For many who follow the local music scene, from Bracebridge to Burk’s Falls, Carter Pharoah is an emerging musical and performative force. With an expansive style and dynamic repertoire, Carter is known for effortlessness shifting from folk-rock to ska, country to classic rock. With his singing and guitar, he has found a growing audience and popularity. Whether in a band or solo, his shows are marked for their originality and flair.
Carter began by playing drums as a young teenager, shifting to guitar when his mother had taken his drums away due to the school suspension. “I started guitar when in grade nine, [I]actually got suspended from high school for being a bad kid. And my mom punished me by taking away the drum set. And I wanted to play music still so bad because I loved it so much,” remembered Carter.
The family had a “really crappy guitar,” and in the week he had off, he learned to play his first song on the guitar and fell in love with the instrument. He played drums all through high school in the senior band and in different bands but the guitar was never far. “The guitar was where I really fell in love… because you can do stuff by yourself and that’s when I started writing songs and you know getting more into music instead of just like doing ten-minute drums by myself.”
Despite an uneven start in high school, Carter gave the valedictorian commemoration speech for his graduating class. For several years, after graduating, he worked at The Griffin Pub in Bracebridge as a chef/manager, often being called out to play mini sets during breaks. The pandemic decimated the service industry and Carter took up carpentry as a livelihood but reinvigorated his love for music. He began, in earnest, to establish a career as a fully employed musician both as a teacher and performer. In the aftermath of the COVID period, Carter has found himself at the forefront of the hard-working group of musicians, such as Sean Cotton, Michael Lopez, James Gray and Tobin Spring, to name a few, who have been rebuilding their status throughout Muskoka venues.
Although he has been a songwriter for most of his musical life, Carter has not yet recorded any of his material, even though his originals comprise a good portion of his nightly shows. While he has a sophisticated constellation of influences, including a superfan’s love for the Tragically Hip, Carter finds his most enduring inspiration, both lyrically and melodically, in John Prine, the late, great, prodigious troubadour of song, renowned for tunes like ‘Angel from Montgomery,’ and ‘Souvenirs’.
“I’m big on lyrics. I like lyrics more than music and Prine had such a [style], it was so goofy, it was almost, like his songs are almost like a cheesy Hallmark card. They got like this giggly deal, but then they have like a meaning at the end, or actually, the way I always put it to my wife, who also loves John Prine, that was like one of the main things we love together, was, it’s like a children’s book for adults, you know?,” points out Carter with a big smile.
In the truest tradition of a travelling guitar-singer songwriter, Pharoah has learned and memorized a huge collection of songs. He claims, he could do eight to ten hours of material before he had to start over, a staggering feat when considering the broad range of genres he covers in his various shows. He rarely ever follows a set list which allows him to respond, as necessary, to each of his audiences in a dynamic and personalized fashion, in what amounts to a unique experience for those lucky enough to see him.
Carter possesses a rare aptitude for learning songs by ear and experimentation. He notes that in preparation for his appearances, he will often practice, ‘The Stone,’ by the Dave Matthews Band, an extremely complex and challenging song, as a means to find deeper expressiveness and adopt separation between simultaneously singing and guitar concentration, which he must do to perfection.
“[For] quick dexterity warmups or whatever, I always will play “The Stone” by Dave Matthews, because it’s strange, and just wacky, and also that he [Matthews] helped me a lot. I attribute a lot of my playing learning today actually because he also taught me how to separate guitar from singing, because songs require independence of both. Where some things are simpler, they kind of flow together, his [Matthews] were almost contradicting and it allowed me to kind of break off the two so you could do fun stuff while singing at the same time,” explains Carter.
Self-managed and self-promoted, Carter Pharoah hopes to expand his schedule and ultimately transition to a livelihood based on performing and in time recording his body of work. His contact information is available on Facebook at:
Carter, who attributes his recent marriage to Kristin Wright of Bracebridge as positively life-altering, sums up his music life by stating, “My favorite part about music is, is doing it for people, it’s people, I love.”
As to what the future holds, Carter is excited about all the prospects—shows, recording, teaching, and more, including creating children’s music and acting with his wife, who is a dancer, puppeteer, and painter. Their house is filled, in the hours away from their respective jobs, with art, music, creativity and love.
Don’t miss out on Doppler!Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox three times per week!
Click here to support local news
0 Comments