member gordosongs

Gord Oliphant started playing music after he was taken by storm while watching the great time the local musicians were having on an open mike stage in Ft. St. John, B.C. in November 2008. Upon returning to his home town of Victoria, B.C., he bought an acoustic guitar and began learning the craft.

 Less than a year later, in October 2009, he attended a performance in a coffee shop venue that was featuring a tribute to Canada's national guitar which is officially called the "Six String Nation" It later became nicknamed "Voyageur" as it travelled accross the country for all to see and play.

 The guitar project was the hard work of Jowi Taylor from CBC radio. Voyageur is made up of pieces of various Canadian historical artifacts and icons of national significance. The top of the guitar is cut from a piece of the Queen Charlotte Island's sacred Golden Spruce tree which was the only tree of its kind in the entire world. A tragedy struck when a psycologically sick individual brought the protected tree to the ground where it still lays. Even the most hard core of loggers at the time were shocked that such a thing could happen as they were instrumental in originally having the tree protected.

 The tree had a very special meaning to Gord as he used to live less than 5 miles from it and spent much time sitting on the river beneath it in his canoe. The night of the tribute, he started writing his first song. It is simply called "A Song for the Nation" A second song called "The Acoustic Quilt" which is about the travels of the voyageurs and how they spread music and songs while paddling their canoes. Gord's first performance ever was doing both songs on the actual Voyageur guitar at a house concert hosted by singer songwriter Paul O'Brien as Joey, on his tireless journey, had brought the guitar back to Victoria again in April 2010.

 Gord is an active advocate of protecting our environment. He works as a freshwater biologist and also specializes in environmental emergency planning and marine oil spill clean up. His latest song "Drill Baby Drill - Spill After Spill" addresses that subject. It was inspired by the recent Gulf Deepwater III drilling disaster and other spills he has witnessed.

 Note from Gord: In the short time I have been playing I have had the personal pleasure of being influenced directly by handful of exceedingly generous people that were more than willing to share their love of music. In that regard, I would like to thank the following people who were especially encouraging (some names you'll recognize, some you won't): Sherman Sheldon (extra special thanks Sherman), John Thornton, Dave McEwan,  Nick Baccante, Jim Moffatt, Valdy, Karen Gillmore, and Flip Breskin.