Edinburgh Tradfest - Gunning & Cormier

Two of Canada’s greatest roots singer-songwriters have finally done what everybody’s wanted — heck, what they’ve wanted — for years.

Dave Gunning and J P Cormier have released their first album together, called Two. Great friends, frequent collaborators, co-writers and touring partners, the pair has been talking about this album since pretty much the day they met. Now they are getting to tour the music too, and we’re delighted that they’re coming to Edinburgh Tradfest.

Here’s what they say about the music on this new album and the repertoire for the show they will be playing at The Traverse:

“We wanted to keep it simple and honest so we essentially made a 4-track recording, just two guitars and two vocals. Limiting ourselves this way actually helped inspire the arrangements and the performances. It forced us to dig a little deeper.”, says Gunning.

“A lot of artists like us feel compelled to put these massive productions together, and we said we’re not going to do that,” adds Cormier. “We’re going to make this record be that large with only two instruments and two voices. And we did that.”

Two is made up of everything the duo excels at. There are new collaborations between the two writers (Brothers, Home To Mary), new arrangements of antique folk numbers (Johnny Armstrong, Katie o’ the Gowrie), and some tasty, surprising covers (Never Picked Cotton, Stompin’ Tom’s Songbird Valley).

Every song had to meet their very high, combined standards. “We didn’t take it lightly,” confirms Gunning. “We really put our heart into it.”

This gig is part of Edinburgh Tradfest 2022.

The Traverse Theatre is funded by Creative Scotland and The City of Edinburgh Council, with additional support from The Scottish Government Performing Arts Venues Relief Fund.