire soon, he confessed he wants to pass the torch on to me. I’ve become ‘the Canadian guy’ where ever I go. I didn’t set out to do that. But people like to hear songs about things they are familiar with, and not everybody is doing it,” he observes adding while he started out very British Columbia orientated from a songwriting perspective, traveling through his world has expanded his songwriting horizons.
“When I graduated high school, I went to work in a logging camp and started playing for the guys. The first song I wrote was about that logging camp and it went over well,” he continues.
“Then I went to university for fisheries and got a job on a salmon boat in B.C. and wrote a song about that and it just grew from there,” he continues.
“The fact I’ve been able to have a career doing this is unbelievable. People have really supported it. And I couldn’t ask for anything more ,” he continues adding the old school country feel came naturally as he grew up listening to it.
“ I listened to people like Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash and Rambling Jack Elliott and they were singing about places I’d never been to like Texas and Tennessee and Arkansas and Kentucky. I always liked the storytelling so I just started writing and telling stories about places and people I knew in Canada,” he relates.
“ And then I heard Stomping Tom who was singing about things in my world,” he says adding that inspired him to write about his world— loggers, fishermen, truckers , bush pilots, hockey parents and the like and found that people really enjoyed hearing about things in their world.
“I have a song about the Frank Slide, and as expected, that is always requested when I play around the Crowsnest Pass and Southern Alberta. And I have a song about rum running in the Crowsnest PAss so I get a lot of requests for that” he continues.
His last CD, “Hockeytown” was released last year.
“It’s been very good. It was named one of the top albums by the Toronto Star. And people have really responded to it. They’re coming to concerts and singing along ,” he says adding he is just starting the writing process for his next album as this one still has legs.
Catch Hus with special guest Dusty Dee at the Wolf’s Den, Feb. 19. Tickets are $20 for members, $25 for non members. The show begins at 8 p.m.
