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Based in Guelph, Ontario, James Gordon is known to many North Americans as the founder of Canada's premier folk group Tamarack. With this durable trio he toured every corner of the continent, recorded fourteen albums, and made countless television and radio appearances. He has become well-known for his original songs about Canada's identity and heritage. He is a regular songwriting contributor to the CBC radio programmes "Ontario Morning" and "Basic Black". He has also released several solo albums for adults and children , composed works for symphony orchestras, co-written a popular series of "Jim and Dave" family musicals and written music for theatre, dance and film. His songs have been recorded by a number of other artists including The Cowboy Junkies, Melanie Doane, Al Simmons, Ian Bell and James Keelaghan.

James tours with an intimate solo performance that is filled with stories and songs, a van full of instruments and a pocket full of rye humour!

Songwriting workshops have become a real specialty for James over the last few years. He can take any group of less than 30 bold volunteers from kids to really old skeptical adults, and in a minimum of 90 minutes they will have written a song from beginning to end. No previous musical experience is necessary. He has frequently planted himself in a school or community for a week at a time, and turned the fresh-baked collection of songs into a live concert and a cassette recording. His workshops have created so many budding songwriters, that if he keeps it up he'll have put himself out of work in a few years!

Here's the scoop on the unique Hometown Tunes project. Every couple of weeks James appears on CBC Radio's popular "Ontario Morning" programme, with a new song based on suggestions from listeners. He gets hundreds of amazing letters from all over the province, and has turned many of them into memorable songs documenting life in small-town Ontario. So far the show has generated two albums of unique material, and once a year he tours the listening area with a concert version of the songs. James has captured the spirit of a region that seldom gets it's own voice. Think things are a bit slow and dull once you get outside the big city? Think again. There are shipwrecks, sea monsters, highway robbers, oil booms, mysterious murders, terrible accidents, strong men, brave soldiers, remarkable women, dancing bears, wandering coffins, and that's just the first half of the show!

There are two ways to purchase any of the CDs on this site. 1) Just write down the names or stock numbers of the items you are interested. When you have chosen your items, go to Rediscover Music and type them into the "Search" field. 2) Click on the "Order Now" link next to the item you want to buy. This link will take you directly to that item at our Rediscover Music site. Once there, click "buy" to put the item into your shopping cart. If you would like to order more items, use your browser's "Back" button to come back here and continue browsing, or use the links to the left of the screen to see more items. You will be able to browse through all our available titles and view the song listings, too!