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March 8, 2008

On March 8th, I caught a plane for Winnipeg from Toronto in the middle of a snowstorm that promised 3 feet of snow. Later that day whilst I was in balmy Winnipeg safe from snow squalls, my hubby was stuck in Toronto in a broken down car outside of the CNE fairgrounds. He waited and waited and waited for a tow truck. "For three hours, I froze my balls off!" Luckily that is just a figure of speech and his bits are still intact. And also doubly lucky is that our kid, Sal, was safely at home with his Uncle Marc.

Oblivious to this, I arrived in Winnipeg and took a cab to friends Devin and Keri's (of the wonderfully, hauntingly good band Nathan) house. The cab driver (who had learned I was a folk singer) made me sign an autograph for his son who is a teenager and who probably couldn't give a shit about a middle-aged lady singing acoustic ballads to other middle-aged people. But of course, I did it anyway.

Later that evening, I played a show at the West End Cultural Centre as support for Stephen Fearing. The West End is an old church that has been a venue for god knows how many years and in fact aforementioned hubby, Cam, was there the night in 1998 (?) that the Skydiggers inspired such a mosh pit that the floor almost collapsed. It turns out that Stephen was there too. Well now the place is really falling apart. One wall is held up by lumber struts. But they are going to rebuild the place and make another theatre behind the old one too. This gives me hope that it isn't just going to be torn down.

Anyway, I did this show. And my friend Keri who was 8 months pregnant played with me on the theremin. And that sure is an erie and bizarre sounding thing. I think it is rather like playing an antenna. It sounded perfect on the mean man-hating song of "You'll Always Be". And it felt like true woman power to have the two moms singing a kind of murder ballad. Especially when one had a belly full of baby.

Stephen Fearing headlined the night and it was wonderful to hear his strong voice and intricate and soulful guitar picking and his heartfelt stories. He also paid tribute to Willie P. Bennett, a great Canadian songwriter who died unexpectedly of a heart attack just the month before. I was mesmerized by Stephen's performance and moved by his encore of "The Parting Glass" which he sang in honour of Willie P, Jeff Healey and Richard Bell, all great musicians who have recently departed. I learned this folk song from Stephen's record, "That's How I Walk" and used to sing it to Sal when he was a wee baby (really only a couple of years ago).

Stephen and I took off for the next four days across the prairies in an environmentally unfriendly SUV. Listening to the brilliant new album "Asking for Flowers" by Kathleen Edwards. I devoured every moment of it like a rich chocolate mud pie served at a roadside diner. Thanks, Kathleen, for the inspiration.

Stephen and I played two more gigs together in Saskatoon and Calgary. Stephen was brilliant again and again. He and Josh Finlayson have written this one song about a father singing to his teenaged daughter about to run wild. The tenderness and trepidation in it kills me. Beautiful lyrics and melody. My favorite line is "Yesterday turns under the plow". Love songs between a parent and child of course cut deeply in me these days with Sal being the centre of my world.



October 13. 2007

Hey guys and welcome to the new website! James has made one that is real pretty. I hope it represents the mood of my music as well as telling you all what you need to know.

Recently I have been opening for the sexy Jim Cuddy around Ontario. Mostly we've been playing theatres which has been wonderful. His audience is warm and willing. They laughed at my jokes and bought some cds. Also I got to steal some of his bandmates to play with me (Bazil on bass and Bob on piano) which deepened the musical experience for me (along with playing with the fabulous friend Gord on guitar and handsome hubby Cam on drums). I have been playing with Bazil and Bob now for ten years, Gord for one year and Cam for 5 years. They are all players who passionately get inside the music to make it come alive each time we play together.

As you can see this little mini tour was quite communal and it was especially so on the last night when we played in Guelph. We brought our son Sal (who is now 2 years old) because our babysitter couldn't come early enough for us to fight holiday weekend traffic and make the show... as it was it took 2 hours to get 20 minutes out of Toronto. So while we were performing. Jim, Colin and Annie babysat Sal. They drummed with him, played the fiddle with him and gave him rides on wardrobe trolleys and whenever he started to call for mommy they would all dance vigorously to make him laugh. So it is pretty great when you have a headliner who babysits for the opening act. But some of you may know that Sal and Jim are old friends. Sal made his stage debut playing guitar for Jim in Mississauga this past summer. In fact Jim is so much on Sal's mind that at the playground when I asked Sal if he wanted to climb on the Jungle Jim he said, "Jungle Jim... Jim plays guitar."

Well here I am gushing about my son (can you tell I am a housewife?) and his celebrity friends. I will stop now and say that I am looking forward to shedding the apron and getting on the road later this fall. Hope to see you out there somewhere. I know, he's not from Nashville, but brilliance notwithstanding-he's a common songwriter, & the system is very useful for us (sorry... them).