Alberta native Corb Lund is no stranger to blurring the line between city dweller and cowboy. Lund and his band, The Hurtin’ Albertans, headline Canadian country and folk festivals, as well as gigging at New York City nightspots and America’s finest honky tonks. “We’re able to straddle the line between songwriter folk and straight country, which is cool,” says Lund. “We do funky clubs and we do folk rooms, along with festivals.” Lund’s latest album, Cabin Fever, follows the same logic.

Listening to the album’s banjo, guitar, and handclaps, as well as Lund’s Western inspired songwriting, one can’t help but think the paredBdown approach is yet another aspect of the Lund family tradition: After all, Lund learned to sing as a nipper when his grandfather taught him the campfire standard “Strawberry Roan,” which Grandpa Lund picked up via oral tradition from fellow trailhands. “I’ve got one foot in old fashioned cowboy music,” says Lund, “but I treat it with some abandon and irreverence. The reality is we don’t live in that world anymore – yet the cowboys were kind of punk rockers in their day.” As for Corb Lund, his Western heritage stays with him, no matter where he roams. “My whole life is sort of a dichotomy between being a cowboy kid and living in a city,” says Lund. “I guess that informs my music too.”

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