Craig Cardiff – All This Time Running

Craig Cardiff grew up in Waterloo, Ontario. He fell under the spell of singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Elvis Costello, “not knowing it wasn’t cool to listen to Paul Simon at the time.” His earliest forays into music were equally out of step. He was “fired” by his piano teacher — “She politely said, ‘You don’t have to come back any more’ ” — and during his first high-school gig, he ended up humming for five minutes when he forgot the words to the Dylan song he was covering. Almost as embarrassing, learning that his mother once wrote Leonard Cohen, repeatedly asking him to bring the teenage Cardiff onstage to sing at his next local concert. Thankfully, Cohen didn’t bite. “I would have just gotten sweaty and tried to hide,” Cardiff laughs.  He has played festivals and concert stages, alongside indie icons such as Glen Philips, Kathleen Edwards and Sarah Harmer, as well as Canadian heavyweights such as Hawksley Workman, 54-40 and the late Gord Downie.

Over the years, Cardiff has found himself writing songs that offer pithy little bits of hope for people to hold onto. A prolific songwriter, Craig has released 21 albums and EPs independently and has found a global online audience that has streamed his songs more than 100 million times. With a voice described as “warm, scratched, sad and sleepy,” Cardiff sings songs that expose the human condition, putting a magnifying glass to our clumsier and less proud moments. He can turn any setting into an intimate affair, infusing his music and lyrics with an uncompromising humanism. All This Time Running is Craig’s first release on True North Records, and his first full length studio album in 6 years.

Visit: www.craigcardiff.com/

Craig Cardiff