We recently sat down with Dr. Peter George Hanson who is an accomplished doctor specializing in treating pain without prescription drugs. He also wrote a best-selling book on the topic of stress, and he is a prolific singer/ songwriter.

OCT: As a doctor, you’ve treated a lot of pain, but we’re not going to talk about that today. In fact, you are wearing a different hat today. You have performed comedy in the past and even had your own radio show. Today, we want to talk about your newest song called Maybe Baby and the success it has had already in such a short time from being released.

PGH: This song has been a real surprise hit. We have had 43,000 hits on YouTube in just the first three weeks. We recorded it here in Vancouver at the Bryan Adams Warehouse studio. For the rest of it, the musicians were picked from the best in Nashville, Los Angeles, and Toronto. We gathered together all kinds of top players, and it’s been an incredible experience.

OCT: You are a very prolific songwriter, and we have listened to quite a few of your songs. You have a completely different view and process when you write your songs and because you’ve been around so many different people, specifically in your medical practice. Can you share how this has affected your songwriting?

PGH: A lot of people think medicine is a very unconnected discipline to music but with meeting many people I find that it’s very much interconnected. For instance, Billy Joel, who was a lounge piano player when he was just getting started, explains that most of his hit songs came from the stories of the people who frequented his piano bar. He would get to know them and just like on the TV sitcom ‘Cheers’ he would get to know all of the characters. The same thing applies to medicine. I am not divulging any patient’s personal information, but I’m able to piece together stories; people that have been ghosted when they were trying to date, or someone that had their one true love slip away. The stories are built so that they provide great material for writing music. Each song has its own story and it’s not about one person and it’s certainly not about me. It’s just the song that arrives; it’s a real gold mine to have all these nuggets of information that come from different takes on life. The audience hears the song and says yes, I’ve had that feeling rather than hear elevator music that has no point or emotion.

OCT: You have a very different musical style. In fact, you crossover to all the different genres; country, blues, rock, even pop and reggae. Let’s talk about your early influences.

PGH: My earliest inspirations came from when I took guitar lessons here in Vancouver as a seven-yea old. My grandmother gave me my first guitar and at that time I was listening to Hank Snow, one of Canada’s great original country singers. He was a big influence as was Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson, Gordon Lightfoot, and Ronnie Hawkins, who were two of my biggest influences. I got to know Gordon Lightfoot quite well, and his two guitar players were my instructors when I was living in Toronto. I was able to be backstage quite frequently with Gordon Lightfoot and Ronnie Hawkins here in Canada. When I lived down in the United States, I got to know the Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band and they were very influential as well. To write songs, I remember I would go to bed at night, and it would be like hearing a noise coming through the window. I would start to write it down thinking that’s a good song and then I’d realize it’s my own song. I like to compare it to delivering babies, which I’ve also done hundreds of times. Some babies just pop right out, some of them are a bit of a struggle, and some of them require a caesarean section. It’s like that with music because sometimes the whole song just pops right out at you and not a word needs to be changed. Other times it requires a lot of editing.

My wife, Lisa, has been very helpful in editing a lot of songs and also gives me feedback. The songs need to be intelligible with a storyline so that people can understand the lyrics and feel emotionally connected. We have over half a dozen different singers other than me singing my songs. Some are just perfect for a torchy, blues singer or female vocalist. We do have some of the most amazing pop singers like Lois Mahalia (backup singer for Joe Walsh). Every one of the songs has a video on YouTube so that you can enjoy the scenery of Vancouver in several of the songs.

OCT: You mentioned your wife Lisa, that she’s an accomplished orchestral musician. What is her role in all of this?

PGH: She’s a real musician and knows what she’s doing. I actually do not read music at all. She helps me keep the music as high a quality as we can. I don’t know how to write music for a mandolin or a banjo, so each musician does that for each song. We can just play it once and they can create the music.

OCT: If you were to give advice to a young singer songwriter, who is just starting out what would you say was a key to your success?

PGH: I think it’s just having the ear and knowing what sounds right and if it tells a story. If you have a message rather than just trying to think of a rhyme, it also must have a resonance.

OCT: Your latest releases are getting a lot of viewers/listeners already.

PGH: The songs are on all the platforms now; YouTube, Spotify, and iTunes.

Go to PeterGeorgeHanson.com or for the full video interview www.richmondsentinel.ca/videos