About Me
Sage, Dreamer, Musician, Poet, Legend
In a career extended for more than 35 years, Don Freed has become Canada’s “everyman†songwriter and travelling bard. Continually searching the quiet corners of the country looking for a tune or a word or for a good story he has animated the people he has encountered into creating their own music. Far past the reaches of pop culture, in places where people live close to the earth, in communities where language itself is defined by nature, Don has become a student learning the words of every small village and a teacher showing children how to take those words and turn them into songs about their place in the sun.
As a storyteller and musical wizard, Don Freed often pays tribute to his early musical heroes. The lives of bandits, vagrants, immigrants, villains, farmers, hoboes, railroaders, heroes, workers, pioneers and warriors come alive in his telling of the tales. Visions of Woody Guthrie, Marty Robbins, Wade Hemsworth, Sons of The Pioneers, Wilf Carter, Dave Van Ronk, Leadbelly come all come whizzing through his songs. When you hear a song by Don Freed, you know you are hearing a real song.
Freed is a special person. A songwriter’s songwriter much respected by his peers, a standard bearer for everybody that has a story, a conduit between the humdrum and the magical.Embellishing every song is a clever turn of phrase, an addictive worldview that only Don Freed's dashing wit can contemplate. There is barely a melody untouched in his arsenal, his voice a servant to the fire within. His deceptive vocal range can rouse an audience of all ages to sing along, reuniting with a voice that echoes their own. He is a documenter of cultures vast and sometimes hidden. Don revels as the counter-hero in the present day world of corporate sorcerers and evangelists. Perfectly poised on the edge of the cliff with his weathered guitar, the lucky are treated to the songs of Don Freed the poet.
