Photo by Mike McCullough

June 18th:

Concert Fundraiser with Andrew Cash at Fitzgeralds’ Pub in the Beaches
2298 Queen Street East
Show starts at 9:00

June 28th:

Greenpeace and Harmony

Hope to see you at the Greenpeace
Amchitka Concert (1970) – CD Release. Hugh’s Room, Toronto,
Monday, June 28.

Greenpeace has released a phenomenal,
remastered concert recording (circa 1970) whereby Joni Mitchell, James
Taylor and Phil Ochs came to the aid of the then fledgling environmental
campaigning organization and put on a concert in Vancouver. This historic
concert — brilliantly preserved on two discs and beautifully packaged
with a 48-page book of never-before-seen photos — raised money for
Greenpeace’s first voyage to the Island of Amchitka (Aleutian Islands,
Alaska) to protest the testing of nuclear bombs by the US government.

The best of Toronto-based talent, including
a few names you’ll find on this Latent Recordings site, will each
play one song from the CD and one of their own.  And the CD will
be sold exclusively at the show. It’s important to note that all proceeds
from CD sales will go to Greenpeace to help them with the great work
they continue to do almost 40 years later.

If you can’t wait to put your hands
on Amchitka, the 1970 concert that launched Greenpeace,
you can buy it at www.amchitka-concert.org, or you can visit their Toronto office
at 33 Cecil Street. For directions go to www.greenpeace.ca

Here are the show details…
open for dinner (optional) at 6 pm. Show starts at 8:30 pm to 11:30
pm.

Hugh’s Room is an intimate 200-seat
supper club with a big reputation for great, live and up close music.
Musicians love playing there. The address is 2261 Dundas Street West
(in Roncesvalles Village, just below Bloor, a five-minute walk south
from the Dundas West subway. You’ll find free parking directly across
the street in the grocery store parking lot.

I’ll be there with John Timmins and
an amazing line up including Mike and Margo Timmins (Cowboy Junkies), Andy
Maize and Josh Finlayson (Skydiggers), Mary Margaret O’Hara, Lee Harvey
Osmond, The Divine Sarah Slean, Caroline Brooks (The Good Lovelies),
Oh Suzanna (Suzie Ungerleider), Jory Nash, Mia Sheard (emcee) and introducing
Brighid Fry.

Tickets available at www.hughsroom.com or 416-531-6604. Advance tickets are $22 and
$25 at the door. It will be well worth it, and tickets should sell pretty
quickly.

See ya there. Don’t be shy to say hello.

Barbara

I am turning to the old songs more and more for inspiration. With John T and his slide blues guitar and the banjo, we can get a pretty interesting rendition of these songs I think.

Thank Hugh’s

The show wasn’t good, April 14, at Hugh’s Room in Toronto, it was great! Everyone in the room connected. Like a good song, this show, with focussed and dedicated world-class performers singing for a great cause — cancer research at the Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto — on a small stage in a 200-seat supper club, filled with compassionate and caring people, came together in all its constituent parts to weave magic.

The show was called “Singing for the Princess.” In the audience, front and centre, was Sister Margo’s friend and neighbour, Sandy, who received a portion of the $6,000 we raised – “how cool is that!” — to qualify for the two-day (June 12-13), 200k bike ride from Toronto to Niagara Falls called “Ride To Conquer Cancer.” The balance went directly to the Campbell Family Institute, one of the top five cancer research centres in the world.

My mom was in the audience who, not one to shrink from demanding and emotional tasks… having raised me, was a cancer nurse at the Princess long after I was all grow’d up, which makes me very proud of her. My beautiful daughter Chantal was at that table with tears like jewels in her eyes when I joined Brother Mike and Margo for a rendition of Misguided Angel. You see, the last time I had the privilege of performing that great song was in 1990 at the Guelph Hillside Festival and Chantal was in my arms.

Another reason for a great show was that the headliners, Mike and Margo, actually opened the show instead of closing it thereby raising the performance bar higher. Misguided Angel was the last of four songs, starting with Something More; Lungs (written by the late Townes Van Zandt) followed by This Street, That Man, This Life with Mike playing guitar throughout.

Seated at Hugh’s Room grand piano, Barbara Lynch was like a kid in a candy shop with eighty eight delicious keys to choose from! She opened by herself with a moving rendition of her own Missing You. John Wojewoda, a superb guitar player with a good ear and a big heart, or is that a big ear and a good heart, and I joined her for Go Easy On Him. Barbara and I followed up with Will You Ever Care For Me. All three songs are found on Barbara’s latest CD called In the Nickelodeon. A rehearsal recording of our fourth song, a traditional called In My Time of Dying, is available for sampling on this site and on the Junkies’ site. I wrote about it in my last column. We love playing it and it showed that night.

Katherine Wheatley followed. If you haven’t heard her CDs, or been to her concerts, it’s time for a change. No stranger to Hugh’s Room audiences, she played by herself with her guitar offering four songs from her latest CD called Landed starting with One True Kiss; Over the Moon; Signal Faded; 49 Years and Water Moves Me.

For a legendary shy guy, Andy Maize was yer incorrigibly charming host for the evening. Andy and Josh Finlayson, both of Skydiggers fame, pulled up the rear so to speak with four songs from their (2006) CD called Dark Hollow. This Finlayson/Maize project, produced by Brother Mike is a gorgeous thing, strongly recommend to anyone who loves quiet, folk acoustic harmonies and great song writing. With Josh playing guitar the Finlayson/Maize axis offered us Anything For You; I Will Give You Everything, Dark Hollow and California. All their own expect Dark Hollow, written by Bill Browning.

Margo, me and my guitar closed the show with two songs off a CD called Time the Revelator by Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, in my estimation their best among several masterful CDs. We started with a slightly up tempo rendition of Elvis Presley Blues and finished appropriately, given the date of the show, with a nice, quite, thoughtful April 14th Part One, dedicated to our sister Suzanne, also at that table, because she loves the song. Singing a direct harmony with Margo and playing for Suzanne with my daughter and my ma in the audience – dare I say the Queen and the Princesses in my life! — meant a lot to me. We had rehearsed only three times on the fly, so it was necessary to ask the audience for more love. Apparently we got it. There was lots of it circulating that night. A big thank you to everyone who played, to Hugh’s Room and to everyone who came out.

In closing I’d like to acknowledge the death of Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse fame who took his own life on March 6. The passing of a great artist is one of the saddest things. More often than not they have been a force for beauty in the world, and all that implies for us, and often at a great personal cost – a sad commentary on the world we live in. I really dug his music. There are few artists who I looked forward to seeing as much for the first time. Now I won’t get that chance, my loss. But we have his music, our gain. Thank you Mark.

John

NOTE: Re: the “Singing for the Princess” line up. With the exception of Katherine Wheatley at http://www.katherinewheatley.com

you can find everyone and their music, here, on the Cowboy Junkies’ Latent site http://www.latentrecordings.com

All photos courtesy of Dr. Robert Stowe and Jose Reyes.

John and Margo Timmins, ’shakin’ it to make it break’

Chantal and her father John, Barbara Timmins, Dr. Robert Stowe and Jose Reyes

Andy Maize and Josh Finlayson, ’shakin’ it like a hurricane’

Katherine Wheatley, ’shakin’ like a midnight rambler’

Lynch in Love with the grand piano

‘Singing for the Princess’ – a Benefit for the Princess Margaret Hospital

Featuring Margo Timmins from the Cowboy Junkies

With Michael and John Timmins, Andy Maize, Josh Finlayson, John Wojewoda, Barbara Lynch and Katherine Wheatley.

Show starts at 8:30

Hugh’s Room on Roncesvalles

Come by!  It will be a really great evening with an amazing variety of musicians!

On the featured recording of In My Time of Dying from a rehearsal at Barbara Lynch’s home in early 2010.

by John Timmins

Don’t know much about Mr. Schopenhauer, but his flash of wisdom on music and the true nature of things certainly caught my attention. In his The World as Will and Representation, published in 1819, Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher. wrote …

“The close relationship that music has to the true nature of things can explain the fact that, when music suitable to any scene, action, event or environment is played, it seems to disclose to us its most secret meaning, and appears to be the most accurate and distinct commentary on it…

….music differs from all the other arts by the fact that it expresses the metaphysical to the physical in the world. This is the reason why music makes every picture, indeed every scene from real life and from the world, at once appear in enhanced significance, and this is, of course, all the greater, the more analogous its melody is to the inner spirit of the given phenomenon.”

A song like In My Time of Dying, a traditional/gospel song, recorded by Bob Dylan on his self titled, debut album (1962), and by many others before and since, is for me a great example of music evoking the naked truth, or being “the most accurate and distinct commentary” on anything that it is analogously applied to.

Barbara Lynch and I interpreted this song at her most recent show at the Dakota Tavern in Toronto, January 21, 2010, and I hope it sounded as good to that audience as this digital recording of our rehearsal sounds to me.

True, it may sound a little rough, unedited, unmixed, unwashed but therein is beauty in all its uninhibited glory. Listening to Barbara’s untethered, lighter-than-air evocation of the eternal, a classic cascade of fifths on the keyboard repeated throughout the song sets the soul free to take flight. Even the most moribund soul has to feel a lightness of being when these fifths come rolling through.

The musicians are listening to each other. The piano and my banjo support each other as comfortably as our voices blend, neither of us really taking the lead, but creating a unified voice that seems to take its lead from somewhere else. And I have no idea where that sitar is coming from! Listen to the continuous playing on the root note in key of D, like a slow funeral dirge, or an old blues just rambling on, just rolling through, no beginning and no end, intuitive, familiar. The high lifting instrumentals, the low whispering vocals, and the lyrics!  I would love to have met the enlightened soul who wrote these profoundly beautiful and evocative words. What a well-lived life that must have been.

These words and music anticipate the moment of death, for some the source of a lifetime of dread, whereby we are swallowed in the cold, dark ground and for others the source of a lifetime of joy and anticipation, not to mention fear, whereby we soar to heaven. But the song says to me – perhaps evoking my true nature, or pointing towards the secret meaning of my life – that one should embrace inevitable death without fear, and live a better life for it,  and that, after all, we are just rolling through like Barbara’s fifths.

Please give it a listen. I’d love to read your thoughts on this song.

John

–

Thursday January 21st at The Dakota Tavern, 249 Ossington Ave.

Phone: 416 850 4579

Show begins at 8:00PM Sharp.

Each song is part of this story. I started the show alone on stage with just me and the piano to do ‘Someday You’ll Dance’, as it gives an intuitive insight into the whole story.

It was so great to do that song alone but to know that I had these great musicians coming up to play with me for the next songs and let me thank them all again for the amazing work they do – John Timmins, John Wojewode and Eric Brown.  To me, my music now is all about the songs and these gentlemen add all the textures that the songs need. There could be more, there could be less, but to my ear and style, I like the simplicity that it has now. Banjo, harmonica, Blues slide guitar, Acoustic guitar, Dobro guitar, accordion, bass, sound effect here and there and vocals with lots of variation in the arrangements.

By the end of the second song which ends with the lines ‘ the world it is so beautiful, don’t let it go down this way’, I am well on my way to setting up the story I want to tell. The rest of the songs followed and each made their statement. I did ‘Daddy Ain’t Dead’ very early in the set which was a bit risky but it really worked well – little description of my sisters and I as adolescents on the old farm, coming home from school and my Mother asking us to go and find ‘Daddy’ in the barn who was not, after all dead, but just really drunk and then sitting on his knee and hearing his perspective of the situation. This is such a fun song, I wish there was a way to get it on country radio or something, but apparently they are as straight in Nashville now as they were 50 years ago.  A friend of mine sent them a great song of hers which was about divorce and they sent her back a rejection saying that this was not something ‘people want to hear about.’

The stage at the Dakota is really cool but has a lot of backlighting which makes it hard to get pictures of whoever is playing.  My photographer decided to take pictures of feet for a while as they were lit up so here are my feet, wearing actually my new dark green sort of cowboy boots, that I actually bought the day before the show. I’m sorry to say that I am a bit of a complusive shopper when under stress and I know I should never go into a store close to a gig date but I broke that rule.  And I’m glad. I love those boots.

Also, here is a nice picture of the feet of John T, keeping rhythm as he plays. He is a modest man and chooses to wear running shoes for this performance.  But they are very good ones.

John Wojewoda is viewed here and everything you can say is in the picture.  John can look like a tough guy but has a gentle heart.  When he played comedic sound effects on ‘Daddy Ain’t dead, holding his tiny viola, I think the visual is worth seeing over and over.  Next time, I am going to get someone to do a live video with sound and we will put it on Youtube. I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of the elusive Eric who was there and played beautiful bass lines on some songs and also did back-up vocals. Eric recorded the new album and has a fantastic ear.

I’m not going to go on and on about the songs and why they worked or how they work.  Suffice to say that by the end of the show when the audience was singing along with ‘Nickelodeon’, there was a mood in the room of sheer possibility, of everything good, also of things sad but it doesn’t break you, and of connection with everyone there.  I loved it and everyone and I thought this is the best I can do.  Thank you.

One ot the partners took me back into the office and booked us for Jan. 21st, which is another Thursday night. I was very pleased that she appreciated the show. I would like to make this club sort of a home room for us.  It’ a happening club and I need somewhere to play regularly so I can invite and grow an audience and also showcase.  Now I am pursuing Folk Festivals for the summer gigs as they give you a lot of exposure to media and new audiences. I hope we might get a few.

So now comes the part where you leave the club and pack up all the stuff and carry the piano home.  I usually dread being alone after a gig as good as this one because you can really crash. But wait!  This time I have someone at home waiting for me!  It’s my collie dog!

It was a warm, windy, a bit rainy night and Abby and I walked up and down streets for a long time.  I went through the night and every song in my head many times and just really enjoyed it for once.  I am creating good memories.

Lastly, now I’m back to work.  I am researching traditional songs – Roots music that tell the story too, where I can use lots of banjo and blues guitar and see what we can do and create some new arrangements. We will get something together for the next show.

UPDATE:  NEXT GIG AT THE DAKOTA IS ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 21ST.  SHOW BEGINS RIGHT AT 8:00.  Concert style one long set.  Please put this on your calendars and hope to see you there.

Show Starts: 9:00 p.m
We will be starting on time as everyone wants an early night so please be there by 8:30

This will be the first live performance of all the songs on ‘In the Nickelodeon’  plus some new ones. Hope to see you there.

CDs will also be available for sale.

Where we rehearse at my place - a sort of a warehouse space where we don't have to worry about noise.

The rehearsals right now are just with John Timmins and myself so we have guitar, slide guitar on an old Harmony, banjo, and you will see on the floor a little Zoom recording device that is proving to be very useful.  Also if you look carefully to the left of the guitar facing you on the couch you will see one of the many uses of duct tape, if your dog likes to chew. She’s pretty good now – most of that happened when I first got her.

Right now I am into doing something I have never been able to do just with the piano – sort of a blues style with no chord changes, just staying within the root chord, relying completely on feel, rhythm, and interpretation. In the show at The Dakota on Oct. 29th, John T. and I will be doing a song of my own in this style (much learned from Robert Johnson), using the little cigarbox guitar and bottle slide.  There is no piano on this one at all which is really new for me.  John T. is as much of a feel player as I am so we can do it.

Robert Johnson, Waits and Dylan

I am arranging it for both of us to do vocals and it has a real emotional edge to it. It’s oddly complicated within the one root chord feel – it can collapse as soon as any of the key elements go a bit awry. Plus in the same vein we are arranging a hillbilly traditional tune that Dylan covered at one time.

I decided when I started my album a little more than a year ago that the missing link in my music was the banjo and I started hearing banjo lines in my sleep.  The banjo is the most incredibly emotive instrument – whacky, sad, bizarre.  I adore it.  I loved it so much that on my holidays from work I rented one and felt certain that I could play it since I could already hear it so clearly. It took about five minutes to realize that this would not be the case unless I had a similar experience to Robert Johnsons’ where he sold his soul to the devil, disappeared for a while and came back a genius guitar player.

So instead, I found John T. who can play like I wish I could. John uses an open D tuning on the Dyaln tune and there are again no chord changes – all feel and dynamic.  I am arranging this with duo vocals – I think we have a really interesting vocal thing happening.  Don’t think you’ll hear anybody else quite like it and it’s a lot of fun for me as I have always before sung alone.  It’s a real stylistic growth that is adding a lot of interest to things for me. We are also covering a Tom Waits song in an unconventional manner – Tom remains the single most important influence on me – it’s a huge pleasure to cover two of his songs in the next show.

Hope to see you there.

Work In Progress