Teachers who marched to their own drum beat inspired music star Corb Lund

Canadian music star Corb Lund has always followed his own path and tried to be as unique as he possibly could. For that he credits his English teachers at W R Myers High School, in Taber. Lund describes Laurie Chomany, his Grades 8 and 9 English teacher, and Charles Hart, his Grades 10 and 11 English teacher, as people who followed their own path.

“They encouraged unique expression in their students, mostly by example. They walked to t heir own drumbeat,” says Lund, 44, an i nternational touring and recording artist with Corb Lund and the Hurtin’ Albertans. “They were interested in what they were teaching. They were both dynamic teachers who brought literature alive for me. They made it fun.”

Born and raised in Taber, in southern Alberta, Lund describes himself as “a total nerd in high school. I wasn’t into what most kids were into at the time. There are always kids on the fringes, and I was one of those kids. I was into unusual things like old-fashioned music—not the popular music of the day. At the time I felt like an outsider, so the encouragement those teachers gave me in my writing and selfexpression was really valuable.”

Today, a self-described subversive country songwriter and singer/performer, Lund calls his music “more individualistic music that doesn’t follow trends very closely.”

It’s an approach that has worked well for him. “It was scary at the beginning, but I wanted to do it, so I did it,” he recalls. “When you undertake a j ourney on an uncommon career path, it’s always scarier than getting a regular job. I think it’s important to just jump in, take your lumps and risk looking foolish. I always tell people to just go and do their own thing. It’s much more satisfying, and it usually works out.”

Lund studied history and anthropology at the University of Lethbridge for two years then moved to Edmonton, where

They were interested in what they were teaching. They were both dynamic teachers who brought literature alive for me. They made it fun. CORB LUND on his English teachers, Laurie Chomany and Charles Hart, from W R Myers High School in Taber, Alberta

he studied music at Grant MacEwan Community College (now MacEwan University) and anthropology with a history minor at the University of Alberta. He’s just three classes short of his degree, but he notes, “My mom is the only one who cares.” Lund jokes that his third album, Five Dollar Bill, which went gold in Canada, was his doctoral thesis.

Education has always been i mportant i n Lund’s family. Both of his grandmothers were teachers i n rural Alberta. His grandmother Lund taught Grades 1–12 in a one-room school in Rosemary, and his grandmother Ivins t aught on a Hutterite colony near Cardston and on a southern Alberta Blackfoot First Nation. “My grandmother Ivins was really committed to phonics, which is one method of teaching reading comprehension. She had me studying phonics before I went into Grade 1,” Lund says. “If I have any kind of facility with language, I credit my grandmas.”

And he credits his grandfathers, who were ranchers and cowboys, for introducing him to western cowboy songs, ballads and oral history.

Lund is touring in Australia, England, the U.S. and Canada through to November. He has also been doing a lot of flood relief concert work in southern Alberta.