Accolades have piled up at his feet since Justin Rutledge released his first album, No Never Alone, via Six Shooter Records in Canada and Slowdive/Mojave 3 main man Neil Halstead’s Shady Lane Records overseas back in 2004 to rave reviews in such international publications as Uncut and NME. He’s won a Juno Award for Roots and Traditional Album of the Year in 2014 for the previous year’s Valleyheart – which also landed him a Canadian Folk Music Award – and been nominated for three more Junos. He has been longlisted twice for the critic-voted Polaris Music Prize, and has penned songs with Booker Prize-winning author of ‘The English Patient,’ Michael Ondaatje. Rutledge has also been an actor for CanStage, Necessary Angel, Tarragon Theatre and Théatre Passe Muraille over the years, and won a Montreal English Theatre Award for Oustanding Original Composition for his work on the Segal Centre’s production of The Graduate. Ben Rayner - 2023