Drunken poker, gummy bear highs and a famous friend
Corb Lund on his album ‘El Viejo’
When it comes to penning storytelling adventure songs, nobody is more entertaining than Taber, Alta.’s Corb Lund.
Especially when they’re extracted from actual experience.
On his 10th and latest studio album of uniquely authentic Western originals, “El Viejo,” there are several such songs, particularly the rollicking opening track, “The Cardplayers.”
“True story,” the 55-year-old said over the phone recently.
“It happened with me and a band of guys named the Turnpike Troubadours: we were playing a show in Illinois on the river and we went to the casino after, and we were just really, really drunk.
“Sometimes you win at poker short-term when you’re drinking. It doesn’t last: you give it all back. But we were winning and the locals were getting pissy about it, so the pit boss kicked us out because she thought we were colluding with each other, you know, cheating? Insane, given our drunken state.”
Inebriated revelry aside, there are more than a few country artists who will attest to Lund’s reputation as a somewhat ruthless card shark. In 2019, Vancouver klezmer folk satirist Geoff Berner even wrote a song about it called “Don’t Play Cards for Money With Corby Lund.”
“Yeah, bulls-t, whatever,” scoffed Lund, who brings his Hurtin’ Albertans to the Danforth Music Hall on April 20. “He’s one of my best friends. But he doesn’t play cards. He thinks I’m way better at it than I am. He’s stealing my action.”
Maybe so, but Lund admitted he wrote “The Cardplayers” with “an Eastern European klezmer feel to it, like Geoff Berner’s music,” and gives Berner a shout-out in the album’s liner notes.
Then there’s the first single from “El Viejo,” “Old Familiar Drunken Feeling,” which might be the only song about a performer who was so high on a gummy bear edible that he needed several shots of whiskey to drink away the buzz so he could function properly onstage. “True story,” said Lund.
It’s these unconventional tales that make former rancher Lund’s music as intriguing as it is appealing. In his world, love songs are an aberration rather than the norm: horses, cows, and farming and ranching life are more likely to factor into the equation among an instrumental backdrop of shuffles, two-steps, waltzes, ballads and even an occasional shot of Mariachi.
Then there’s his fascination with military history, which encompassed an entire album (2007’s brilliant “Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!”) and is represented on “El Viejo” by “Insha’Allah,” a ballad with Spanish-style acoustic guitar and phrasing that would fit perfectly on a Willie Nelson LP.
“It’s about one of the Arab desert fighters who fought with Lawrence of Arabia in (the First) World War,” Lund explained. “It’s kind of a neat human story about a guy who wanted to get back to his family.”
The album is dedicated to Ian Tyson, the legendary Ian & Sylvia songwriter who was Lund’s friend and duet partner on “The Rodeo’s Over,” and who died in December 2022 at the age of 89.
“For 20 years he was a friend of mine,” said Lund. “At the beginning, it was more of a hero worship thing, but then we became really good friends. We recorded a bunch of stuff together and then toured together a lot. He didn’t really give me a lot of advice, but I learned a lot from him, watching and hanging out … He was a real hip guy.”
Tyson had a reputation for being crotchety on occasion, but Lund said he rarely saw that side of the man.
“I was a little freaked out when I first met him for that reason and I’ve seen him be crusty,” Lund said. “He wasn’t very much like that with me, hardly ever, but I think, honestly, it was partly a shield. He spent his entire adult life — 55 years, since he was 18 — in the public eye, right? And personally, I think a lot of it was bluster to create space.”
And while most of Lund’s songs take “forever” to write, “the Tyson song, ‘El Viejo,’ came pretty easily. I thought that I should write one about Ian, but I didn’t really want to force it because I didn’t want it to be corny or maudlin.”
Lately, Lund — who has three gold albums, a Juno Award and 14 Canadian Country Music Awards to his credit — has been making headlines for more than his music. He has been an outspoken opponent of a proposal by the Northback Holdings prospecting company for a metallurgical coal mining development — coal that is used for manufacturing steel — in Crowsnest Pass in the Rocky Mountains, about three hours south of Calgary and two hours west of Taber.
In a recent interview with The Canadian Press, Lund criticized Brian Jean, Alberta’s energy minister, for “how little he knew” about the issue following a meeting between the two.
“It’s just that every project has to be looked at on its own merits and this coal idea is really quite a dumb one,” Lund said. “It doesn’t do anything for the province. A foreign company is going to make all the money and they’re sending all the coal to Asia overseas. It’s going to really, almost certainly, ruin our water … And we’re in a crippling drought right now, a five-year drought. It’s getting really gnarly: the farmers don’t have enough water and it’s going to be really bad next year.”
For now, Lund and his Hurtin’ Albertans — Grant Siemens on guitars, Sean Burns on basses and Lyle Molzan on drums — are focusing on performing and promoting “El Viejo,” the all-acoustic album they made in Lund’s living room. After touring Canada and some of the U.S., they’re headed to Europe.
Creatively, Lund says he’s still thrilled to be making music — especially on his terms.
“I still feel like a kid in the candy store when it comes to the music. Touring is a bit draining with all the travel, but the writing, the recording and the hour-and-a-half onstage is still as much fun as it ever was … maybe more fun. I certainly haven’t reached the point where I feel like I’m stagnating creatively. I feel like I’m hitting my stride and that’s pretty cool at this stage of the game.”