Corb Lund is the son of a ranching family that goes back eight generations in Southern Alberta. If he can tell you something in three words, he won’t use 20. “Pretty country,” was all he needed to say in an interview with BandWagon to evoke the rolling sage brush on his family’s ancestral homestead.
While Lund may be conversationally economical, he is lyrically verbose. Over the course of twelve full length LPs, he has become one of Amercana’s most beloved songwriters; lyrically and sonically a modern embodiment of life on the range.
Last May, the Alberta provincial government rescinded a 1976 ban on open-pit coal mining on the slopes of the Canadian Rockies which threatened to scar the landscape and taint the water of nearby communities.
“It pissed off everybody up here, not just the lefties — ranchers, hunters and the first nations people,” Lund said. “It affects the water I drink. This was too egregious to let go.”
Lund collaborated with other Canadian musicians to re-record his 2009 song “This Is My Prairie,” in protest. A few months later, the government backed down and even introduced new protections.
