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Traditional Folk Music At The Edmonton Folk Music Festival

Those of us who grew up in the time when folk music became popular (again) think that it is and should be about relationships, politics, and social awareness. That, indeed, was the case in the last concert on Stage 5 yesterday at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival.
Tom Paxton, Mary Gauthier, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Connie Kaldor and a several hundred audience members participated in this session, the theme of which was 'If I had a rocket launcher...' (You know the second line of Bruce Cockburn's song).
Tom Paxton started with a song about his daughters, then switched to political commentary, to the delight of everyone except the fellow who sat beside me. Connie Kaldor sang about the prairies, family and relationships, while Mary Gauthier sang about the difficulties that relationships sometimes bring.

Buffy Sainte-Marie sang The Universal Soldier and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. She finished the set with a hard-driving song with a message (a song I didn't know) and the crowd was on its feet, cheering for her and the rest of the fine musicians, including the excellent back-up singers and guitarists.

Some sessions work: and this one was an experience that will be remembered by the musicians and fans for a long time.
Thanks to Terry Wickham and all the staff and volunteers who made this Festival a success. Thanks also to the many headliners and back-up musicians who worked so hard to create such wonderful music.
Personal thanks to several special people whose perfomances made Festival '07 a great experience for me: Roy Forbes, Kat Danser (a singer and guitarist whom I had never heard before), Karla Anderson and the great bassist Mike Lent, and the amazing Connie Kaldor.

The Edmonton Folk Music Festival

My wife Merle and I spent the day at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, one of our musical highlights of the year. Each year we and 18,000 other music fans are privileged to hear some of the best musicians in the world at seven small stages and one large stage at Gallagher Hill in Edmonton.
The sessions ('workshops') at the smaller stage usually feature three or four musicians. Each session is given a theme. Today we listened to sessions with themes including 'A Sense of Wonder', 'Promised Land' and 'In the Tradition.' The musicians take turns singing songs which fit the theme. When Steve Earle was here several years ago he told us 'In Nashville, we call this a guitar pull.'
Often the other musicians join in and the results can be surprising and wonderful, especially when they are from different countries and traditions.
Today we enjoyed hearing Tagag, an Inuit throat singer (backed by Celina Kalluk) sing with Black Umfolosi from Zimbabwe. The cultures and the music connected, and the crowd cheered.

I'm a great fan of Guy Clark and Connie Kaldor and was very pleased that they were featured, with Martin Sexton and Greg Keelor, in a ninety minute session.

Verlon Thompson provided back-up vocals and fine guitar work for Guy Clark. Guy passed on one of his turns, asking Verlon to sing. His song, 'Joe Walker's Mare', was one of the highlights of the day for me.

Other highlights included Buffy Sainte-Marie and the great Stephen Fearing.

More Prairie Music

Our band from the sixties (the Jurelles) played for the Seiferling reunion last Saturday, August 5, in Sedley, Saskatchewan. We also played at Barb and Cecil Werner's home in Regina the following afternoon for friends and neighbors.

We'll be playing at Danceland at Manitou Beach near Watrous, Saskatchewan, next Saturday, August 18. Danceland, one of the most famous dance halls in western Canada, was built in 1928 and still attracts dancers from throughout the province. We're looking forward to the experience of playing there. Join us if you can.

Warm Prairie Winds And Saskatchewan Music

We travelled from Calgary to Regina yesterday, about 740 kilometres (460 miles). It's a fine drive: big skies, shortgrass prairie, the edge of the Cypress Hills, ranching country, and, finally, the Regina Plains, the flattest and most productive agricultural land in Saskatchewan.
The wind in Medicine Hat was warm, almost hot and the temperature in Maple Creek was 33 degrees. However, as we dined on Barb and Cec Werner's patio with the members of the band (The Jurelles) who will be playing tonight for the Seiferling reunion in Sedley, Saskatchewan, we enjoyed the late night cool breeze.
It's August, the beginning of harvest on the prairies. The weather has been unusually hot and the crop yields will be average at best, likely below average. Peas and lentils are being harvested in the Regina area sooner than normal.
Our sound check is at 4:30 PM. After that we're invited to join the family for a turkey dinner in the Sedley school auditorium.
We'll play late into the evening, then carry our equipment into the warm prairie night, glad that we can again be travelling musicians, playing to prairie people who love to dance to live music.
We'll play again tomorrow in Regina.

Road Trip Music

Road trips require great driving music. The following songs are particularly appropriate for driving the freeways and back roads of the Great Plains.

• Saskatoon Moon – Connie Kaldor and Roy Forbes
• Eight More Miles – Kieran Kane and Kevin Welch
• Navajo Rug – Ian Tyson
• The Last Saskatchewan Pirate – Captain Tractor
• Dallas – The Flatlanders
• Texas Trilogy: Daybreak – Lyle Lovett
• The Mary Ellen Carter – Stan Rogers
• Crazy Old Moon – Roy Forbes
• Barrett's Privateers – Stan Rogers
• Alberta Bound – Gordon Lightfoot
• Christmas in Washington – Steve Earle
• Summer Wages – Ian Tyson
• Sis Draper – Guy Clark

Back to Alberta

We're back, after a week in California looking at new technology and enjoying one of our favourite places, Carmel.
We had driven south on Highway 1 several days ago to look for whales heading south along the coast, but did not see any. Yesterday, before driving our rental car back to San Francisco we decided to try again. This time we saw several spouts and splashes and vowed that we would take binoculars on the next trip.
This excursion gave me an opportunity for a few more film and digital photographs. You won't see any whales in this image, but this is where we saw them.

On Tuesday night we had dinner at Clint Eastwood's Mission Ranch and – as we had done several years earlier – stayed for the music. Gennady Loktionov is the regular pianist, although we've been told that Clint sits in periodically. Gennady is a great pianist and entertainer, and he has a lot of musical fans from Carmel and the surrounding area who come regularly to sing with him. These are fine musicians who have repertoires ranging from Broadway to country.
We sang and visited late into the evening. One of the musicians chatted with us about how well Little Mosque on the Prairies was doing in Canada and how we were missing it that evening. We told him to watch for Corner Gas. Another, after hearing that we were from Alberta, talked about how much she liked K.D. Lang's music.
A local professional musician sang several Spanish ballads, then joined another chap, who had just sung a set of Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash songs, in 'To All The Girls I've Loved Before': and, yes, they looked and sounded like Willie and Julio Iglesias. The crowd loved it.
A middle-aged man in a grey double-breasted suit then sang two Russian folk songs and 'If every I should leave you' from Camelot.
Every singer knew his or her songs perfectly and, I'm sure, had sung them in that bar many times. They and the rest of the group around the piano were regulars. They and Gennady asked us to join them the next time we're in town.
The next morning, after our impromptu whale run down the coast, we drove north on Highway 1, past Monterey and Seaside, then east on Highway 156, through the hilly fields of artichokes near Castroville, and north on Highway 101 to San Francisco through Silicon Valley. San José, Cupertino, Palo Alto, Stanford. Then home.
Gracias a la Vida.

The Idea of West

The University of Alberta Bookstore is again sponsoring The Idea of West, a day of literature, art, music and great food, at The Timms Centre for the Arts, University of Alberta, October 11, 2006. Free tickets are available from the Bookstore (492-4215).
The Timms Centre seats only about 300 people so get your tickets early.

Music: A Lasting Passion

I spent three days last week playing with The Jurelles, band that we formed more than forty years ago. We spent one afternoon in Regina practising and the following evening playing for a wedding dance (for the the daughter and son-in-law of Cecil Werner, one of our band members).
The next day we went to Terry and Della Anderson's farm, near Pense, Saskatchewan where our friends had set up a tent and a shaded bandstand. Approximately 100 friends and neighbors from nearby farms and from Regina gathered for the afternoon.

People enjoyed listening, visiting and dancing. We expected to play from 1:30 to 5:30 PM, but some of us continued playing until nearly 10:00 PM.

Music is a lasting passion. We enjoy playing at least as much as we did when we were in our twenties: and we're now far better musicians than we were forty years ago.
Most musicians play for a lifetime, not for just a few years. Once we have the experience of playing with a group and an audience we want to do it again and again. I think that keeps us young (although, in my case, not young enough to want to play hip-hop).
Music appears to be an integral part of us. It's a communal activity and a way of communicating ideas and emotions. I can't imagine a world without it.
Think about music when you're considering which activities your children or grandchildren should include in their daily lives. Learning to sing, to play an instrument and to appreciate music will give them a lifetime of enjoyment – and another option for a career.

Jerome Martin Attends Edmonton Folk Music Festival

In an exclusive interview this morning Jerome Martin said that in spite of hail, wind, rain and heat he got through this year's festival without visible damage or trauma and expects to attend next year's festival.
'There was some discomfort, but, hey, to sit back and listen to fine musicians while eating green onion cakes is a great way to spend a weekend' said Martin as he prepares for a very busy work week. 'And you really get your money's worth: I'm going to have this music running through my head for days.'
'Really fine music and good lookin' women... Hey I think there's a song there somewhere.' 'Really fine music and...'
We left him working on the first line of the song. Don't expect to hear it from the main stage any time soon.

Music, music, music

I spent last weekend in British Columbia playing and recording music with a band that we formed many years ago when we were students at the University of Saskatchewan. During the past several years we've met twice a year to practice and play informal gigs.
This gathering included a recording session at Turtle Recording, White Rock, BC ('BC's Ocean-Front Studio').Turtle believes in quality work using ultramodern and classic equipment. I played a Yamaha grand (with three microphones, skillfully placed); there was also a Hammond B3 and a Fender Rhodes within reach. Keyboard heaven, with the option of recording digitally or on tape.
This was my first – and our first – studio recording session and it was more successful that we imagined it could be. The process was a learning experience, and the product is a CD that we can share and treasure. It's not for sale, but we'll be giving it to friends and relatives.
In the meantime we'll each play it in our cars and on our iPods, listening carefully, perhaps compulsively, to every note we played.
The clarity and the precision of the recording surprised us. We now look forward to doing this again.
On the flight home I talked to a woman who learned to play the flute after her children had gone to college. She loved being able to play the pieces that she wanted to play, and to play with a group of friends. She dared to become a middle-aged novice musician and showed herself and everyone else around her that one can learn music at any stage in life.
Music reaches out to all of us, young and old. Those who accept the challenge of playing and learning will find that it enriches their lives. It may or may not help us to live longer – but I know that it enriches my life and the lives of my fellow musicians.