Touring from Canada
October- November 2019
March-April 2020

Download the Living Tradition article about Dan (pdf) or Read as a jpg

"An excellent night of music from Dan McKinnon at Catshill last night. Great songs sung with a truly awesome voice and introduced with interesting and entertaining chat. A true master of his craft. First time at Bromsgrove but certainly not the last."
- Bob Bignell, February 2014

Dan McKinon was fantastic on Monday, best we have ever seen him,' - Tudor Folk, Chesham, November 2012

"One hell of a treat to see. He's a great singer, great songwriter, and a great performer." - Mick Peat, BBC Radio Derby

Though he can trace his family back to the Skye McKinnons, only a few generations removed from Scotland, Dan himself hails from Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the Canadian Maritimes, an area rich in the musical and cultural traditions of the North Atlantic.

His warm baritone voice, superb guitar arrangements and original compositions have won him widespread praise. Dan's thoughtful compositions and smooth melodies cover the entire folk spectrum, with themes traditional, historical, contemporary and universal.

A gentle unassuming man - one of nature's gentlemen, in fact - who travels around the UK by train and bus with a backpack and a guitar on his annual tours from Canada. Dan has tremendous stage charisma and engages an audience - both hearts and minds. He's equally happy on a large festival stage or a small folk club, telling stories in song. And what stories... tales of the British war brides of Canadian servicemen in the 1940s... the story of how Canadian merchant navy sailors eventually got the recognition they deserved for their war service - sixty years late... tales of his own grandfather and learning about Aesop's fables as a child... the true tale of a bride who wanted the best wedding dress and lost her beau by chasing her dream...

In addition to his many solo performances and recordings, Dan has performed with Symphony Nova Scotia and toured Atlantic Canada and Ireland as part of an International Theatre Festival show about the life and times of Stan Rogers.

"Dan put down nothing short of a stunning night for us at the Old Oak. Warm, humorous, immensely talented guitarist and a splendid singer of his own songs and those of the great Stan Rogers. A very special performer indeed." - Keith Kendrick, Old Oak Mini-concerts.

"A super man and a fantastic performer with first-rate songs. We book him for Alcester and Arden Festival whenever he's in the UK at the right time of year." - Dave James, Festival Director

"Although not his first CD, Fields of Dreams and Glory is my first encounter with this incredible artist. Hearing Dan McKinnon for the first time reminds me of the first time I heard Stan Rogers or James Keelaghan.” - Rich Warren, Sing Out Magazine, USA

In addition to his own repertoire of well crafted, intelligent songs, Dan also has a complete repertoire of Stan Rogers songs, so in addition to Dan Sings Dan - if you are booking him for your festival you can also have Dan Sings Stan as a completely separate one-man-show lasting up to two hours. Not only Stan Rogers' songs, but snippets about the the life and times of Canada's best loved folk songwriter, who died at the tragically early age of 33. This is Dan's version of Mary Ellen Carter.

Dan is picking up an enormous amount of airplay from all over the world for tracks from his CDs and he's received nominations for two MIANS Awards: Folk/Roots Recording of the Year & Male Artist Recording of the Year! People keep giving him other awards, too: As far back as 1998 he was given the AMTEC Award of Merit in the audio category for the album Between Wind and Water and he was the Nova scotia winner in the tenth and final CBC Atlantic Song Contest for the song, "Lakes of Bras d'Or."

With half a dozen TV and video credits, hundreds of airplays, six CDs to his credit - the sixth. Just Another Day, produced by Paul Mills, Stan Rogers producer, Dan is well established in his native Canada and is rapidly gaining an enthusiastc fan base in the UK and airplay across the world.