Jon Brooks

Infobox Musical artist
Name = Jon Brooks


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Background = solo_singer
Born = birth date and age |1968|8|17
King City, Ontario, Canada
Origin = Toronto
Instrument = 615 Taylor Guitar
Genre = Folk
Occupation = Singer-songwriter
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URL = http://www.jonbrooks.ca

Jon David Brooks (b. 17 August, 1968, King City, Ontario, Canada,) is a Canadian folk singer-songwriter.

Biography

The son of a secretary and a salesman/country waltz drummer, Brooks began singing and writing in high school. A drummer like his father at first, he taught himself piano and guitar and, by the late 1980s, was the Hammond organ player and leader of the band The Norge Union in the Toronto area. In 1993, The Norge Union recorded "Bulldozer". Brooks then played organ on The Headstones’ first album.

When The Norge Union disbanded in 1995, Brooks traveled and played solo shows throughout Poland and Ireland. In 1997, he recorded "The Latest Great Embarrassment" in Poland with producer Jurek Piastowski. He then hitchhiked throughout Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, formerly part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, recently devastated by civil wars and ethnic cleansing. Upon his return to Canada in 1998, he played Toronto’s North By North East festival. Brooks then quit music for the next seven years, unable to reconcile what he had witnessed in Yugoslavia with the modern music industry.

After studying English literature for the next few years, Brooks returned to songwriting. He returned to the idea that a five-minute song could reach more people with truthful storytelling. At the end of 2005 Brooks released his first CD, "No Mean City", produced by New Zealand native and Irish music multi-instrumentalist Pat Simmonds.

Brooks' next CD, "Ours And The Shepherds", was a collection of songs examining Canada’s war experience. The songs moved through the 20th century from World War I up to Afghanistan. The 13 songs included a new musical translation of the poem "In Flanders Fields", and commented on the recent peacekeeping missions of Kigali, Rwanda; Bosnia; Somalia; and Kabul. The CD garnered Brooks a 2007 award with the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals for its song "Auction Days", a story of the widows of New Waterford, Cape Breton, after Vimy in 1917.

Brooks also published an essay in 2007 as part of "Barry Callaghan—Essays on His Works", which also included essays by Margaret Atwood, William Kennedy, Patrick Lane, Joyce Carol Oates, Noah Richler and others.

Currently, Brooks is recording his next CD, "Moth Nor Rust".

Awards

* 2006 Songwriter of the Year - The International Greenman Review
* 2007 Ontario Council of Folk Festivals 'Songs From The Heart'
* 2007 Canadian Folk Music Award nominee - Best Songwriter

Discography

* "No Mean City" (December 2005)
* "Ours And The Shepherds" (May 3, 2007)
* "Moth Nor Rust" (2008) (not yet released)
* "Tired Soil" (2009) (not yet released)

External links

* [http://www.jonbrooks.ca Jon Brooks official website]
* [http://www.myspace.com/jonbrooks Jon Brooks My Space page]

Persondata
NAME = Brooks, Jon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
SHORT DESCRIPTION = Canadian musician
DATE OF BIRTH = 17 August, 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH = King City, Ontario
DATE OF DEATH =
PLACE OF DEATH =