“It’s the oatmeal that holds it together” – Blackthorn Band

Posted on 2016-03-12 by Rod Wilson

THE BLACKTHORN BAND IN CONCERT, at Studio 64 in Kimberley, March 5, 2016 at 8pm. This is the first concert of the Spring season at Studio 64.

I admit it. Celtic music in its many forms and disguises pulls at my cultural and emotional heart strings. And so it should. My ancestors immigrated from Dublin in the mid-1870s to settle in New South Wales, Australia. After I arrived in Canada in the 1970s I married a Scottish lass from Glasgow; My son was born in Australia and has since married into an Irish American family. He carries Irish, Australian and Canadian passports. So, as you can see, there is a lot of cultural baggage there. Celtic music in Australia tends to be predominantly Irish, although in the early days “German Bands” made their mark on traditional music. Waltzes, Varsoviennas, and Schottisches are sprinkled throughout the traditional repertoire. In Canada, Celtic music is different. There is no doubt the principle bonding agent is as Scottish as oatmeal and as a result other musical bits and pieces just seem to stick to an underlying “Scottishness”. The other influences are in there; the Irish, Quebecois, Arcadian, English, Metis, American, and just about everything else that makes up the Canadian cultural mosaic. That mix pretty well describes the repertoire of the Vancouver based band Blackthorn. The band, Michael Viens (vocals, 6 and 12 string guitars, bodhran, percussion and harmonicas) Michelle Carlisle (vocals, flute, piccolo, whistle, fife and alto flute), Tim Renaud (vocals, bass, octave mandolin, 12 string guitar and bodhran) Rosie Carver (vocals and fiddles) provided an exceptionally strong evening of instrumental and vocal music.

They kicked off the evening with a set of tunes from their latest recorded CD Open Skies that included the English Victorian music hall tune Country Life, Robbie Burn’s Rattlin’ Roaring Wilie, and from Cape Breton’s legendary fiddle master Dan R. MacDonald’s repertoire The River Bend. That pretty well set the tone for the evening – marvelous four-part harmony singing, interspersed with with strong instrumental tunes featuring fiddle and flutes. Each performer got an opportunity to shine on their own little party pieces; Michelle Carlisle on her original song Open Skies, Rosie Carver on the French Canadian Mouth of the Tobique (one of my favorite French Canadian tunes), Nathaniel Gow’s (Scottish) Petronella and a four section traditional French reel Le violon accorde comme une viole; Tim Renaud shone on the Andy M. Stewart’s mighty ode to the girl of his dreams The Queen of Argyll – it gave Tim a chance to step up to the plate with his octave mandolin, a instrument that always causes some confusion – is it an octave mandolin, a mandola, or a short scale Irish Bouzouki? – most of it depends on how it is tuned. Attached to the song The Queen of Argyll was Rosie Carver’s little dash of Hungarian spice in the tune Paprika, a very interesting tune in an unusual 10/8 time signature. Michael Viens party pieces included Las Vegas in the hills of Donegal and a selection of French Canadian tunes from his childhood in Maillardvile, the French Canadian quarter of Port Coquitlam. It was an outstanding night of music that came to an emotional close with full on audience participation in the grand finale of Loch Lomond and The Dark Island. I don’t know why the lines “you take the high road and I’ll take the low road and I’ll be in Scotland before ye” exerts such strong emotional pull on a bunch of foreigners who have never been to Scotland. Never-the-less that strong pull was there and the audience was singing it’s heart out at the close of the Saturday night concert at Stage 64 in Kimberley. Here are some more images:

Thanks to the organizing committee, the many volunteers, the sponsors at The Burrito Grill and A B&B at 228 (Lorne and Gail Knutson) this was another successful sold out concert.

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Once more with feeling ….. and a new chapeau

Posted on 2016-02-29 by Rod Wilson

LONESOME JIM (aka James Neve) AT BJs CREEKSIDE PUB, Saturday February 20, 2016, 8pm

As usual James (vocals, Cojon, guitars and pedals) was in top form for this marathon solo engagement that ran through to midnight. The crowd did thin out mid-stream but swelled again when the patrons from the Home Grown Music Society decided to make a night of it by moving over to BJs. Dave Prinn and Jon Bisset stepped in with some backup vocals; Bill Renwick (guitar, vocals and harmonica) performed a short intermission set and Rod Wilson, with his percussion compadres “Stella” and “Bud”, joined forces with James for his driving masterpiece Rainland.

100. Lonesome Jim 128. Lonesome jim and Bill Renwick 020.

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“Canadian Folk Sketches” – World Premier Rehearsals

Posted on 2016-02-29 by Rod Wilson

In the past there has been a well recognized tradition where classical composers have dipped into folkloric waters to refurbish and re-invigorate their music. In fact there are whole national music traditions that have come into being as a result of that process. Every now and then folk musicians, rock musicians and jazz musicians have turned that process on its ear by enlisting classical musicians, most notably, symphony orchestras in support of music that is outside the normal symphony repertoire. Over the years The Symphony of the Kootenays has been involved in a number of those type of projects. Lizzy Hoyt’s Canadian Folk Sketches World Premier is the latest in that ilk. Lizzy Hoyt (vocals, guitar, fiddle, and harp) and her trio, Keith Rempel (upright bass and back-up vocals) and Chis Tabbert (guitar and Russian Soviet era mandolin) joined the Symphony and shared the solo spotlights with a number of the Symphony’s outstanding musicians. The rehearsals were on Saturday afternoon, February 13, 2016 in preparation for the premier concert later that evening. Here are some images from that rehearsal.

I know the instrument doesn’t make the music. It is the musician who makes the music. However, having said that, I think it is worth focusing some attention on Lizzy’s magnificent Collings small bodied guitar (probably a Collings OM1). This a truly beautiful example of modern luthiery and it further demonstrates that we are living in a golden era of hand made instruments.

As for the repertoire it always gives me great pleasure when a Canadian musician stops looking south for musical inspiration and decides to explore the rich, varied, and largely unexplored traditions of Canada.

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The Tradition Continues ….. COIG

Posted on 2016-02-19 by Rod Wilson

“The Highland Clearances were horrific events in Scottish history. In the 19^th Century Crofters were forcibly evicted from their homes in the Highlands of Scotland and those that survived starvation and death ended up scattered all over the world. “It was an ill wind that blew some good” and this “ill wind” was responsible for the Scots settling in Cape Breton. With the new settlers came all the elements of the Scottish Highland Culture. It included the Gaelic language, music, dancing and story telling and some say this transplantation of the culture is responsible for the very survival of the Scottish Fiddle tradition, not only in Canada, but in Scotland itself. By the time the CBC aired a TV show called “The Vanishing Cape Breton Fiddler” in 1971 the Cape Breton style of fiddling had been in existence for well over a hundred years. The CBC show lamented the decline of the tradition and predicted the inevitable demise of the Cape Breton fiddler. Boy, were they ever wrong with that conclusion. Within a few short years of the airing of the show the tradition became revitalized and went though a period of explosive growth. As well as a whole cadre of older and younger fiddlers, part of the positive change can be laid at the feet of at least two master fiddlers, Jerry Holland and Buddy MacMaster.” Both of these musicians have since passed away but their children, grand-children, students and disciples have continued to re-invigorated the tradition. COIG (Gaelic for Five) is part of that on going process. Originally this was a quintet formed to promote the Cape Breton Celtic Colours Festival. The original members were all basically Cape Bretoners who have grown up in the tradition and are thoroughly familiar with the traditional fiddle and piano music of the region. The original members were Chrissy Crowley (fiddle and viola), Rachel Davis (fiddle and viola), Jason Roach (keyboards), Darren McMullen (tenor banjo, bouzouki, mandolin, guitars, and Irish Whistle), and Colin Grant (fiddle). Coig performed as a quartet at the Key City without Colin so I am not sure if he is still part of the group.

It goes without saying this was a night of brilliant music with lots of foot stomping fiddle duets, tenor banjo, bouzouki and mandolin leads all backed by Jason’s thunderous Cape Breton piano. The band performed a selection of tune sets from their album Five. Tunes included Bad Day at the Beach, The Oak Tree Set, Choufflé Soufflé, SR (Strathspey/ Reel) Set and others. Rachel Davis sang Bob Dylan’s classic ballad Tomorrow is a Long Time and Dougie MacLean’s She Loves Me when I Try. On keyboard Jason Roach performed an extended solo set that included Sleepy Maggie. Here are some images from the evening.

Musical Notes (pun intended). Darren McMullen is a “highly sort after multi-instrumentalist, switching between, guitars, mandolin, bouzouki, banjo and whistle”. His arsenal of instruments is only restricted by travel requirements. In this instance he did not play guitar. For most of the audience that may, or may not have passed unnoticed….. when was the last time we have heard a musical ensemble that was not guitar based? Actually it was refreshing not hear a batch of guitars thumping away. After all there is more to music than three guitars and a thudding back beat. Without guitars and with the addition of bouzouki, banjo and mandolin the music had a whole different sonic ambience. On this trip his arsenal was restricted to just the Irish tenor banjo, mandolin and Irish bouzouki. There is only so much excess baggage that you can cram onto a plane. Darren plays a 19 fret Irish tenor banjo tuned GDAE played mandolin style with a pick. It requires a different musical approach to the usual Bluegrass and Clawhammer styles of banjo playing. This instrument is not necessarily a chordal instrument. Rather its strength is in single linear melody lines and leads. When played solo it does not have a pleasant sound. However, in ensemble situations its loud percussive notes adds rhythm and punch to melody lines. It is particularly effective when played in unison with other melody instruments such as fiddle and accordions. Darren also plays a Bruce Weber Irish Bouzouki. For those unfamiliar with the Irish bouzouki it is a mandolin styled instrument (“a mandolin on steroids”) that originally started out as the Greek Bouzouki before Irish musicians adopted it in the mid-1960s. Darren’s instrument is a custom built instrument designed to have a high tight sound that doesn’t conflict with the bass register of Jason’s Cape Breton style piano. Last but not least is his Mark Franzke Dog Boys custom built A- style mandolin.

This was a night of exciting Canadian Music and one that may be repeated in the future. There are already rumours that the band will be back. If so Coig is not to be missed.

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Here is a YouTube clip just to give us an after taste of the concert:

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The DADGAD Way

Posted on 2015-11-12 by Rod Wilson

“Everybody” knows that the standard tuning for guitar is EADGBE (low to high) and most guitarist are aware that there is more than one way to tune a guitar (or any stringed instrument for that matter). One of the most popular non-standard tunings is DADGAD. The December 2015 edition of ACOUSTIC GUITAR published the following article that profiled the DADGAD tuning and four of its famous advocates and performers. Here is an except from the internet download of the article:

The DADGAD Way: Davy Graham, Pierre Bensusan, Sarah McQuaid, and Daithi Sproule Talk Tuning

A few years before George Harrison put world music on the pop charts with his 1967, Indian-inspired “Within You Without You,” from the Beatles’ landmark Sgt. Peppers album, another Brit, the late folk musician Davey Graham, had already invigorated western acoustic guitar music with his brilliant cross-cultural contribution, DADGAD tuning.

Inspired by Graham’s travels in India and Morocco, and his subsequent introduction to the region’s lute-like oud, DADGAD revolutionized the folk genre by allowing the guitar to mimic the piping, or “droning,” sound that defines authentic Celtic music. The D-based, open-string DADGAD effectively transforms the guitar into a modal—rather than chord-driven—instrument, thus allowing for easier shifts between minor and major keys, with the open strings on either side of the treble and bass strings serving as the drone generator.

Embraced by such British folk greats as John Renbourn, Bert Jansch, and Martin Carthy, the genius behind DADGAD tuning is that Graham had offered up something akin to a tonal Rosetta stone: It was now possible to do justice to traditional Irish music on the guitar, particularly the outpouring of works by blind, 18th-century harper and composer Turlough O’Carolan. It wasn’t just Celtic music acolytes from the British Isles who appreciated the versatility and range that this alternative tuning provided. Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, Paul Simon, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Wings’ lead guitarist Laurence Juber, Jimmy Page, among many others, gave DADGAD a chance. (Page termed it his “CIA tuning,” for Celtic/Indian/Arabian.)

DADGAD has found its way into genres including classical, blues, gospel, and jazz, and into the hands of acoustic guitarists everywhere. As one of DADGAD’s most notable practitioners, French-Algerian-born Pierre Bensusan, advises “DADGAD is not a genre—it’s a tuning.”

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Photo by TINA KORHONEN/ www.tina-k.com © 2011

PIERRE BENSUSAN :Making DADGAD His Own

Multi-award-winning guitarist, singer, and composer Pierre Bensusan, lauded by the LA Times as “one of the most unique and brilliant acoustic guitar veterans in the world music scene today,” is regarded as one of music’s greatest exponents of DADGAD. Almost every performance and recording of Bensusan’s is a celebration of DADGAD tuning. Currently on a world tour to mark his 40-year career, Bensusan’s style includes Celtic, folk, world, new age, and chamber music.

His Take on DADGAD: Bensusan has described DADGAD as a tool that “helped me to be identified, and to identify myself. It gives me confidence.” Introduced to DADGAD by a friend who had learned it from Graham, Bensusan was experimenting with different tunings at the time, anxious to settle on one that he could make his own. DADGAD won out.

Bensusan realized that embracing DADGAD meant he would have to relearn the guitar if he wanted to translate the new tuning style for an across-the-board repertoire of music normally played in standard tuning. It was a guitar lesson to-do list that included taking a second look at the neck, the chord shapes and positions, the sounds, and the intervals. He mastered the task and highlighted the journey in Pierre Bensusan Presents DADGAD Guitar. Published in 2000, it is primarily a songbook featuring comments and DADGAD selections from James Earp, Laurence Juber, Doug Smith, Bill Mize, David Surette, Eileen Niehouse, and Peppino D’Agostino, among others.

The pitfalls in the beginning, he notes, included fighting against “a ready disposition to fall into all the predictable trappings of such a modal tuning as DADGAD”—notably by doing the obvious, such as playing almost exclusively in the key of D. “If I wanted a key change, I’d simply use a capo,” he writes. But as Bensusan discovered, relying on capos limited the possibilities for chord voicings, which he recalled, “got me right back to the point of really learning the fret board. There is certainly nothing wrong with using a capo—sometimes you have to. Still, though, with a limited understanding of the fingerboard, it was very easy to get stuck in the ruts of standard positions and chords.”

Another challenge: the disposition of the open strings. While DADGAD tuning is famous for its open, ringing strings, that’s not always a plus: It can get in the way of the music, Bensusan advises. “You want to be able to control the sustain and the length of the sound,” he says. Bensusan’s goal was to make DADGAD “completely disappear. I don’t want there to be any active consciousness of the particular tuning I happen to be using. And I certainly don’t want my audiences to be distracted by it. You have to play the instrument—the music—not the tuning.”

Player Tip: “Virtuosity is not showing off what you can do on the guitar,” Bensusan told Acoustic Guitar last year. “Virtuosity is making the guitar and the musician completely transparent, and having the music just speak out. This is a high, high standard of virtuosity for me. The music is using you as a channel. So you have to be ready for it. Technically, you have to be ready. You work your ability, your tone. But when you play, all of this has to be forgotten.” Visit pierrebensusan.com for more information on his work, concerts, numerous songbooks, and more.

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SARAH MCQUAID : She Wrote the Book on DADGAD, Literally

Born in Spain, raised in Chicago, and now living in rural England, Sarah McQuaid’s music is an eclectic mix that, as noted on her website, segues from original compositions “to a 1930s Cuban jazz number, a 16th-century lute piece, or an unexpected contemporary cover.” Regardless of the genre, the tuning is always in DADGAD. McQuaid is the author of The Irish DADGAD Guitar Book, described by the Irish Times as “a godsend to aspiring traditional guitarists.” She has developed two workshops: “An Introduction to DADGAD,” for players with little or no experience, and “DADGAD Song Accompaniment,” for experienced DADGAD guitarists. Her workshops have been held at music schools, festivals, arts centers, private homes, and other venues in the UK, Ireland, the United States, Holland, and Germany.

Her Take on DADGAD

“In my teens, I was a big fan of Windham Hill Records artists like Michael Hedges and Will Ackerman, and also of Joni Mitchell,” McQuaid says, “so I was tinkering around with different tunings all the time. Then, when I was 18, I went to study in France for a year, and quite by accident wound up singing and playing guitar with a traditional Irish band. At a festival gig somewhere in France, I got to chatting with a French guitarist, who said to me, ‘You know, most of the Irish guitar players these days are using DADGAD—you should try it.’” She did, and never looked back. “I tuned my guitar to DADGAD straightaway, started experimenting with chord shapes, and it was a real eureka moment—suddenly I could make all the sounds I’d been trying to make for years,” McQuaid says. “I loved the fact that it freed me up from the limitations of major and minor [and that] I could play in all these weird modal scales.”

McQuaid has been playing in nothing but DADGAD for more than 20 years. “I write all my own songs in DADGAD, and I play everything from Elizabethan ballads to blues in DADGAD,” she says. “It’s a wonderfully versatile tuning, especially when you get out of the mentality that you have to play in D all the time: E minor, G, G minor, A, A minor, and B minor also work beautifully, to name a few. “I love the way it encourages you to focus on notes rather than chords,” she adds, and “to work with the song, interweaving the guitar melody with the vocal melody so that it’s a case of the guitar [in duet] with the voice, rather than merely accompanying it. I don’t think there are any two songs that I play the same way in DADGAD.”

Player Tip: “Don’t forget that lots of other keys besides D work beautifully in DADGAD! E, G, A and B, to name just a few—all work really nicely and offer great scope for expanding your repertoire of chord shapes and picking patterns,” McQuaid says. “Also, remember that sometimes it’s nice to just suggest a chord by playing a note or two, rather than filling out the full shape.”

For more about Sarah McQuaid’s work and workshops, visit sarahmcquaid.com.

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DÁITHI SPROULE: Magically Irish

A guitarist, singer, and composer of traditional Irish music, crowned “a seminal figure in Irish music” by the Rough Guide to Irish Music, Dáithí Sproule began using DADGAD tuning not long after Graham introduced it to the folk music world in the 1960s. A native of Derry, in Northern Ireland, who now calls Minnesota home, Sproule began his career with the traditional Irish music group Skara Brae, collaborating with fellow DADGAD pioneer Michael O’Domhnaill of the Bothy Band. Later he became a founding member of the internationally known Irish band Altan, considered one of the best in the world. He continues to perform with Irish music greats, including box player Billy McComiskey, fiddler and composer Liz Carroll, and flute and fiddle duo Dermy and Tara Diamond. He continues to influence a new generation: Sproule’s “The Death of Queen Jane” was featured in the 2013 Coen brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis. Sproule has taught at the University College Dublin and the University of Minnesota, and is a DADGAD guitar instructor at the Center for Irish Music in St. Paul, Minnesota.

His Take on DADGAD: “I first heard of DADGAD in the late ’60s on the sleeve notes of a Bert Jansch solo album. His playing, in whatever tuning, was of course inspiring,” Sproule recalls. “I used it then occasionally to accompany songs. Around 1973 or so I accidentally discovered it worked well for me in accompanying Irish dance music—reels, jigs, and so on—and I began to use it a lot for everything. . . . [And] it works well for instrumentals I compose myself.” Among the benefits of using DADGAD, Sproule notes, is the “very versatile tuning enables us to get an immense amount of variety in voicing. I generally don’t use full chords in DADGAD and I think this suits Irish music, which is really a genre that has developed as a purely unilinear, non-chordal music. It complements the melody and doesn’t trap it—at least the way I try to play. It truly has a literal quality of openness. “Since the tuning comes down to D and A with built-in droning, it magically reproduces the situation of the Irish Uilleann pipes, on which so much of our music was formed—and those pipes have D and A drones.”

Player tip: “Standard tuning—which I also love—as most people play it, boxes a melody in, traps it,” Sproule says. “DADGAD is quite literally an open tuning—it harmonizes, resonates, but doesn’t tie things down. “Resonance is one of the beauties of the tuning—it makes us aware of the sound of the strings we are not actually playing.” In 1996, he told Acoustic Guitar: “The way I put chords to songs is totally intuitive. I can’t really describe how I do it. Most of the time, I’m not playing full chords at all. I’m playing basses and bits of chords and there are always droning strings in the background. You could break it down into chords, but it’s not a matter of chords. It’s a matter of varying the bass lines and the harmonies.”

Visit daithisproule.com for more information about his work and upcoming performances. Excerpted from No. 276, December 2015

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A YouTube Pick (# 5) – Martin Simpson

Posted on 2015-09-18 by Rod Wilson

Tommy Emmanuel is a monster acoustic guitar player and in the past I have reviewed some of his You Tube performances – Tommy Emmanuel. His forte seems to be in the country / pop arena and while that is fine there is a whole world of music and many guitar players that never make it to the front page of the “show bis” press. The one guitar player that immediately comes to mind is Martin Simpson. Martin celebrated his 60th birthday recently so he has been around a long time. He first came to my attention when he performed several times at the Studio Stage Door in Cranbrook. That was many years ago in the late 90’s and I have been hooked on his music ever since. He is not a pop musician. His music has a lot more substance than that. He started out in the traditional music scene in Britain and for a significant period of time he was the accompanist for June Tabor (who can forget their version of Richard Thompson’s Strange Affair). Martin has always been a restless individual traveling the world. He was a resident in North America for a number of years before returning to Britain. He plays music from all across the musical spectrum. His emphasis has always been on music with a solid traditional basis. His guitar and banjo playing has always been noted for spectacular precision and beautiful sound. I think that is what really set him apart from most other performers. He has a natural acoustic sound that your average acoustic guitarist would absolutely die for. I know a lot of people don’t care for his singing but I find his voice is more than appropriate for the material he performs. In fact I rather like it. So the attached You Tube video below is basically an interview in which Martin takes the opportunity to display and review the instruments that are part of his professional arsenal. It is interesting to note that he is not particularly interested in vintage instruments. He is a great believer in modern instruments and, with the exception of only one Martin guitar, all his instruments are modern instruments hand crafted by some of the top luthiers of today. I am of the same mind. Why spend thousands and thousands of dollars on instruments whose value has been inflated by the collectors who may only want to hang the guitar on the wall? Isn’t it better to spend $5,000 – $10,00 on a superbly crafted modern instrument that can only improve with age. Martin also takes the opportunity to demonstrate his technique, tunings and approach to music. The side trip into how he prepares his nails is also of interest. For British Columbians his recent acquisition of a hand crafted Romero Banjo (27 minutes into the video) should give us some sense of pride in that a local luthier has proven to be more than note worthy on the international scene …… Romero handcrafted custom instruments . So here he is – Martin Simpson, his instruments, superb sound and technique. Enjoy………………………

and here is a bonus of June Tabor and Martin Simpson performing Richard Thompson’s Strange Affair. Written by the Sufi poet Si Fudul al-Hawari, translated and set to music by Richard Thompson.

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Summer Sounds on Canada Day

Posted on 2015-07-04 by Rod Wilson

FISHER PEAK PERFORMING ARTISTS SOCIETY PRESENTS A CANADA DAY CELEBRATION, July 1, 2015: featuring the roots music sounds of Joshua Burning

The featured band for the day’s festivities was Joshua Burning whose style of music is basically funky country roots music. They also feature original material and covers of music that may not be usually associated with country music. The name of the band,“Joshua Burning”, is a nod towards the legendary country singer Gram Parsons who, upon his death, wished to have his ashes spread over the landscape in California’s Joshua Tree National Park. When he died, as we all must do eventually, his body was stolen from L.A.X. international airport by his best buddy, Phil Kaufman and taken to Joshua Tree Park where it was incinerated with a jerry can of high test gasoline. Of course all of this was illegal and against park policy and for his efforts Kaufman was fined $750 for the theft of the coffin. Now that’s something that should be in the movies. The band features the guitars, vocals and song writing skills of both Garnet Waite and Keith Larsen. Garnet is an especially fine singer, guitar picker and song writer. Keith is a crackerjack acoustic guitarist with some solid rock credentials on electric guitar. He also doubles on mandolin and blues harp. The band is anchored by the electric bass playing of John Gerlitz. John is well known for his classic acoustic interpretations of old time finger picking blues. Together they are an especially fine ensemble who are a step above your average country guitar strummer. These guys are guitar pickers rather than strummers. During the afternoon they strolled through some of Garnet’s original tunes that included Lucille, Daybreak Number 3, Angelina, and High Water Channel. For variety they thew in Keith Larsen’s Best Laid Plans. They also did a few covers including a Lyall Lovett tune, Lucinda Williams Drunken Angel, Peter Rowan’s Midnight Moonlight, Steve Goodman’s Banana Republics, a Marshall Tucker tune, the Grateful Dead’s Tennessee Jed, and to soothe my Celtic ancestors they covered The Pogues If I Should Fall from Grace. Here are some more images from a fine afternoon in the sun at Rotary Park in Cranbrook.

So, thanks Louie, James, “BBQ Bob”, Janice and all the volunteers and sponsors of the Fisher Peak Performing Artists Society that made it possible for the rest of us to kick back, enjoy the sunshine, burgers and the fine music of Joshua Burning. Thanks and more thanks.

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Blue Moon Marquee at Studio 64

Posted on 2015-06-01 by Rod Wilson

The Third Concert in the Studio 64 Spring Series – Blue Moon Marquee : Saturday May 23, 2015, 8pm.

In any story about the blues, the classic blues singer Ma Rainy explained with a refreshing lack of decorative affectation: “You got the St. Louie Blues, the Chicago blues, the gin house blues, the my-man-done-left-me blues. They all the same song with the same three chords. And you done heard ’em a dozen hundred times from a dozen hundred people. So what makes folks wanna hear it from you?” She was right of course. You can play the same old story but you have to give it a little unique twist to get peoples attention. I think Blue Moon Marquee manages to do just that.The blues is not a complex musical form. Lyrically it is just a three stanza form – a single line repeated then a final variant line. Musically it uses three basic chords. So really there is not much to it and yet here we are 50+ years down the road from the classic era and musicians continue milk inspiration from the blues. Blue Moon Marquee are a couple of young musicians from High River, Alberta that have added their own particular twist to the tradition. A.W. Cardinal is the guitar player and singer with a voice akin to broken glass underfoot in a bar room brawl. Jasmine Colette is “the little white girl with the big fiddle” (or so the aboriginal kids called her in the Yukon on a tour up there last winter). Jasmine or “Jassy” claims to have only recently taken up upright bass and like all bass players she has her own little unique dance going with that big cumbersome instrument. Have you noticed all bass players have a dance thing going on when they perform? Jasmine adds some percussion to the mix with a Hi-hat, pedal brush snare and a bass drum. The result is a surprisingly full sound for just a duo. There is just enough percussion to add accents and make the music interesting. Their theme for the night was “booze and Blues” somewhat inspired by a raucous gig in Nelson the night before. The music was a mixture of originals and some classic tunes such as Charlie Patton’s Shake it and Break It and the ever popular St James Infirmary. Unlike the deep south Alberta does not have cotton fields but is does have pipe lines. As an Alberta boy A.W. did his share of labor in the the oil patch so it was fitting for him to perform “Moon” Mulligan’s Pipeliners Blues. Here are some images from the evening:

Once again the the organizing committee have hit the jackpot with another amazing concert. They would like to thank the following sponsors and volunteers: The Burrito Grill, Mountain Spirit Resort, “The Bulletin”, Christine, Irma, Ray (for sound and lights) and Rod Wilson (photography). The MC was Keith Nicholas.

Note: That Studio 64 is the downs stairs room in Centre 64.

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Here is a little taste of what we experienced at the concert – a Youtube video of Sugar Dime and Driftin’.

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Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra

Posted on 2015-05-19 by Rod Wilson

THE TEQUILA MOCKINGBIRD ORCHESTRA at the Key City Theatre, Thursday May 14, 2015.

I like pleasant surprises and The Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra is one of several in this spring’s concert season. Others worth mentioning are The Love Bullies and Guy Davis who both recently performed at Centre 64 in Kimberley . The Love Bullies did their outrageous take on 50’s rock and roll and Guy Davis did the classic acoustic blues trip. Also worth mentioning is the Quebec band Vent du Nord and their foot stomping French Canadian music at the Key City.

At first, the name Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra, was a bit of puzzle but once deciphered by the MC Galen Olstead it made a lot of sense. The name is a clever word play on the title of Harper Lee’s classic novel To Kill a Mocking Bird. And, as in the novel, these mocking birds provide pleasure with their songs by singing their hearts out and, for good purpose, they add in a hefty dose of virtuoso instrumental accompaniments. The Tequila in the name probably references the intoxicating influences of various Hispanic cultures that keep popping up in the music. What is instantly attractive in the music is the instrumental line up. This is no run of the mill rock and roll quartet.There is only one acoustic guitar, played by Kurt Lowen, in the mix. The upright bass played by Keith Rodger adds a big fat round sound to the bottom of the orchestra. Have you noticed that over the past decade the acoustic upright bass has re-asserted itself in the sonic spectrum? With the invention of the electric bass guitar in the late fifties it was quickly abandoned for the more portable instrument. It is nice to see that trend has finally been reversed and a lot of credit must go to those musicians who are prepared to transport and suffer the consequences of dedicating themselves to such a large unwieldy instrument. A solid rhythmic foundation for the orchestra is provided by Paul Wolda who plays an abbreviated standard drum kit that includes a Djembe and Cajon. Paul comes armed with a bucket load of experience that includes working and studying with the Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji and a period as an exchange student in Brazil when he was eighteen. For a percussionist that is like dying and going to heaven. You will have to go a long way before you will come across such an accomplished percussionist. I had a fortune few minutes with him after the show when he demonstrated on my congas just what one could do with a set of three tuned congas.

What I find missing in most bands is the presence of strong melodic voices. Not in this band. A strong melodic element is provided by Mack Shields on fiddle and Ian Griffiths on Accordion. Mack is a newer member of the band and is described as “a song writer, a fine fiddler, and a comedic genius”. One of his major contributions to the repertoire of the orchestra is lovely waltz with a classic old-time feel. It is unfortunate that accordions are generally held in such low esteem. I think that situation is unwarranted. Violins, keyboards and guitars may be the most popular instruments of the day but a casual review of music across the world will reveal that the accordion is one of the most pervasive instruments on the planet. North, south, east and west there is always an accordion within ear shot. Ian started out on a “toy” accordion that he eventually destroyed by over use. He has since graduated to a high class Italian Beltuna acoustic instrument fitted with three internal microphones. He is currently experimenting with a Roland Digital V-ACCORDION. He also plays a small hand operated harmonium that contributes drones that are commonly found in world music.

Given the strong interplay of the instruments, the finely crafted arrangements and the free wheeling virtuosic displays of the soloists this is more than a band. This is an orchestra in the full meaning of the term. They play a wide spectrum of music that could be defined as “world music”. My favorites of the evening were the waltz written by Mack Shield , the tango XO Tango and Mountains on Fire. Here are some images from the evening:

Once again the Key City Theatre enhanced the pre-performance ambience with the music of Dean Smith’s jazz group featuring Dean Smith on Piano, Ben Smith on upright bass, Zach Smith on tenor and soprano saxes, Jared Zimmer on drum kit and Rod Wilson on congas and percussion.

Thanks need to go to the following sponsors – Columbia Copiers, The Prestige Inn, St. Eugene Resort and Selkirk signs. Sweet Gesture add a chocolate taste experience and the numerous staff and volunteers contributed to the smooth running of the event.

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Guy Davis – Blues Maestro at Centre 64

Posted on 2015-04-29 by Rod Wilson

The Second Concert in the Centre 64 Spring Series – Guy Davis – Blues Maestro: Tuesday April 11, 2015, 8pm.

Guy Davis is a musician, composer, actor, director, writer and more importantly a blues man. And as such he is a bit of an anachronism, a man outside his time. The classic blues era was in the the 1920s, 30s and 40s. By the late forties black Americans were abandoning their rural roots and moving to the cities for better jobs and better lives and the blues was slowly transitioning to rhythm and blues and eventually rock and roll. At about that same time the classic blues was discovered an appropriated by “rich” white kids (working class and / or college students). The classic example of the cultural take over by white youth is the classic blues performed by the likes of John Hammond and the transformation of the music by the Rolling Stones and The Beatles generation. The Blues were no longer the cultural lifeblood of the black community. Black musicians were switching their allegiance to the urban sounds of Soul Music, Hip-Hop and Rap. There is an interesting little interlude in the documentary about the Alabama recording studio Muscle Shoals where the soul singer Wilson Picket was looking out the window of the studio between sessions when he asked “Is that what I think it is?” He was looking at a cotton field and as a young urban black he had never seen a cotton field. That was a far cry from his ancestors experiences. I think that says it all. There was no longer a direct connection with the rural experiences of the classic blues. Guy Davis should have been part of that disconnect but that is not how it turned out.

Guy Davis is an urban black raised in a middle-class New York suburb and is one of the few blacks of his generation to make a connection with the rural blues tradition. The only other black musicians of his generation that I know of to have the connection is Taj Mahal, Keb Mo’, Eric Bib and more recently the Negro String Band The Carolina Chocolate Drops. In his performances Guy constantly revisits the rural traditions of previous generations. In doing so what he delivers is not a pale imitation of what it might have been but rather a re-interpretation and re-invention of the magnificent strengths of this past tradition. To do this he has an authentic voice and the instrumental chops on guitars and harmonica to make everybody sit up and listen. His strong finger picking with metal picks and slide on the vintage Gibson 12-string guitar and the old Silvertone Arch-top are rock solid. The tuning he uses on the 12-string is an open C (C G C E G C) and it brings to mind the classic 12-string sounds that you are unlikely to hear in this day and age. Most modern players stick to the standard guitar tuning of E A D G B E that sounds, at best, an anemic shadow of the classic sound. So once again Centre 64 has come up with another winner for their spring concert series. There was lots of classic blues, instrumentals, original songs, audience participation and humor. My pick of the night was Guy’s re-interpretation of Blind Willie McTell’s classic Statesboro Blues. It a song that has seen the light of day many, many times but Guy’s version had a freshness that lifted it to a new level. Here are some images from the evening:

The organizing committee would like to thank the following sponsors and volunteers: The Burrito Grill, Mountain Spirit Resort, “The Bulletin”, Christine, Irma, Ray (for sound and lights) and Rod Wilson (photography). The MC was Keith Nicholas.