Valdy
Folk Legend Valdy, born Paul Valdemar Horsdal, has been part of the fabric of Canadian pop and folk music for over half a century. He is well known for Play Me a Rock ‘n’ Roll Song and has delighted audiences everywhere performing classics such as Peter & Lou, Yes I Can, Renaissance, Sonny’s Dream and many more.
Valdy turns 80 in September and continues to entertain audiences from British Columbia to Newfoundland & Labrador and many points in between with frequent wintertime performances for Canadian Snowbirds south of the border.
One of Canada’s premier folk artists, Valdy had an improbable hit with a song about a decidedly hostile audience heckling a soft-spoken minstrel. The square-peg-in-a-round-hole story recounts Valdy’s bitter-sweet memory of finding himself, a relaxed and amiable storyteller, facing a rambunctious audience playing at the Aldergrove Rock Festival in 1968, where the rock-loving audience jeered his folk offerings.
Play Me a Rock and Roll Song’s success is attributable in part to several factors. It cleverly played into the hippy counter-culture movement, while embodying the tensions between rock and folk fans (which Bob Dylan discovered when he infamously used electric instruments at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival).
A man with a thousand friends, from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island to Texas to New Zealand and many locations in between, he's a singer, guitarist, songwriter and humanitarian who catches the small but telling moments that make up life.
Valdy has been named to the Order of Canada (Arts/Music) for his achievements as a folk musician and for his support of charitable causes.
Join Valdy in Moncton on his “birthday tour” as you are sure to be some of the most entertained birthday party guests ever! Sing along with all of your favorite Valdy or memory lane tunes or just sit back and take it all in. Either way you’ll be glad that you came out to share in the festivities!
Empress Theatre
199 Robinson
(General admission)
