Overwhelming growth
East Coast Music Awards continue to strike right business chord for Atlantic Canadian musicians
Bruce Morel remembers well a time when Atlantic Canadian musicians needed to move out of the region if they truly wanted to be heard and to make a decent living at their craft.
Morel, who manages artists and develops talent, says the pickings — whether as a guitarist or any other type of musician
— were once quite slim in the country’s four easternmost provinces.
The mechanisms, he notes, were not in place in the 1970s and ’80s to promote the strong talent that existed in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and P.E.I.
“People didn’t know where to
go,’’ says Morel, who started as a singer-songwriter and ended up working in radio.
“Most artists needed to leave (Atlantic Canada). The only way to make money at the time was to pack your bags and move to Toronto or Montreal.’’
Morel bought into the vision of Halifax promoter Rob Cohn in the late 1980s to tap into the local music industry to create an event designed to raise the
profile of East Coast acts.
Thirty years ago, the seed was planted on a modest scale in the basement bar at the then Flamingo Café and Lounge
“It was a relatively small affair – a smallish club,’’ recalls Lennie Gallant, one of P.E.I.’s most successful singer-songwriters.
“It held only a couple hundred people, tops.’’
But the event also held potential.
Over the past three decades, ECMA has been nurtured as a vehicle to develop, advance and celebrate East Coast music, its artists and its industry.
Gallant says the initiative, now called East Coast Music Awards: Festival and Conference, has been successful beyond anyone’s dreams, growing to a five-day international gathering with a budget exceeding $1.6 million. International tours are booked, shows are confirmed, festivals are lined up and music licensing deals are signed.
“For me personally, it certainly helped put me on the map,’’ he says.
Gallant, who is working on his 12th album, due out later this summer, has enjoyed an impressive career filled with accolades, including 18 East Coast Music Awards and being recently honoured by the Canadian Folk Music Award as artist of the year.
He has attended well over half of the ECMAs, notably when he has new material to showcase.
While the event is largely about doing business, Gallant relishes the opportunity to enjoy special gatherings with fellow musicians.
“In the early days, it was an amazing party,’’ he says.
“I remember being in a room with (the late, legendary singersongwriters) Gene MacLellan and Ron Hynes…passing guitars
around…I love the East Coast Music Awards because there still exists a sense of camaraderie. There are no real borders between styles.’’
The event was held in Halifax for the first handful of years before the decision was made to shift it around Atlantic Canada.
Charlottetown, which hosted the ECMAs in 1996, 2001, 2006, 2011, and 2014 (and is hosting again in 2019), is a magical venue for the event, says local entertainment promoter Campbell Webster, who is a founding director.
“This is the most walkable town,’’ he notes.
“Everything is right beside each other. Nobody else has that. So, we get these sort of
travelling street parties.’’
Webster, who introduced a 72-hour, non-stop band jam that became a mainstay of the ECMA for about 15 years, adds the capital city also receives the largest relative imprint from the event.
“The ECMA becomes Charlottetown, and Charlottetown becomes the ECMA,’’ he says.
Still, Webster adds, the event is more about musicians getting the opportunity to entertain business offers than to entertain fans.
“You come for the business,’’ he says.
“You’re there to do showcases to get gigs and to get agents and to live as a musician.’’
Webster believes the ECMA
is helping many Atlantic Canadian musicians live comfortably, if not lavishly.
“It’s not about international sales,’’ he explains.
“It’s not about the big record deal. That’s exciting and you see that, but really what it does is creates sustainable community cultural business. They’re not getting rich, but maybe they are making between $40,000 and $70,000 a year.’’
Making that decent living doing what they love, and doing it based in Atlantic Canada, is not a bad deal.
Gallant adds that he finds “quite phenomenal the number of (Island) artists and musicians out there touring and doing quite well.’’
Shelley Nordstrom, an international export manager for ECMA, says increasing numbers of East Coast musicians are touring outside of Canada because of the annual event.
She says the 2018 East Coast Music Awards: Festival and Conference underway this week in Halifax has drawn industry players from around the world, including Germany, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States.
Overall, she says, the event appears to be striking the right chord.
“It is a bit overwhelming to see the growth,’’ says Nordstrom.
“It’s something that hasn’t happened overnight.’’