SONG CONTEST BLOG

Further to my piece on Don Ross earlier this week, I wanted to add another post about one of his fellow CandyRat Records artists who really caught my attention last night with his original composition, “Catching the Light”.

Dufour has lots of video performances on YouTube, equally as stylistically impressive and melodically driven.  As one of Canada’s emerging young stars of acoustic fingerstyle guitar, he is building a strong fanbase and reputation as an awe-inspiring live performer and innovator of the solo acoustic guitar style driven by him and his CandyRat peers, many of whom are also prominent YouTube stars.

Anyone who has randomly surfed through YouTube has eventually landed on a video of a teen guitar virtuoso with millions of accrued views.  Search a little further and a vast world of amateur instructional guitar ‘how-to’ clips will reveal themselves with tantamount popularity.  Guitar is a massive interest category on YouTube and, with it, a traditionally unrepresented musical niche has emerged to the fore: Guitar Virtuosos.  Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Nuno Bettencourt, and alike, were popular long before YouTube unveiled itself as the premier video portal, however, a new breed of guitarists have caught the attention of the dotcom generation with unique styles that, until now, experienced only nook-and-cranny exposure.

Enter CandyRat Records, the most visible alternative acoustic guitar label on YouTube – or anywhere, for that matter.  The boutique-sized label, founded by Rob Poland, has capitulated extraordinary guitarists through a series of low-budget video clips of their music, the most successful of which include some form of tapping, odd tuning, or any other unconventional manner of playing their instrument.  Although CandyRat represents a whole slew of talented guitarists and singer/songwriters, the company’s most notorious roster of YouTube maestros includes the likes of Erik Mongrain, Antoine Dufour, and, of course, Andy McKee, who has garnered just under 20 million views for his video performance of “Drifting“, an original composition, and over 8 million views for an innovative version of “Africa” by Toto.  And then there’s Don Ross.

Don Ross was Rob Poland’s first signing, even though Don remained contractually independent.  In 2005, Don released an album through CandyRat which marked the label’s investiture as an acoustic aficionado.  In a recent communication with Jill Katona of Paperwork Media, Don’s booking agent and Andy McKee’s former rep, I learned that it was Don who brought Andy to Poland’s  attention, who later signed him and released two of his CDs under CandyRat.  Old friends, Don Ross and Andy McKee collaborated for the label and enjoyed mutual exposure online.  However, it was McKee’s video performance of “Drifting” that truly put CandyRat on the map and significant offshoot traffic in Don’s direction, as well as the other artists on the label’s growing roster.

Don Ross and Andy McKee’s styles are comparable.  The two masters of their trade govern the art of percussive, finger-picking, neck-hammering guitar techniques which make their solo guitar compositions sound as if there are multiple instruments omnipresent.  Considering Don Ross’ lengthy tenure as an acoustic guitar performer, I can only assume that he is one of the pioneers of this style – he has certainly become renowned for it.

Don is currently on tour with Brooke Miller, a 2007 finalist in We Are Listening’s Breaking the Band, and their aggregate talent should make for an excellent series of live show.