MUSIC

McGonigel's Mucky Duck presents Corb Lund.

Losin’ Lately Gambler, is the 6th album from Corb Lund, Alberta’s acclaimed, alternative country star. Produced by the noted Nashville drummer and vocalist Harry Stinson (of Marty Stuart’s Fabulous Superlatives), this is Lund’s first album on his new record label New West Records. Lund’s latest series of songs on Losin’ Lately Gambler, features a gallery of subjects drawn from real life.

He says, “A lot of my ancestors pop into the songs. I’ve got quite a cast of characters to draw from. I feel a real kinship with the old West. A lot of my ancestors were ranchers, but one of my great-grandpas was a road gambler in Montana in the 1880s. I’ve got some miners in there. My grandpas in particular were full of lore – they had lots of stories.”

Lund’s great-grandfather may be the model for the hard-luck gambler of the new album’s “A Game in Town Like This.” His own rodeo experience animates “Steer Rider’s Blues.” And Lund’s father, a veterinarian, likely served as the inspiration of “Horse Doctor, Come Quick” and “Talkin’ Veterinarian Blues.” Some characters, like the deadly female gunslinger of “Devil’s Best Dress,” hail from Western folklore, while others – the busted-out rancher of “Long Gone to Saskatchewan,” the farmer displaced by oil drillers in “This is My Prairie” – spin stories torn from the daily papers.

These vivid depictions of the Canadian West are never less than universal. Lund notes, “My gut feeling at the beginning, which I think has been borne out, is if you write about what is familiar to you and do a good job of it, the specifics fade away and the universality of the message comes through. When I was younger, listening to Springsteen singing about the slums of New Jersey, that was alien to me, but I got it, because the music is so good. That’s what I aspire to – to paint a picture that’s intriguing.”