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EDMONTON SUN Entertainment
1996
MOUNTAIN OF DREAMS - CORI BREWSTER'S ON HER WAY UP

If anyone can relate to the classic country song Blue Canadian Rockies it’s Cori Brewster. The singer/songwriter, who was raised on the songs of country pioneers like Wilf Carter and Hank Snow, grew up in Banff listening to songs like Blue Canadian Rockies. The name Brewster should be familiar to anyone who has spent more than an hour in Banff. The name is on just about every tour bus in the area even though Cori’s family sold that particular business a few decades ago. Brewster decided a few years ago, after graduating from the U of A’s phys-ed program and working for a year in the athletics department at the University of Manitoba, that her lobe of the music she grew up with couldn’t be kept inside her any longer and in ‘89 she set her sights on a music career. In fairly short order the determined and talented artist has released a six-song tape, performed on national TV shows including Tommy Hunter’s and, as of a couple of weeks ago, Brewster released her first full-length CD. One More Mountain is a solid collection of originals with a couple of covers that come from the pens of Guy Clark and Nanci Griffith. Recorded in Nashville and Edmonton, Brewster wanted to an album done on her terms. “I wanted to write and record an album and keep the artistic control,” said Brewster who is just turning the promotional campaign into high gear. “I got Johnny Douglas in Nashville to produce because I was impressed with what he had done for Jim Witter, Hemingway Corner and Colette Wise, “In Edmonton, Louis Sedmak who has done great work with Ian Tyson produced. “I just shipped the first single, Griffith’s Spin on a Red Brick Floor, 10 days ago so we’re waiting on the reaction from stations.” The fact is Brewster caught the fever Griffith originally injected into the song and it stands up to the composer’s version. Brewster has also just completed an equally appealing video to go along with the track. Shot by New Picture Crew, the video features Jane Hawley on fiddle and scenes shot at the Sugar Bowl, and around rural Alberta. No less than 75 stations in Europe took to songs like Swingin’ On The Gate and Stewart MacDougall penned Up To Me from her first tape. With the aforementioned production team and players like Vinnie Santoro, Joan Besen, Jeff Bradshaw and Tony Michael playing behind her on the One More Mountain album, it appears we’ll be hearing a lot more from Cori Brewster.

PETER NORTH