RODEO is a delight: twelve songs that tick all the boxes of a truly great folk album: skillful songwriting, high-fidelity acoustic recording, traditional instruments played by top shelf talent, and the singular voice of a powerful singer.

Ingrid's lyrics can take us deep into heartbreak territory and listeners attuned to authenticity will find comfort here. RODEO reflects Ingrid's passion for the enduring strengths of folk music: narrative storytelling, singable choruses, and the association of songs with specific times and places, calling forth the Bay of Fundy, Cape Breton Highlands National Park, and British Columbia’s Logan Lake, among others. Ingrid has an ear for character and snatches of dialogue complement her poetics. "It's a hard life but, hey, no regrets," a taciturn trucker quips in "Hugh from Texas".

Fundamentally, Ingrid is a folk singer who knows the value of entertainment. Her songs embrace the pleasure of a good melody, fleshed out with satisfying harmonies and up-tempo arrangements, giving us the feeling of a really good Saturday night dance at the local Legion Hall.

Producer Gavin Gardiner of All Day Coconut has captured an "in the room" vitality that is ideal for Ingrid's folk philosophy. The performance gestures of the musicians, the singer's intake of breath, the clack of a bow on the stand-up bass convey a refreshing realism and intimacy.

Gardiner (The Wooden Sky, Moonriivr) showcases his many talents on guitar, harmonica and Mellotron and lends the sweet gravitas of his voice for harmonies throughout the album. Gardiner is joined by folk powerhouses Chris Coole on banjo, John Showman on fiddle, and Ben Whiteley on stand-up bass. Bob Wiseman cameos for a keyboard solo. Stewart McKie provides deep baritone vocals on the duet he co-wrote with Ingrid, “Gospel Songs and Honky Tonks”.


Acknowledgements:
On her liner notes for RODEO, Ingrid has this to say: "A while back I set an intention to follow my voice wherever it would lead me: so first I want to say thank you to my voice for getting me to this beautiful rodeo. I really did take the roundabout route, but I met such wonderful people on the way I couldn’t have gone any faster."

Thank you, Gavin Gardiner, for everything you brought to the rodeo: your many gifts as a musician, singer, producer, and human being.

Thank you to the musicians who shared their talents so enthusiastically: Gavin Gardiner, Chris Coole, John Showman, Ben Whitely, Bob Wiseman and Stewart McKie.

Thank you, Blair Packham, Allister Bradley, and all the mentors of SongStudio for honing my song writing skills, and to my co-writers, especially Greg Kelly, Stewart McKie and Matt Gerber.

Thank you, Elisabeth Pomès for teaching me to sing.

Thank you to my wife Rita Fridella for loving me and loving to hear me sing. A very special thank you to Alex Napier for being an extraordinary listener and for giving me the gift that started us on the path of this recording.

ABOUT THE SONGS

The lead track is a full-on wall of bluegrass with a lighthearted lyric speculating that we are travelling on a high-speed train that travels but never arrives anywhere but here, in “There, There, There is no There”.

Those looking for folk anthem that meets the complexities of our times will find it in “Give Away My Turn,” an upbeat barn burner that asks deeper questions without pointing fingers, observing that we are all caught up in a system that compels us to take more than we need, “Will I never learn to take just what I need? Will I never learn to give away my turn?”

Title track “Rodeo” starts with a witty self assessment: “I got waterproof shoes, a big heavy overcoat, a gown in the closet and a skeleton or two” leading to a chorus where the melodic turns to a bittersweet plea for redemption, “I get to the rodeo just as they fold the show. Old friends from long ago still know how to show mercy”.

Unspooling like a movie told in three acts, parents struggle with their son’s self destructive path in “All Fall Down”.

A shipwreck off the coast of Newfoundland in 1854, inspires a lighthouse keeper in the Bay of Fundy to invent the foghorn. “A Brief History of the Foghorn” is a sea shanty caught inside the iron and steam bellows of a foghorn inspired melody.

Gutsy vocals and Gavin Gardiner’s spartan guitar give a new song the aura of being a cherished traditional in the spiritual “Living Water”.

The Cape Breton Highlands National Park is the quirky and uplifting chorus in a song about being on the road an unpredictable friend in “Oh, Cecelia!”

The deep baritone of co-writer Stewart McKie joins Ingrid in a duet about former lovers crossing paths long after their lives have taken different directions in this up-tempo delight, “Gospel Songs and Honky Tonks”.

A forest fire in the British Columbia interior forces a child and her father to evacuate with horses and a dog in “Forest Fire”. Lush with atmosphere, Gavin Gardiner lends harmonica and blends his plaintive vocals with Ingrid’s to tell the story of one family’s escape to safety.
In “Hugh from Texas”, two 19-year-old girls catch a ride with a crotchety trucker who watches over them “like their dads woulda done” in this high energy barrelhouse hoedown.

“Evangeline” gives heartbreak a new twist with an this folk classic.

A family reconciliation that happens “at the edge of the gossamer of life” is captured in Ingrid’s heart aching vocals in “The Heart is the Last Thing to Go”.