by Elizabeth Nolan

Driftwood staff

A local musician and filmmaker is getting ready to share a part of his soul with the launch of a new album, Pacific Day.

Peter Prince was relaxed at his Burgoyne Bay studio and home when I visited to talk about his fifth and most recent musical release. The historic farmhouse, today located within the boundaries of a provincial park, sits peacefully in what was once the site of a dire struggle between conservationists and loggers.

It’s difficult to image that this quiet homestead, looking across at sunburnt fields and cool hills, was threatened by Texada’s logging activity, or that just up the road at the Burgoyne Triangle, protesters chained themselves to trees.  The crisis is one of the subjects inspiring Prince’s songwriting on the latest album, his first vocal offering in several years.

“Turning The Tide was written as trees came down right around this house,” Prince recalled. “It represents what happens when even one person wants to stand up to the powers that be. This song honours that time and those people.”

A participant at various logging protests over the years and a veteran of the folk circuit, Prince describes nature as his greatest teacher.  Its power infuses his songwriting rhythms even when it isn’t directly addressed in the lyrics.

“I often work on songs down by the bay, while watching the kingfishers dive, the eagles soar and the waves roll in.  Being there helps me purify my mind, breathe more deeply and see more clearly through life’s dramas.”

Like nature, music has also been a constant presence.  Prince said he’s consciously been writing songs since he was 12, but even before that there was always a tune running through his head, waiting to be crafted.

“Everything is a song — that kind of sums up how I see life,” Prince explained.

He was formally introduced to music in a junior high school poetry class, where he heard the most influential folk artists of the day, including Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Jackson Browne.

“Their work really inspired my music,” Prince said.  He’s been compared by fans to Browne and described as being like Cohen but with a better voice.

A prolific songwriter, Prince has more than enough material for several more albums, with only time constraints keeping him out of the studio.  During his working career as a camera man and documentary filmmaker, he has learned how to tell other people’s stories with picture and sound.  But songwriting is a type of self-expression that gets right to the core of his being, and one he’d suffer greatly if he could no longer do it.

“In a way, you can envision and connect things with music beyond what you can do with a film.  Music is spirit.  With music, I feel.”

That emotional core is evident in songs like The Changes Come, which Prince wrote as a tribute to his father.  He began writing the song on a visit to Slovenia, his father’s homeland, and then finished it in Canada, getting to sing it to him just before he died.

Though the content is deep, the music itself is often gentle and soothing.  His clear vocals rest on melodies that often involve the global influence of his life and travels.  Let’s Dance Again, for example, features a Spanish-sounding guitar and a slow, seductive beat, which contrasts with the joyful lyrics in a romantic duet.  On Higher Ground, an ode to his adventures in Bhutan and the album’s opening track, is an upbeat offering, chugging down the track to the railroad rhythm of Bruce Everett’s harmonica.

Local guest artists help round out Prince’s acoustic guitar with percussion by Laurent Boucher, stand-up bass by Ian Van Wyck, saxophone by Henry Boudin and fiddola by Zav RT.  Elvira Clare and Tara MacLean lend their fine vocal harmonies to the mix.

“I’m grateful for their participation on Pacific Day because it really raises the energy, and we're looking forward to putting on an exciting show at the hall when we all get together and celebrate,” Prince said.

Prince will have most of the album’s contributors present at the official CD launch party, set for Friday, Sept. 10, 8 p.m. at Fulford Hall.  Tickets and CDs are available at Acoustic Planet, Stuff & Nonsense, the Saturday Market and www.peterprince.com.

Courtesy of the Gulf Islands Driftwood