About Joe
Joe Cunningham has been composing and arranging music at a frantic pace
since 2007 after an odd 25 year hiatus. After being introduced to the
dark, mysterious arts of digital audio creation and recording in that
year he rushed back to the faded, dog-eared sheet music of his avant garde/
neoclassical/ jazzy, mis-spent youth with the realization that some of
his orphaned and un-produced compositions from those days could finally
be realized. Whether or not that turns out to be a good idea remains to
be seen.
Nevertheless
what's done is done, which includes three EPs in quick succession - Burnt
Sienna ('09); World Weary ('10); and Time ('11). While recording these
collections, Jim McLennan's highly praised Six String Gumbo and a number
of other unreleased recordings he honed his digital skills. Joe brags
incessantly about this claiming “it's pretty damn good for a guy still
running a successful fish business“. However, Joe has now left his fish
business for a young and alluring music career so we have to doubt his
claim regarding the successfulness of the fish stuff. Even so, the quality
of the recordings Joe has produced and engineered to date seem undisputed.
Joe received his early musical training at Dalhousie University and graduated
with a B.A. with a major in music in 1980. He has two other degrees (yes,
really) related to sociological/psychological mumbo jumbo acquired during
his hiatus which he describes as “a bad idea gone wrong”.
Previous to his “hiatus” Joe was affiliated with a number
of successful persons in the music world including notable Canadian composers
Steve Tittle and Scott Macmillan and he has continued to play drums in
various bands including, currently, the “blue/folk/rock/grass quartet
from southern Alberta“ - Wailback, which includes notable Canadian
author, Sid Marty.