Steve Strongman finds new career opportunities during pandemic
Blues artist signs global deal with Stony Plain Records
Steve Strongman has actually found an upside to the pandemic. The Juno-winning Hamilton blues singer/guitarist believes he wouldn’t have gotten his new record deal without it.
Two weeks into the new year, Linus Entertainment announced it had signed Strongman to a wideranging deal that would see the Waterdown-based company globally manage the distribution and publishing of his music and recording catalogue.
The arrangement also places Strongman on the Linus-run Stony Plain Records, a widely respected roots label with that has featured artists such as Ian Tyson, Maria Muldaur, Emmylou Harris, Harry Manx, Corb Lund and Amos Garrett.
It’s a huge career break for Strongman. Under the leadership of owner Geoff Kulawick, Linus has put together an impressive array of niche labels including True North, Borealis and Stony Plain, making it one of the largest independent record companies in Canada and giving it serious global marketing clout.
To kick off the deal, Stony Plain rereleased Strongman’s 2019 album
“Tired of Talkin’.” Kulawick and Stony Plain felt it never got the kind of marketing push it deserved. The strategy seems to be working. “Tired of Talkin’” is now tracking on North American roots and blues charts.
A powerful live performer, Strongman has been a known act in Canada since his breakthrough 2012 album “A Natural Fact,” which earned him three Maple Blues Awards and a Juno for blues album of the year in 2013. His reach outside of the country, however, has been limited.
“This deal gives me international distribution,” Strongman says from his home near Locke Street in west Hamilton. “My record is getting played everywhere.”
And, yes, Strongman says it may never have happened without the pandemic lockdown. It forced him to take a break from his busy touring schedule and focus on other parts of his career.
“We all concede the obvious negative aspects of this entire pandemic, but there is a lot of very positive things that have happened for me out of this,” Strongman says. “One of them is this deal I have with Linus.”
Kulawick, whose company has been based in Waterdown since moving from Burlington in 2015, approached Strongman after hearing his cover of Randy Bachman’s “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” on CBC radio. It probably helped that Bachman has recorded on Kulawick’s True North label. As well, says Kulawick, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,” was the first song he learned how to play on guitar.
“It inspired me to dig into Steve’s catalogue, and I was very impressed with the quality of his songwriting and production, especially his catchy choruses, clearly blues based, a genre that sometimes struggles with original new material,” says Kulawick, who lives in Carlisle.
Kulawick has big plans for Strongman, who is already working on a new album for Stony Plain from his home studio in west Hamilton.
“We will be investing in his songwriting and production, have set him up to write with several of our artists,” Kulawick says. “And when travel opens up we will send him to other markets to co-write and produce other artists, as well as develop original artist projects and collaborations.”
Strongman says he has already started cowriting songs with fellow Linus acts Matt Andersen and Sass Jordan and is looking forward to working with others.
“I don’t think any of that would have happened if we weren’t in this pandemic situation,” Strongman says. “It’s a really positive outcome.”