Songs or stories?
Norm Walker doesn't call himself a storyteller but rather a "story-singer". Even so, the storytelling communities, locally and nationally, have embraced what he does as within the realm of what they call "storytelling". Some call him a "contemporary folk singer". Whatever you call him, at the very least he is an "entertainer" who uses music and stories as his main vehicles, often with tongue in cheek.
Dear Friends & Gentle Hearts
A while past, I had the opportunity to live with my grandparents a year. Every other week, I would spend a
couple of hours sitting with my grandmother, perusing one of her photo albums and listening to the stories she
told with each picture. No matter how many times she showed me these snapshots from her past, I loved to
hear her remembrances; it always gave me a sense of being grounded. That is how I felt listening to Norman Walker's latest CD. Each song was like a snapshot in a photo album, and his thoughtful singing interpreted the stories behind the pictures.
Norman's own view is that anyone can and should archive their own stories or those of loved ones, and ought
not to wait for someone else to do it. Being endowed with a talent for songwriting has provided Norman a
unique method of archiving the stories of the place where he lives (Saskatchewan) and of the people he knows
or has heard about from others. Admittedly, the word "archive" calls to mind something very academic and dry.
Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts is anything but.