Vaughan musician intertwines stories with music ... and love for the violin

Vaughan Citizen
January 8, 2014
By Adam Martin-Robbins

You may have met him when he was editor of a local news magazine or perhaps you crossed paths with him during his brief stint in the Vaughan mayor’s office, or even while he was singing in a barbershop quartet.

Regardless, if you spent any time at all with Dan Hoddinott, you probably noticed he’s a passionate storyteller.

And so, it’s not surprising that his debut solo recording effort, Sighs of the Times, is essentially a compilation of tales set to music.

“I wanted to tell stories that were my stories and it started with My Father’s Violin, being that kind of tale,” the 54-year-old Woodbridge resident said. “And it’s partly personal, but only personal to the extent that it tells a larger truth or hopes that you will realize a larger truth.”    

In all, the disc features four recitations and an original song, all written by Mr. Hoddinott, as well as four covers of songs by the likes of American singer/songwriter Rod McKuen and Gloria and Bill Gaither.

“The curious thing about the CD, there are hints or flavours of gospel and jazz and classical due to the instrumentation, even a hint of barbershop quartet,” he said.

Mr. Hoddinott began recording the disc in April at a Toronto studio, but its origins stretch back to 2011, when he acquired his dad’s violin.

“My father was into Christian music and he wished to be a classical violinist. There was no hope of it, given our environment, but he wished for it anyway,” said Mr. Hoddinott, who grew up in the small fishing and logging town of Brig Bay, on Newfoundland’s northern peninsula. “He used to play Christian music and eight tracks of classics. And so anything he did had that classical flavour in it. It was pretty good stuff.”

Mr. Hoddinott and his brother, Gary, who runs a music school in Thunder Bay, decided to “present a mini-musical journey around the violin” comprised of three of four songs.

While in Thunder Bay, Mr. Hoddinott penned the song, Now It’s Gone.

The pair had stayed up late one night working on chord progressions and the next day, while his brother slept, Mr. Hoddinott strolled around the city.

“I saw this Tim Hortons and I went in.  While I was there having a coffee, I just pulled out the chord progression, still in my mind, and I wrote the lyrics right there,” he explained. “It took me about an hour.”

But his favourite track on the disc is the final one, With You/We Have This Moment.

“It’s a recitation that moves into a song that underscores all the points in the recitation,” he said. “And, I think, from a literary perspective, from an artistic perspective, from a performance perspective, it’s the best work I’ve ever done anywhere, at anything.”

Mr. Hoddinott is a longtime journalist, a published poet and a musician.

Earlier this year, he spent about four months working as Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua’s publicist.

In the late 1990s, he studied southern gospel music in Nashville, at Stamps-Baxter School of

Music and the Steve Hurst School of Music.

Although he’s performed on recordings for other gospel artists in the United States, Mr. Hoddinott waited until now to record a solo album.

“The funny thing is, it’s what I would have done years ago, had I the life experience to make it authentic,” he said.

And he had some pretty lofty goals for his first recording.

“The overall theme is really an acknowledgement of life passages and that everything is not ecstatic — boy chases girl, boy catches girl, boy lives happily ever after,” Mr. Hoddinott said. “It deals with death, it deals with loss, it deals with hope and things of that nature.

“… It’s really the realization that life is what it is and you can press on with what you have and with who you are anyway. And so, that’s what the sigh is: you accept it.”

Next up for Mr. Hoddinott? He’s considering publishing another book of poetry, which could be out in the spring.

Go to danhoddinott.ca to check out some tracks or buy a copy of Sighs of the Times.