Quotes and Reviews

Jon Brooks is the fighting sort of folk

Unlike most contemporary acoustic artists, Jon Brooks doesn’t mind being referred to as a folksinger. In fact, he embraces the label.

“I do feel very much a part of the (folk) tradition, which is inherently subversive and always has been,” says the Toronto-based singer-songwriter. “I would not be justified in standing behind a microphone and adding to the glut of noise and vapid distraction if I didn’t believe I had some kind of moral purpose.” Brooks’ new album, Delicate Cages, is unabashed folk, with each song on the 11-track disc offering social commentary about issues that catch the artist’s attention — and, in many cases, scorn. The album is a rumination on what Brooks says are his three favourite topics: hope, love and death.

There are songs about the proliferation of prisons across the United States, child soldiers, suicide bombers and, closer to home a lament for Aqsa Parvez, the 16-year-old Brampton schoolgirl murdered by her father and brother for embracing western culture.

“I want people to understand that they’ve been lied to about what it means to be hopeful — that it’s not some easy, cheesy, self-help feel-good message,” explains Brooks, 43. “It’s in fact brutal. It’s a bloody affair to be hopeful. It’s an action word.” Followers of Brooks’ music have come to expect nothing less.
His breakthrough CD, Ours and the Shepherds, released in 2007, is a collection of war stories that challenged Canadians’ traditional view of themselves as peacekeepers rather than fighting soldiers. That album, inspired by the experiences of Romeo Dallaire, peace activist James Loney and John MacRae garnered Brooks a Songwriter of the Year nomination at the Canadian Folk Music Awards.

Two years later, he earned another songwriter nomination for 2009’s more contemplative Moth Nor Rust. Brooks’ brand of in-your-face folk continued to make waves, especially in the southern U.S., where he won the prestigious Kerrville Festival New Folk award in 2010. Not bad for a guy who didn’t seriously consider a songwriting career until his mid-30s.

A trained keyboard player, Brooks spent his formative years in a blues and rock band, even playing Hammond organ on the Headstones’ first album in the early ’90s. After becoming disenfranchised with the state of modern music, he gave it up. It wasn’t until one of his literary heroes, Austin Clarke, suggested several years later that Brooks embrace songwriting seriously that he decided to give it another go.

Kenyon Wallace
Toronto Star
April 27, 2012

Delicate Cages review from folking.com

There’ll be no banner waving or singing of “Nearer My God To Thee” if the lyrics of Jon Brooks opening track “Because We’re Free” is anything to go by. This Toronto based singer-songwriter certainly knows how to put across his message in a self-assured style that will send a shiver down the spine of any ‘thinking’ man (that rules out any guests on the Jeremy Kyle show then) bringing back nostalgic memories of early Dylan and Paxton. If you’re going to get your point across then do it with the minimum of fuss and leave the reader to fill in the gaps using their own imagination as to what it is you’re trying to convey. On this recording it is an image alluded to yet never quite dangled like a guillotine suspended over a victim from an Edgar Allen Poe tale that entertains and enthrals in equal measure. Like a work of art Brooks way with words make you delve more deeply than you’re possibly accustomed to but let’s face it, in this day and age when we’re dictated by the likes of Tesco and Walmart as to what we should be reading then Heaven help us all. With sterling work provided by fellow musicians Joe Phillips (bass), John Showman (violin), Scott Dibble (guitars) and Carrie Elkin/Lynn Miles on vocals this album really is something special. By the way, (and this is aimed squarely on the shoulders of ‘folk’ artists and designers who try to be too clever) straight forward black text on a white background is far better for a majority of your audience as the accompanying booklet to the CD testifies!

PETE FYFE
May 29th, 2012

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