Home »
Cancer-free, Sean Hogan brings Canadian Country Christmas tour to Fort Steele
A year ago Sean Hogan wasn’t sure if he’d ever be back in the Rockies performing, or simply enjoying them.
Headlining the Canadian Country Christmas tour, arriving in Fort Steele on Dec. 5 at the Wild Horse Theatre, Hogan was last year battling cancer.
“I’ve learned life has speed bumps, but don’t confuse them with the end of the road,” Hogan said.
At this time last year he had just finished his sixth week of treatments of radiation and chemo for Stage IV cancer of the neck known as Oral Pharyngeal cancer.
Hogan organized last year’s tour somewhat before being diagnosed but is in his words he is delighted to once again be on the road again with friends in the industry and work toward making a difference for various community charities in Canada.
The award-winning recording artist is now cancer free and his musical career continues to rocket upward, like a mythical beast rising from the ashes.
He was just recently nominated for Best Male Artist of the Year, Best Country album of the year, best Roots Artist of the Year and Best Music Video of the Year for the video for his single Travel Plans, all with the British Columbia Country Music Association.
Hogan named his acclaimed March 2012 record Phoenix before he even knew he had cancer.
In the spring of 2011, he was touring and was setting up singles from Phoenix to release. The first single `Travel Plans’ became another top 10 hit single but he wasn’t feeling quite right.
Hogan was finding that touring was more exhausting than usual and he had a chronic sore throat. It was diagnosed as tonsillitis but treatment didn’t make his symptoms disappear. By mid-August he was diagnosed with oral pharyngeal cancer.
Months of rigorous chemotherapy and radiation followed. Fellow artists and friends rallied to his support, holding fundraising concerts across Canada and carrying on his annual Canadian Country Christmas tour tradition in his absence.
After a harrowing six months Sean received a clean bill of health in March of 2012. As he predicted in the title track, “Like a phoenix flying out of the ashes, I will rise.”
With that clean bill of health and the burning desire to help out, Hogan is coming to Fort Steele’s Wild Horse theatre with guest Bobby Wills, Duane Steele, Samantha King and Jake Mathews.
Hogan has been a Canadian Country Music mainstay since 1996 when he debuted his uniquely authentic blend of ‘alt-country’ and ‘modern rustic pop.’ He immediately caught the attention of country radio and music fans across Canada, leading to his first Canadian Country Music Association award (Independent Male Artist of the Year, 1997).
Sean’s next two albums, Hijacked and Late Last Night, were each named Best Country Album at the West Coast Music Awards. He followed up these accolades with the CCMA’s Roots Artist of the Year award in 2003.
His next album, Catalina Sunrise, won three more music industry awards and was named the second best album of 2005 by the Country Music News.
Hit single after hit single (Slow Turning, Sure Fire Love, Dream Vacation, Angeline, I’d Rather Have You, Centered, Catalina Sunrise, A Cowboy’s Heart, and Suck It Up to name a few) became staples of country music radio.
Eighteen Sean Hogan music videos aired on Country Music Television. His first two U.S. album releases, 2003’s Ruled By Mercury and 2008’s Conspiracy Radio, climbed the Americana music charts and were well-received by radio south of the border. In between those releases, he recorded his fifth Canadian album, The Southern Sessions, putting him back on Canadian country radio with the hit singles What Would You Have Me Believe and Suck It Up.
Even Linedancer Magazine (based in England) profiled Hogan with a great review and contributing choreographers writing dances to several Hogan tracks from the album.
The 2009 U.S. release of The Southern Sessions produced two more chart hits there. In between he found the time to lead his annual cross-country Canadian Country Christmas tours, bringing a group of high-profile Canadian country music artists to large and small communities coast to coast raising over $100,000 for local charities and sponsoring dozens of children in Third World countries over the past decade.
Despite an amount of great country music success, by late 2010 Sean was frustrated and somewhat discouraged. While The Southern Sessions contained some of his strongest songs to date, he felt he was releasing music that was coming too much from his head and not enough from his heart.
In 2010 it became apparent not to try to pigeonhole his music into standard radio formats. So inspired in part by the work of two of his musical heroes, genre-defying songwriters John Hiatt and Lyle Lovett, Sean chose to free himself from the limitations that were the by-product of his previous successes and went to work on the prophetically-titled Phoenix.
Within a few months he had created an album that erased the lines between roots rock and country, with sounds heavily influenced by the soul-injected music he has enjoyed his whole life.
Great new songs ranging from soulful slow burners to the funky title track, several featuring additional vocals by legendary session singer Bekka Bramlett (Fleetwood Mac, Faith Hill, Robert Plant), resulted in an album that truly represented Sean’s most authentic self. It was released in March 2012 by On Ramp Records/EMI Music Canada.
“When you make an album this good it transcends genres…well written, soulful tracks…if there is a better country album than this in 2012, I will be surprised,” wrote John Emms, music journalist and radio host.
“Roadhouse meets the back porch. Hogan and Bekka Bramlett make the most powerful roots pairing since Jerry Lee Lewis and his sister, Linda Gail Lewis,” added James Reaney of the London Free Press.
“His most soulful numbers yet … classic Hogan,” noted Bruce Leperre of the Winnipeg Free Press.
The Kootenay Child Development Centre is the Fort Steele show’s benefactor. Tickets are $30 and available at the Kootenay Child Development Centre, B-104 and Cranbrook Dodge. The concert is Dec. 5 at the Wild Horse theatre, at 8 p.m.
For more: www.seanhogan.net .
To hear Sean Hogan on CBC Music – http://music.cbc.ca/#/artists/Sean-Hogan .
Ian Cobb/e-KNOW
