Bob Mersereau launches Frye Festival lecture series, January 22

Radio producer, columnist and author Bob Mersereau will lead off the Frye Festival’s Pop et Frye series for 2008 with a talk on the connection between Canadian music and the Canadian identity. His presentation, scheduled for Tuesday, January 22, at Timothy’s World Coffee in Moncton, raises the question: “Can we find it (Canadian identity) in the popular song?”

Mersereau will share stories from his search for The Top 100 Canadian Albums and reflect on the common thread that weaves through Canadian songwriting.

Mersereau is Arts Producer for CBC Television in New Brunswick and weekly music columnist on CBC Radio's Shift program, focusing on Maritime music. He also pens a weekly music review column Backbeat, which appears each Wednesday in The Telegraph-Journal newspaper, covering the provincial, regional and national music scene. Mersereau recently contributed the liner notes to the Rhino/Warner Music release Atlantic Standards Volume 2, a top five album in Atlantic Canadian markets, and the recent Atlantic Standards Christmas.

His book, The Top 100 Canadian Albums, was published nationally by Goose Lane Editions last October to critical acclaim.

Mersereau will discuss the process involved in researching and writing the book, including the discovery he made from his interviews with dozens of songwriters behind the best Canadian albums. He found a group of people “in love with their country, and desperate to write about it, to capture it, and reflect it back”. From Joel Plaskett's national anthem-quoting hit True Patriot Love, to Neil Young and Joni Mitchell's continued use of Canadian nature, to The Tragically Hip's morale-boosting name-dropping, the nation's best musicians “go out of their way to sing about home”, says Mersereau.

Mersereau’s Pop et Frye talk begins at 7 p.m. Pop et Frye is a lecture series, presented free of charge by the Frye Festival, and dedicated to the discovery and appreciation of popular culture.

The series will feature four lectures in total, leading up to the Frye Festival, April 23-27, 2008, in Moncton. All lectures this year will be held at Timothy’s World Coffee, 735 Main Street, Moncton.