Other Eyes Released by Timberhead Music
The hook-up of our local folk music community with that of central Maine began with a wild drive from Saint John to Wolfville, N.S. one cool, clear October night in the late 1970’s.
The tale of that trip is still told now and then at the twice yearly gatherings of performers from those areas 32 years later. That trip became an all night odyssey. I was the driver.
Our Saint John folk Club had its first sing-around in September 1975. Its founder, the late John Murphy, whose death last September is still painfully lamented, Bob Wallace, our then club president and Moncton folk authority and performer Bernie Houlahan were among those who went with me.
Gordon Bok was appearing in Wolfville at Acadia University that night. We hoped to hire Gordon to perform a Saint John concert for our club. And despite a late start and holdups we got there for the concert’s entirety, talk to him afterwards and he put us on his spring tour schedule.
That event at the New Brunswick Museum began a cross border coalition. Since then Gordon has returned many times for the gatherings, to perform a Bi-Capital fundraising concert (Bi-Imperial by its end) and take part in Jim Stewart’s Marco Polo Suite in 2002 at the Imperial.
I first encountered the name Gordon Bok on a Verve Folkway LP in the 1960’s. That CD became a much played favourite at our house, especially the song Fundy (our Fundy Bay) about those who navigate its thick fogs and treacherous tides. Then in 1972 I discovered Connecticut’s Folk Legacy label just after they’d released their first Gordon Bok record, Seal Djiril’s Hymn ‘sang and told with Ann Mayo Muir,’ another extraordinary talent.
In the next three decades, Gordon would gain international fame as a star on Folk-Legacy, accounting for a major part of the label’s revenues. He released numerous LP’s as a solo artist and as the pivot of a beloved trio he formed with Ann Mayo Muir and Ed Trickett as well as with other collaborations. 
Some years ago, however, with the label’s founder Sandy Patton’s health failing, his wife Caroline suffering vision loss and their partner Lee Haggerty dying, Gordon acquired his masters back. So they are now all available, more impressive sounding than ever on pristine re-mastered Timberhead label CD discs.
A small Camden, Maine publishing company, Timberhead Music is centered around the preservation, promotion and proliferation of Gordon Bok’s written and recorded music. But they do publish work by other lyric poets and musicians as well, Jim Stewart’s Marco Polo Suite included in those. Gordon, himself, as he says “now unbelievably 70′ continues to record, his voice still virtually as rich a bass baritone as when I first heard him and he has the same uniquely sensitive interpretative instrumental skills that combined have made him the definitive voice of the US east coast. In April of this year Gordon released a new album of 15 very focused songs Other Eyes, in some cases poems like The Beaches of Lukannon, by Rudyard Kipling (an intimate of Gordon’s grandfather, Edward Bok) set to music. All are songs that view man with conceivable believability through non-human eyes. The eyes of animals like Bold Reynolds, a fox who outruns hunters and hounds into old age, the eyes of feathered observers as in The Bird Rock,Heron Croon, Gulls of Morning, and those whodwell in waters both deep and shallow:The Seals and even the fishes from The Net.
A long time mutual acquaintance, Scott Alarik, a performer and folk music reviewer for The Boston Globe wrote of this CD that: ‘Gordon Bok has a special genius for showing us the world through other eyes. In this beautifully conceived album he explores how the natural world sees us…offering visions at once earthly and ethereal, stunningly fresh and as old as tradition. Among the finest folk ballad singers this country has produced, Bok’s glorious bass voice has softened and warmed with age, like a fine old cello, drawing us closer into the spells he casts.’
Other selections on this CD include Captive Water, Sarabande’s Story, The Maiden Hind, Spell To bring Lost Creatures Home, Ocean Station Bravo, The Brandy Tree, The Shepherd’s Call and Sherry’s Song.
His most recent release before Other Eyes was a terrific, Gordon Bok In Concert, his only live album except for the trio’s, Minneapolis Concert in 1987. This solo CD will open your eyes, however, through your ears to Gordon’s warmer, more humorous side. Also to the deep connection he shares with his audiences. I was amazed a few years ago by the reaction of a couple of friends we took to a Bok Muir Trickett concert at Payne Hall on the Harvard University campus. Not even aware of traditional balladry as it turned out, they were incredulous at such a large capacity audience singing along unhesitatingly with the trio on songs they had never heard of let alone heard. Not commercial radio or even CBC fare now!
The introduction to the comedic Irish ballad Queer Bungo Rye for instance, a salute to Nova Scotia’s Canso Strait, The Angellus, the nostalgic Where The Cane Fires Burn, and an inspired rendering of Let The Lower Lights Be Burninjg, the rare Oystershell Road and boisterous Scottish Hie Awa with it’s introduction make this a music experience you’ll want to relive often, all 16 songs interspersed with humour and stories.
There is also the Bok Trio’s 1994 Language Of The Heart CD,its incredibly beautiful title song written by Rothesay’s Jim Stewart and Moncton’s Bernie Houlahan. Jim’s Marco Polo song is included as well and such beauties as Blue Mountain, Stephen Foster, Merlin’s Waltz and Ballinderry. The 15 tracks on it are all so beautiful.
And 15 also on Harbours Of Home by Gordon, Ed and Ann, including such exquisite jems as Australian Henry Lawson’s The Outside Track, Scotsman Dave Goulder’s Pigs Can See The Wind, TheGreat Valley’s Harvest, a lyrical treasure Jim Stewart and Gordon joined talents to write We Built This Old Ship, John Austin Martin’s entrancing Dancing At Whitsum, J.B. Goodenough’s Turning Of The Year and the title song by another favoured singer songwriter Joan Sprung.
Also in the Timberhead catalogue is the trio’s Turning Toward The Morning which includes two masterpieces of Gordon’s own, Isle Au Haut Lullaby and the title song plus such stirring emotional gems as Three Score And Ten, I Drew My Ship, Gentle Annie,How Can I Keep From Singing and six others.
These and many more of this world’s most thrilling folk CDs are available for only $16 US…some cassettes for only $5…by visiting www.timberheadmusic.com/
ST. ANDREWS TONIGHT, SUSSEX SATURDAY
St. Andrews area singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Adam Olmstead made quite a stir in the media three years ago with his first CD, A. G. Olmstead. Media icons heard in that album of original songs glimmers of the songwriting talents of the Mississippi blue yodeller Jimmie Rodgers and the late 40’s Hank Williams. Local CBCs and even Saturday Mornings’ Stan Carew interviewed and sang his praises.
But, although Adam has slipped out of sight of the media since then he has continued to perform regularly at the Red Herring Pub in St. Andrews. In fact, he is playing there tonight 6 to 9 p.m. And through the summer he’ll be playing there weekly at that time slot, singing old favourites, songs he’s written accompanying himself on any of the ten instruments he plays, often joined by Al Brisley, a gifted local musician. He also has a new CD recorded, ready to be mastered for release in late summer.
This Saturday night at 7 p.m. Adam will also be the featured entertainer at Sussex’s popular Broadway Cafe, performing old timey favourites, bluegrass and classic country, along with many of his own songs.
GARY BURGESS BENEFIT CONCERT
Gary Burgess’ many fans will be saddened to learn he has been diagnosed with cancer and is to begin treatments. Gary has hosted many fundraisers for others in the years he has headed Sussex Corner Jamborees. Now the Friends of Gary Burgess are hosting one for him on June 27 at the Canadian Legion Branch #20, Sussex on June 27. It will feature Art Boyd, Tom Burgess, Mike McQuarrie, Raymond Thebeau and guests. Mike Whalen will emcee. Dave Stewart and Jim McDermott are handling sound. Admission is a donation at the door.