The Dead South Wins Juno Award
Nick Murray
Regina's The Dead South just added another massive accomplishment to their resume. They are now Juno Award winners.
The Dead South took home the prize for Best Traditional Roots Album of the Year for their album Illusion & Doubt (https://www.amazon.ca/DEAD-SOUTH-ILLUSION-Dead-South/dp/B01MAZ0Y5S.
Illusion & Doubt beat out Cassie & Maggie's The Willow Connection, Coig's Rove, Jayme Stone's Folklife and The East Pointers What We Leave Behind.
The band was also nominated for Breakthrough Group of the Year but lost out to The Jerry Cans.
The Dead South have been popular locally since 2014 and "Banjo Odyssey", but they made their mark, nationally, after the release of the video for "In Hell I'll Be in Good Company" came out in October of 2016. The video has been seen nearly 51.5 million times.
"It was a honour and was actually totally unexpected." Colton Crawford, the album's banjo player said, adding "we thought we had a decent chance at winning Breakthrough Group, but when we didn't win it, we thought there was no chance in hell we'd win the Best Traditional Roots".
The Dead South's Colton Crawford and Danny Kenyon at the Juno Awards.
The group is made up of Nate Hilts, Scott Pringle, Danny Kenyon, Eliza Mary Doyle and Erik Mehlson. Crawford, who was with the group during the recording of Illusion & Doubt, no longer tours with the band, but continues to play an active role in much of their work.
Upon winning the award, it was Crawford and Kenyon who were there to accept it.
"We never really had "success" as a goal" Crawford said, "playing and writing music was just something fun we did when we all got together. We really didn't even think of touring or recording, let alone winning a Juno. We just had fun with it, tried to make each other laugh and here's where it led us."
In a post award ceremony interview, Crawford and Kenyon explained that the rest of the band was playing a show in Colorado and couldn't be there to accept the award, so the two of them went on the band's behalf.
Also, Jess Moskaluke, from Langenburg, was nominated for Best Country Album of the Year for her Album Past the Past. That award ultimately went to Tim Hicks' Shake These Walls.
Other big winners on the night were Walk Off The Earth, who won the Fan's Choice Award, Alessia Cara's "How Far I'll Go", which won Best Single, Gordon Downie for Artist of the Year and Ruth B's Safe Haven, which won album of the year.
For the full list of winners CLICK HERE