Music Monday – Terra Spencer
Bad ideas, VCRs, crumbling factories, hairy dogs, questionable tattoos…all are fair game for funeral director-turned-songwriter (and 2025 Music Nova Scotia Entertainer of the Year) Terra Spencer.
Cinematic storytelling is a hallmark of many great Canadian folk songwriters, but in Terra’s case, it is charged with the wood-paneled ’70s warmth of Elton John, Karen Carpenter, and Jackson Browne. As a fun-loving and fearless solo performer, Terra has played some of Canada’s most renowned festival stages, including Mariposa, Stan Rogers Folk Festival, and Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival, where her Maritime waltz “Lunenburg Moon” has become an unofficial anthem. Think Steve Poltz and Carole King’s East Coast cousin.
Terra’s solo fourth album ‘Sunset’ was named the 2024 Penguin Eggs Roots Music Canada Critics’ Choice Album of the Year (alongside Julian Taylor’s ‘Pathways’) and Music Nova Scotia Folk/Roots Recording of the Year, and garnered her ECMA and Canadian Folk Music Award nominations for Solo Artist and English Songwriter of the Year.
Although her butterscotch voice, deft fingerstyle guitar, and gospel-charged piano make her a formidable musician, it’s her onstage ease, spirited spontaneity, and crackling East Coast wit that make each show feel like a knee-to-knee conversation in a room of 5 or 500, on either side of the Atlantic.
“The real deal.” – Ron Sexsmith
