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LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON
Lindsay Waugh is feeling very comfortable with his music.

Lindsay Waugh of Fort Simpson holds his second CD of songs, titled Thunder in the Sky: Stories from the Dehcho and Down Under. - Roxanna Thompson/NNSL photo

Waugh, a songwriter and blues musician from Fort Simpson, released his first CD No Straight Line in 2009. The CD was professionally recorded and included performances by a number of Waugh's friends as back-up musicians.

This month, Waugh released his second CD, Thunder in the Sky: Stories from the Dehcho and Down Under. The style of the tracks in this new project is very different from Waugh's first album.

He refers to the songs as "off the floor stories." Each track includes only him singing and playing the guitar and harmonica. There are no back-up musicians and no adjustments to the sound.

"That's the natural way to me to tell your story," he said.

Waugh said this style, which evolved from the first CD, feels right to him, adding he has found his niche.

"I've come to the sense I'm a storyteller," he said.

Thunder in the Sky includes 13 tracks that tell stories about Waugh's roots, his current surroundings and his observations on the human condition. The project started to come together after a trip he took to New Zealand in November 2011.

The trip was a homecoming for the artist who was born and raised there, before moving to Canada in 1973. This trip was the first time he'd been back to the country of his birth in 10 years.

Two of the songs on the CD, Blueskin Bay and Sonny Jim, take the listener back to Waugh's roots in Blueskin Bay, where he grew up. A photo on the inside of the CD depicts the area.

The song Blueskin Bay is about his mother who was christened Molly but was re-named Ellie-May. The track isn't just about his mother, but all mothers, Waugh said.

"A mother's love will keep you strong and teach you the values of right and wrong," is one of the verses in the song.

After playing the song for his aunt in New Zealand, she suggested he also write one about his father who was nicknamed Sonny Jim after a racehorse Waugh and his uncle once bet on. That suggestion led to the next song on the CD.

The first two songs on the CD speak to Waugh's current surroundings. Thunder in the Sky is about the summer weather in the Deh Cho that can often spawn forest fires. Breakup Blues paints a picture of spring along the Mackenzie River.

The other songs on the CD contain Waugh's take on life.

"The biggest thing in all of this is to be ourselves," he said.

People owe it to themselves to explore who they are, he said. You don't have to succumb to the directions other people want to impose on you. It's OK to feel inside yourself what is good for you, Waugh said.

Everyone has things they have to deal with but you can't take yourself too seriously, you have to laugh at it all, he said.

"All my little metaphors, they sneak in there," he said about his songwriting.

The final song on the CD, O'Rafferty's Motorcar, is the only one Waugh didn't write and the only one he sings acapella. The song is a nod to his Irish and Scottish roots.

Now that he's embraced this more unencumbered form of performing and recording, Waugh said he has no intentions of changing.

"Where I sit now, in Thunder in the Sky, is where I want to be," he said.

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