https://www.mikemckennajr.com/home

With a raspy, warm voice and songwriting inspired by East Coast folklore, Mike McKenna Jr is a singer-songwriter from Nova Scotia, Canada who has captured the attention listeners in his native Maritimes, his current home in Montreal and around the North American folk music community. With a dynamic vocal style falling somewhere between James Taylor and Ray Lamontagne, his tales of tragic sea voyages and lost lovers offer a contemporary nod to the nautical-themed songs of his home province, and a revival of a niche traditional genre made popular by Canadians like Stan Rogers and Gordon Lightfoot.

FACTOR Canada and the Canada Council of the Arts and the Government of Canada have funded Mike's newest release Pacific Northwest Bound (2017), a full length album offering listeners a chance to hear dark and dusted-off Maritime stories and sea shanties from a contemporary, millennial perspective. Working with 2x Felix award-winning producer and CFMA nominated Simon Marion, he recorded this concept album in a small cabin studio north of Montreal, in the village of St-Come; a hub of traditional Quebecois music. The album is now available on all platforms including Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, Bandcamp and Soundcloud.
Click the links below to hear songs from Pacific Northwest Bound featured on curated playlists:
Spotify - Currents: Contemporary Folk
Hearth Music - Best Celtic Music of 2017
Music Nova Scotia - ECMA 2017
Canada 150 Music - Canadian Artists

Spring, 1823Mike McKenna Jr
Cold is my face from the wind

Tender my skin from the burn
Heavy is the weight on my back
Warm are my feet from the earth


and I heard the sky speak to me
From the clouds up above
She said the sun would keep me safe and warm
and she'll rain down with love


and I said ooh..
I'm gonna find my way home..


I wanna be with my people
and Im'a travel through the ice and snow
I wanna be with my people
and the stars tell me where to go


She said "the sea is my sister
and she watches over me
I spent too much time helping everything grow
and I miss my family”


She said well say hello
and I’ll visit someday soon
Then when the sun set I knew for sure
That she missed her people too


and long is the trail that I follow
and steep is the path that it climbs
and rocky is the fall of the unlucky
Who suffer from time to time to time to time...

and when the sun's coming up

I remembered my friend
For the sky must have watched me fall
Again and again and again and again...