A new and more intimate side to the music of Ben Caplan

Ben Caplan had created a career on his booming baritone voice backed by bands and orchestration that could achieve out, capture an audience and hold it hostage right until the last encore. His audio was a mix of old-school R&B, east European klezmer and vaudevillian schtick.

Two several years of COVID-19, nevertheless, designed Caplan — born and elevated in Hamilton but now dwelling in Halifax — rethink that tactic. He wished to report new music, but the pandemic made face-to-experience complete-band collaborations unachievable.

He was capable to put two excursions collectively for the duration of lockdown respites — a dozen or so displays in Atlantic Canada for the duration of the fall of 2020 and a 17-country tour of Europe in October and November of 2020. But the challenges of COVID — manufactured him opt to depart his band powering and tour solo.

Caplan observed that he had no problem engaging an audience by himself. His time on the stage executing to audiences across North America as the star of the musical engage in “Old Inventory: A Refugee Really like Story” experienced honed his abilities as a raconteur and storyteller.

Why not consider, he determined, to capture his ability as a solo performer on record?

“So, I chose to make a solo retrospective, acoustic stripped again versions of some of my favourite tracks from my catalogue,” Caplan claims in an job interview from his Halifax residence.

The final result is a new album identified as “Recollection.” Nine of its 10 tracks are drawn from his a few preceding studio albums — “In the Time of the Excellent Remembering,” recorded in 2011 with his six-piece band The Everyday People who smoke “Birds with Damaged Wings,” recorded in 2015 with much more than 30 backing musicians and “Old Inventory,” a assortment of the songs he co-wrote for the critically acclaimed perform centered on the accurate stories of two Jewish Romanian refugees coming to Canada in 1908.

“My initially documents have this type of bombastic vitality that, with so a lot going on, calls for your target,” claims Caplan, who gained a Nova Scotia Tunes Award for Entertainer of the Calendar year in 2012, as nicely as an East Coastline Music Increasing Star Award in 2013. “I desired to make a record that accomplishes the similar factor through the reverse strategy, an album that is so silent and thoughtful that it requires your focus, a quiet magnificence that pulls you in.”

Caplan, the son of community real estate agent Judi Caplan and the late town councillor Marvin Caplan, is returning to his hometown with a concert Sunday, April 10, at Bridgeworks, 200 Caroline St. N. (progress tickets out there on the internet at Bridgeworks.ca) as aspect of a cross-Canada solo tour.

Well, it won’t be just solo. Together for the ride will be up-and-coming East Coastline singer-songwriter, Terra Spencer, who will open his show and possibly sing a few of duets with Caplan.

Spencer’s most recent album “Chasing Rabbits” a short while ago won a Nova Scotia Tunes Award for folks album of the yr and she has been collaborating with Caplan on an album value of music referred to as “Old Information,” scheduled for release in Oct.

“I was fully gobsmacked by her expertise and her songcraft,” Caplan claims about Spencer. “I assume she’s the actual deal and then some. We went into the studio to make two or three songs. That evolved into a full document which is going to be launched in the fall.”

There is one track on “Recollection” that will possible be new to lovers of Caplan’s tunes. It is referred to as “Student Music,” a track he wrote in 2005 as a having difficulties philosophy university student at the University of King’s College in Halifax.

It is a satirical get on the load of mounting tuitions and pupil loan debts on youthful persons who pick out to seek out out a liberal arts instruction.

“I will fall to my knees and give many thanks to the Lord for the mounting tuition I can scarcely pay for,” Caplan sings in the chorus.

“It’s one of my oldest tracks,” he suggests. “It just never ever manufactured it on to any of my other records. When it came to make this file, I felt it was time to give this music a property.”

Count on Caplan to be again in Hamilton later on this year to star in “Old Stock: A Refugee Really like Story” at Theatre Aquarius. A two-7 days run was postponed earlier this calendar year due to Covid, but is remaining rescheduled for the summer months. Check with the Theatre Aquarius web site for new forthcoming dates.

The play, produced by Governor Normal Award winner Hannah Moscovitch with audio co-prepared by Caplan, has toured 29 metropolitan areas about the entire world.

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