Artists like Joe Fournier from Canada should honestly be experienced live at a small bar! That's where I managed to catch him on his Swedish Tour in 2003!
Friday Oct. 31 2003 at KoM musikbar, Göteborg
A most welcome transatlantic visit: Joe Fournier, a Canadian country rocker with a new CD ("Whiskey Stars") issued on Göteborg's enthusiast label Dusty Records. And Joe proved to be a warm person, fun, self ironical, professional - and a great guitar picker. Plus an amazing song writer: "My Baby Drives Fast" about the girl friend who drives her car as a maniac, another one about the ex-wife who actually WAS a maniac, "Whiskey Stars" about the whiskey brand from whose labels you can pick those star shaped stickers (and soon your entire home is covered in little stars), about the sad subject that "Country Music's Gone To Hell" - plus soulful versions of other artists songs, a.o. Johnny Cash's "Ring Of Fire" and a sorrowful prison song signed Merle Haggard.


Tuesday Nov. 4 2003 Jamesons, Göteborg
Joe again, this time with excellent back up from local heroes: Olle Schelander on guitar and vocals, Anders Olausson on bass and Eric Olausson on drums (= 3/4 of The Remedies). And if it is true that "Country Music's Gone To Hell" as Joe sings, I sure don't notice it tonight: Rough & tough, no Nashville sugar, and it is obvious that Joe enjoys cutting loose on the electric guitar. So does Olle with smoking Telecaster picking turning up both here and there. At a glance the same song list as last Friday at KoM, but a rougher and more muscular sound - of course. Lotsa people, lotsa dancing - and on insistent request Joe gallantly treats us to the refrain from Merle Haggard's "Swinging Doors". Jamesons becomes a 'honky tonk palace' for one night - don't mind if it happens again!
Christer

Music Journalists Go Wild!

" Raw guitars, Shel Silverstein drug era inspired lyrics ...not to be missed." - CMP

"... sounds like it was thrown down in a four day drinking binge...think Haggard or
Kristofferson & you are almost there..." - AmericanaUK

" Soaked in a rootsy rock vibe... a junkyard Bakersfield rant " - Halifax Daily News

" Bursting with wry humour and with too many good riffs... a grubby, unrefined appeal."
- Maverick Magazine

"...two of the hottest, crankiest garage country discs since the heyday
of Sun Records ...Don’t bet against such a prolific tunesmith." - Doug Taylor, The Coast

" Sh*t kicking swamp rocking gutbucket Springsteen in a tin bathtub woohoo rock n roll. Best track...all of them! " - Flying Shoes Reviews