When Jeremie Albino was a teenager, he started busking around Toronto, setting up along the boardwalk or on a street corner downtown, wherever he thought he might find a crowd of passersby. "Usually nobody was listening," he says, "but occasionally one or two people would tell me it sounded great. They had places to be and things to do, but they would stop and listen for a little while. That kind of interaction felt very special to me, and that's when I realized I really do love performing. That's when I realized I could hold a listener's interest and give something back to them."

That experience set Albino on his path, and it showed him how much joy can be found in the simple act of connecting with a listener, whether it's an entire crowd or just one person in that crowd. Since then, he has refined a vital and idiosyncratic mix of styles and sounds that are grounded in tradition but grasping toward the future: His songs are grounded in the gritty storytelling of classic country music, propelled by the rhythms of old-school R&B, played with the wild abandon of early rock 'n' roll, and sung with the deep feeling of southern soul. Thanks to his sweaty, livewire concerts, he has been steadily growing his audience from a few passersby to packed houses around Canada, and Our Time in the Sun, his soulful fourth solo album, sounds like the culmination of what he started out on the street corners of Toronto.