MacNaughton prepares to launch debut album

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This article was published 17/04/2023 (1253 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After working as a musician for most of his life, 61-year-old Doug MacNaughton is getting ready to release his first album of original material, which will serve as a callback, of sorts, to his time growing up here in Brandon.

While this project, titled “Old Enough To Know Better,” is scheduled for a summertime release, MacNaughton has already given listeners an idea of what to expect through his debut single, “So Lost Without You.”

Not only does this 1970s folk-pop ballad showcase MacNaughton’s various musical influences, from Joni Mitchell to King Crimson, but the track also pays tribute to his two lost siblings.

Talking to the Sun this past Friday, MacNaughton said that his brother Bill died in 1980 after crashing his motorcycle at the corner of 13th Street and Lorne Avenue.

He experienced further tragedy just over a decade later when his sister Elspeth passed away from cancer in 1991, although her memory continues to live on through the city’s Elspeth Reid Family Resource Centre.

“Her contribution to the community [was] through her work with western Manitoba mental health and being on the boards of groups like United Way,” MacNaughton said. “I mean, she made such an impact in a very short time.”

While MacNaughton admits that it’s unusual to kick off an album’s promotional campaign with a track about loss and grief, the song’s lyrics and instrumentation manage to culminate on an uplifting note, setting the stage for a project that celebrates life rather than wallowing in despair.

After all, MacNaughton said he has tremendously good memories of growing up in Brandon from 1966 to 1982, when he was able spark his love of music through taking part in school bands, singing in choir and just listening to artists like Mike Oldfield, Frank Zappa and Cassandra Wilson in the company of friends.

“The general soundscape [of my album] is all tempered by the stuff I listened to in Brandon with my friends in the ’70s and how we’d talk about ‘oh, I love the sound quality on that’ or ‘I love what he’s doing with the rhythm here,’” he recalls.

MacNaughton’s passion for music would encourage him to attend Brandon University as a voice major, although he admits to never finishing the program.

Instead, he auditioned for and was accepted into the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in 1982 — a move that led to a lengthy stage and concert career.

Throughout the decades, MacNaughton has scored a number of eclectic roles in various companies, having taken part in stage shows like “Les Misérables” and “Man of La Mancha” alongside classic operas such as “La Bohème” and “The Tales of Hoffmann.”

“Music has been my primary source of income, which I’ve occasionally had to supplement by taking a day job here and there,” he said.

“I tried retiring back in 2017, but it really didn’t work out. I lasted for about eight months and then I realized I missed the stage, I missed singing, I missed the friends you only get to see when you’re at auditions or at a gig.”

That same year, MacNaughton took a major creative leap by writing his first original song, having released an album of classical guitar covers several years prior.

And after immersing himself in Toronto’s indie music scene — where he took inspiration from groups like Mercy Flight and Delta Will — MacNaughton continued to create original music as time moved forward, which eventually attracted the attention of producer Jessica Stuart.

“She has been a fantastic mentor and I remember during the pandemic is when we first talked about ‘you know, we should really start putting this together as an album,’ and that would have been sometime in late 2020, early 2021,” he recalls.

“It took us ages to get our act together and get our schedules to match and we finally started to do the recording in January of last year.”

Despite the pressure and stress that inevitably comes with producing your first album of original music, Stuart and recording engineer Ryan Granville-Martin helped make this transition as easy as possible through lending their expertise and wisdom throughout.

“The three of us were spending 10-hour days in the studio, and the hardest thing about it was we had to stop laughing and joking and take it seriously and actually get some work done,” MacNaughton said. “Because they’re a delightful pair of people to hang around with.”

While MacNaughton still contends with bouts of imposter syndrome even as this album nears completion, he’s still immensely proud of the work he has put in so far and hopes that it leads to similar projects down the line.

In terms of advice for other aspiring musicians, MacNaughton said their best way forward is to simply cast off their fear about rejection and put their original work up for public consumption, no matter how old they are.

“There’s so much rejection involved in the business, and that’s just the nature of it,” he said.

“There are more beautiful songs that exist in the world than there is time to listen to them all, and that’s incredible. So with all that rejection … you’ve got to keep your own hope going.”

MacNaughton is aiming to release “Old Enough To Know Better” sometime in August, although he will be tiding listeners over with a couple more promotional singles in the coming months.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @KyleDarbyson