Craig Cardiff - Recording and Touring

Recording and Touring

Cardiff has offered at least one new release almost every year, and his catalogue includes live albums, studio albums, collaborations with other artists and tributes to songwriters he admires. Over the years, he has experimented with various recording styles and distribution platforms for his albums – one release, Mistletoe (Kissing Songs), was recorded entirely on an iPod Touch.

Cardiff’s latest album is Floods and Fires – and it is considered his most ambitious in scope, both musically and lyrically.

Where most of his releases have been recorded live or off the floor, Cardiff chose to take his time with this album. He worked with producer/engineer Ben Leggett of North Bay, Ontario, to record the album in a studio they built in Cardiff’s Arnprior farmhouse and worked on the album over the course of 18 months.

During the recording process, Leggett came to live with Cardiff and his six-year-old daughter, Rowan, so that working on Floods and Fires could fit into the normal course of Cardiff’s life.

“For me, it was about wanting to not wonder what a song could’ve sounded like if more time had been given to it,” says Cardiff. “That was a huge part of it. The other piece was finding ways to record that work for me as opposed to work for other people.”

A long-time advocate of alternate touring, Cardiff has played in camps, backyards, prisons, churches, basements, festivals, kitchens and anywhere people want to hear him. He has performed in more than 500 living rooms in the last 15 years.

Throughout his career, Cardiff has played with and opened for Glen Phillips, Lucy Kaplansky, Dan Bern, Natalia Zukerman, Andy Stochansky, Sarah Harmer, Kathleen Edwards, Blue Rodeo, Gordon Downie, Hawksley Workman, Sarah Slean, Skydiggers, 54-40 and more.