Many fans consider Stan Rogers the greatest Canadian folksinger ever, and the loss due to his death in an airline disaster in 1983 is still felt deeply. Every folk collection should contain a selection of Stan Rogers recordings. With assistance from his wonderful musicians, especially his brother Garnet, who adds magic to song after song with his fiddle playing, Stan created some of the finest folk music on record. If you're like most people who discover his music, you'll probably end up purchasing all the albums in his too-brief discography. Rogers is a memorial member of the Porcupine Awards Hall of Fame.

Rogers' ascent in popularity began with his discovery of the songwriting potential of the Canadian Maritimes, his ancestral home. He plumbed the history and character of Maritimes fishing and mining villages in his outstanding debut album, Fogarty's Cove. The album is filled to the brim with what are now Stan Rogers classics, such as "Forty-Five Years," "Fogarty's Cove," "Barrett's Privateers," and "Make and Break Harbour." Rogers' second album, Turnaround, is a little patchier, containing such gems as "The Bluenose" and "The Jeannie C.", but also containing some rougher, early material that shows a developing Stan Rogers rather than the later, mature artist. Between the Breaks...Live!, one of two live albums in Rogers' discography, is a classic that provides a good blend of Stan's original material mixed well with that of other songwriters. His cover of Archie Fisher's "Witch of The Westmorland" is one of the album's highlights. The version of "Barrett's Privateers" on this album is considered by many to be definitive.

From the opening, achingly beautiful a cappella "Northwest Passage" to the gently lingering "California" that rounds out the album, Northwest Passage may be Rogers' finest work. It continues his exploration of the songwriting possibilities of Canada, this time the Canadian prairies and Canadian West. The album features some of his strongest lyrics: "Lies," "Free in the Harbour," "The Field Behind The Plow," "The Idiot," and, of course, "Northwest Passage." Interspersed between Northwest Passage and From Fresh Water is Stan's "fun" album, For the Family on which he performs the traditional music his musically-talented family grew up on. A tribute to his roots, Family provides an insight into the direction Rogers might have taken. This was the first, and only, album he produced himself. He dispensed with the background strings, returning to a plainer, more traditional folk sound.

From Fresh Water, released posthumously (1992), was Rogers' last major project--a set of songs he wrote about the Great Lakes region of Canada where he was raised. His song cycles about Canada had come full circle, back to his home. The album includes some great Rogers' compositions, including "Lock-Keeper," "White Squall," "The Last Watch," and "The Nancy." It also displays a rarer side of Rogers--a pair of protest songs: "Tiny Fish for Japan," and "The House of Orange." Ten years after Stan's death, Fogarty's Cove Music posthumously released a concert recorded in 1982 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Home in Halifax, a superb live recording, preserves the essence of a Stan Rogers concert performance, including snatches of stage patter. It catches Garnet Rogers' engaging humour, and, arguably, the best version of "Barrett's Privateers" on all of Stan's albums. It also includes a previously unrecorded Stan Rogers song, "Sailor's Rest."

As the demand grows for anything of Stan's work in the archives, Fogarty's Cove has pledged to release CD's of recorded concerts and radio shows. The first of these, Poetic Justice (1996), is the release of two radio plays done for the CBC. They form interesting contrasts. The first Harris and the Mare is a play written by John Douglas, based on Stan's song "Harris and the Mare." As such it extends the story of the song into a dramatic production. The second, The Sisters, by Silver Don Cameron was a play for which Stan wrote the theme song, "The Sisters." The collector will want to purchase this highly interesting album.

Fogarty's Cove *
1977 Fogarty's Cove (FCM-P/1001D)

Watching the Apples Grow; Forty-Five Years; Fogarty's Cove; The Maid on the Shore; Barrett's Privateers; Fisherman's Wharf; Giant; The Rawdon Hills; Plenty of Hornpipe; The Wreck of the Athens Queen; Make and Break Harbour; Finch's Complaint; Giant: Reprise 39:30

Turnaround
1978 Fogarty's Cove (FCM 001D)

Dark Eyed Molly; Oh No, Not I; Second Effort; Bluenose; The Jeannie C.; So Blue; Front Runner; Song of the Candle; Try like the Devil; Turnaround 40:57

Between the Breaks...Live! *
1979 Fogarty's Cove (FCM-002D)

The Witch of the Westmorland; Barrett's Privateers; First Christmas; The Mary Ellen Carter; The White Collar Holler; The Flowers of Bermuda; Rolling Down to Old Maui; Harris and the Mare; Delivery Delayed 43:30

Northwest Passage *
1981 Fogarty's Cove (FCM 004D)

Northwest Passage; The Field Behind the Plow; Night Guard; Working Joe; You Can't Stay Here; The Idiot; Lies; Canol Road; Free in the Harbour; California 39:39

For the Family
1983 Folk Tradition (R002)

Lookout Hill; Cliffs of Baccalieu; Strings and Dory Plug; The Badger Drive; Cape St. Mary's; Two Bit Cayuse; Scarborough Settler's Lament; Yeastcake Jones; Up in Fox Island; Three Fishers 36:10

From Fresh Water *
1984 Fogarty's Cove (FCM 007D)

White Squall; The Nancy; Man with Blue Dolphin; Tiny Fish for Japan; Lock-Keeper; Half of a Heart; MacDonnell on the Heights; Flying; The Last Watch; The House of Orange 42:04

Home in Halifax *
1992 Fogarty's Cove (FCM 010D)

Bluenose; Make and Break Harbour; The Field Behind the Plow; Shriner Cows (dial.); Night Guard; Morris Dancers (dial.); The Idiot; Lies; Free in the Harbour; Band Introduction (dial.); Workin' Joe; The Legend of Fingal (dial.); Giant; Forty-Five Years; The Mary Ellen Carter; Barrett's Privateers; Sailor's Rest 64:01

Poetic Justice: Two Radio Plays
1996 Fogarty's Cove (FCM 011D)

Harris and the Mare; The Sisters 58:14