A singer-songwriter, poet, musician and spoken-word artist, C.R. Avery will be at York Tuesday as part of the Creative Writing Speaker Series.
The event will take place Oct. 4, from noon to 2pm, in the Paul Delaney Gallery, 320 Bethune College. Everyone is welcome.
C.R. Avery (right) will perform his music, poetry and spoken-word, as well as read from his books, in particular 38 Bar Blues. He will also talk about the process of writing both music and poetry for the page, his influences and the artistic processes, followed by a Q&A session with the audience.
Avery began playing music professionally at 17 and has played at almost every major Canadian folk festival. He recently headlined his own tour across France and opened on two major tours for Billy Bragg and Buck 65. He has performed throughout North America and Europe as a beat-box poet, punk piano player and harmonica player of hip-hop with his rock & roll band the Boomchasers or fronting the Legal Tender String Quartet. He has also performed as a sideman for such acts as Po’ Girl, Tons of Fun University, Sage Francis and Tom Waits.
He is billed as a unique, raw and dynamic performer, a one-man band with the ”rare ability to sing poetic verse while beatboxing simultaneously while pounding the piano and adding harmonica like a plot twist.”
His latest album is the 2009 Great Canadian Novel in which he writes about everything from raising a daughter and growing up in ice-skating rinks to Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
Avery has 15 albums to his name and has written and directed six hip-hop operas.
Republished courtesy of YFile– York University’s daily e-bulletin.