Woodyfest 2014: John Wort Hannam

Lucky Hat

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: in 2001, a [Sidenote: This is the sec­ond post in our cov­er­age of the sev­en­teenth annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. We’ll be alter­nat­ing our report­ing with essays and photo gal­leries from the twenty-sec­ond fes­ti­val in 2019, so check in often for a mix of old and new Woodyfest good­ness.] school­teacher on a large Blackfoot reserve in south­ern Alberta quit his job to become a folk musi­cian. Ba-doom-pah! John Wort Hannam, the afore­men­tioned blink­ered opti­mist, spent the next ten months drain­ing his bank account while he sat at his kitchen table writ­ing. The ten songs he pro­duced, all while wear­ing his “lucky” hat, would become his first album, 2003’s Pocket Full of Holes.

Seventeen years and mul­ti­ple awards later, he’s released seven records. Among the acco­lades are a JUNO, [Sidenote: The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences presents the Juno awards (“the JUNOs”) annu­ally to Canadian musi­cans to rec­og­nize their artis­tic and tech­ni­cal achieve­ments.] a Canadian Folk Music Award (“Best Album of the Year”), a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Galaxie Rising Star Award, a Kerrville Texas New Folk win, and mul­ti­ple Western Canadian Music Award and Canadian Folk Music Award nominations.

Hannam made his Woodyfest debut in 2010. He returned in 2011 and 2014. The lat­ter per­for­mance on the Crystal Theatre stage closed with some help from fes­ti­val reg­u­lar Radoslav “Rad” Lorković.

Hannam’s lat­est release is 2018’s Acres of Elbow Room.

Gallery