Montreal-born singer-songwriter Bobby Dove’s latest album, FORTUNE TELLER, lands bang in the centre between classic country and folk. The songs swing between the intimate and ideological, laying bare a songwriter and vocalist unafraid to drill deeply into matters close to the heart. We caught up with Bobby mid-tour to get the background on the record’s songs and the recording.
How did the writing process for FORTUNE TELLER compare with your last record, HOPELESS ROMANTIC?
HOPELESS ROMANTIC was a very different project for me. A lot of the songs for that record were written in flux, while I was travelling or at the Banff Centre, whereas the FORTUNE TELLER writing process was more about getting home from tour, during the pandemic, and also grief writing.
Over what period were the songs written?
Some were written four or five years ago, and some of the songs I was finishing on my way down to Toronto to record. Those were half-finished songs, and I knew that they were good songs that just needed some more work. One of those that was incredibly unfinished was my co-write with Jim Lauderdale. I had some core songs where all the writing was finished, but in the weeks and days before recording, I did a lot of panic writing. Unlike HOPELESS ROMANTIC, where all the songs were done and dusted well before recording, for instance, I finished writing Trans Canadian Blues in Ontario on my way down to record the album. I felt the song needed to be a little looser, and I sat with a couple of friends very late at night, and although I wouldn’t call it a co-write, Alex Charbonneau contributed, and I thank her in the album’s liner notes.
You obviously work well under pressure.
Apparently so, I don’t intend to, but I think sometimes that is the only way that I work.
How long did the recording process take?
It was an eleven-day recording session, five days of tracking in the studio with the band, two or three songs each day. Then five days of overdubs, violin, electric guitar and back-up vocals. A big difference between this record and HOPELESS ROMANTIC is that the vocals on that album are the scratch recordings, whereas the vocals on this album are all overdubs.
You worked with Aaron Goldstein on the production of this record. He also played pedal steel and guitar.
Yes, during the pandemic, he was a good listener when I was doing mixing notes for HOPELESS ROMANTIC. He always seemed interested in working together, and I knew he had great credentials and was a talented engineer, musician, and producer.
Did he bring the musicians on board?
It was collaborative. Dani Nash had not played with me before, but Justine Fischer had. Nichol Robertson had also played with me before; he is on stage with me in some of my live videos on Youtube. I also asked Burke Carroll to play some pedal steel as well as Aaron; there’s never enough pedal steel for me. They play steel differently,
The title track Fortune Teller opens the album. A sad song?
That was definitely one of the grief songs where I was probably depressed. I was sitting on my back deck, and it was a Thursday because the train went by, it only goes by on Thursdays, which started the idea for the ending of the song, which is ‘keep on moving.’
Much of the writing on the album relates to travel, both physical and life’s journeys.
Totally. Once the pandemic lockdowns were over, I came back with a vengeance, and after my cat Salem passed, I was unstoppable in the sense that I didn’t want to be at home. I completely threw myself into being on the road.
The closing track SALEM was written in memory of your pet cat.
Yes, and every time I have a meaningful thing with a cat on the road, it means a lot to me, and I always tell myself that it’s the spirit of my deceased cat Salem, who lived to be twenty-one years old. He actually inspired many of the songs on the new album.
You ask yourself, ‘Who am I?’ in that song.
I wrote all these songs and recorded them before I had a top surgery in 2025. I wasn’t happy with my body the year before that surgery, and things were getting mentally progressively worse for me with anxiety and gender dysphoria. My body was also changing as I aged and getting to the stage where a jean jacket wasn’t hiding it anymore. I also went through a lot of transformation. I stopped smoking cigarettes over two years ago and stopped smoking weed in 2023. Now that I’ve had the surgery and completely recovered, I’m doing karate and a lot of other healthy things.
Your co-write and duet with Jim Lauderdale, Did I Speak Too Soon, is a highlight on the record. How did that connection come about?
I met Jim in 2019 at a Folk Alliance conference in a speed meeting, and we immediately had a great connection. I wrote the song Sometimes It’s A Lonely Road which is on the HOPELESS ROMANTIC record, the day I met him. I said those words when I was talking to him, and he said that it would make a great song title, so I went home and wrote that song. I was in touch with him by email during the pandemic, and it was out there that we would record something together at some stage. We kept in touch after that, but I have to be honest that after meeting him, I practically became obsessed with him and had to curb that, or I thought I’d scare him away.
Had you the bones of the song written before he committed to record with you?
I had a song written with some really bad verses; it was worse than the fourth-grade poetry that I have preserved. It was just a placeholder for a melody I was working on. I fixed up some of those lines and had a working melody that I sent to Jim, who added stylistic things to and greatly improved the song. We went back and forth, improving the song, writing over the phone and by email. I was in Nashville in September 2024 for AmericanaFest and made a point of finding a studio there to record the song. We were planning to sing together, but it turned out we could not do the session that week I was in town. So I put my vocal and acoustic guitar down, and a while later, he went into the studio and added his vocals. It was a moment for me when the recording was sent to me; it was like having George Jones singing on my record.
The breakup song Leaving Manitoba must have been a difficult write.
That was the first song I wrote for the record back in 2021. I was isolated in Brandon, Manitoba. Some people think I actually moved from Manitoba, which I didn’t, because I still live there. So, the name of the province in the song title is not literal. I still sing the song like I’m still hurting over it. Those disappointments, as much as we heal from them, when you sing a song or look at a photo, it reminds you of that experience. Songs can also be funny in ways. You might write one about a certain person, but it might also relate to another situation. That sometimes happens with my songs that take on new meanings as time goes on.
Interview by Declan Culliton
Bobby Dove will be performing at The Long Road Festival in the U.K. on Friday August 28th and has an official showcase at AmericanaFest in September.