Author: Gerry

Chicks and Docklings at Portland United Church

Post author By Gerry
Post date May 31, 2013

CHICKS & DOCLINGS HATCH NEW CD SATURDAY AT PORTLAND UNITED CHURCH

Exuberant…that describes their CD Just Hatched…but not humour inspired exuberance as anyone who has seen The Cool Chicks & Ugly Doclings perform would expect. This disc is a recording, vocally and instrumentally, exuberant in its sheer beauty.

Their new…and first…CD Just Hatched, is being launched this Saturday, 7 p.m., at Portland United Church, 50 Newport Crescent, just off Adelaide Street in Saint John’s North End. Known for their humour and nonsense rearrangements and re-writing of old favourites, the only thing nonsensical about this, their first recording, is it’s packaging.

The eye-stopping cover is a Disney-esque cartoon: a duck doc with a finger pointing to the album title, Just Hatched and a cool 1930’s Chick in a ball gown and fur boa neck piece, a finger pointing to the unique act’s official monicker, The Cool Chicks & The Ugly Doclings. The most novel idea for a record cover ever to be hatched in any incubator. But it’s such a far cry from the songs of deep emotion and inspiration encrypted on its tracks.

“What a terrific recording of Hallelujah!,” my wife Carol exclaimed on first hearing the CD: she’d heard its composer, Leonard Cohen, sing this powerful song of his at Harbour Station, a month earlier. “It’s the first time I’ve been able to make out all the words.”

She was referring to Brenda Brooks phrasing in such lines as : “I heard there was a secret chord, that David played that pleased the Lord.”

If you’re one of the unfortunate few that have not seen or heard the Cool Chicks & The Ugly Doclings in concert, then, for your edification, they are seven local health care professions and one teacher, who have been doing charity performances in southern New Brunswick for over ten years, raising money for not-for-profit organizations.

The album opens with Andrew Clark, an anaesthetist, singing lead on Cannibals, written by Mark Knopfler. Then Blue Bayou, that Roy Orbison wrote the lyrics for, is given one of the most beautiful treatments, that I have heard, by respiratory therapist, Jennifer Rooney. Next a song, Drinking Black Rum (and eating Blueberry Pie) sung by retired orthopaedic surgeon, John Acker but made famous on CBC-TV’s Singalong Jubilee by it’s writer James Lawrence (or just plain Jim) Bennet. And Andrew Clark, an anaesthetist and guitarist, vocally interprets his own Servant To The Music (the only original song on the disc). Then Wendy Stewart, a pediatric neurologist and singing accordionist from Scotland renders I Only Want To Be With You, by Mike Hawker and Ivor Raymonde. And nurse Brenda Brooks does a grand recital of Gordon Sumner’s Fields Of Gold.

That’s a half dozen enchanting songs and there’s another seven just as beguilingly sung and played on the CD: family physician, Steve Willis along with the ensemble do a rousing interpretation of Those Were The Days (My Friend, We Thought They’d Never End) a song written by Gene Raskin and made famous by England’s Maryanne Faithful and in North America by the Limelighters (Stephen plays guitar and mandolin, too). And Jerry Jeff Walker’s ever popular Mr. Bojangles gets a rousing revival, by respiratory therapist Mike Willis, who plays bass, guitar, bodhran and sings. Next the only instrumental track, an Irish Jig Set, is performed by the eight musicians. And, Joni Mitchell’s River, is stunningly sung by Maggie Bockus ( Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on); Bob Dylan’s Wagon Wheel (that Jay Secor wrote the music for) is intriguingly performed by Mike Willis, (Rock Me Mama, like a wagon wheels.) Then Brenda Brooks wonderful interpretation of Hallelujah and the final track 13, with a slight re-writing (here and there) of the Sherman’s You’re Sixteen (And You’re lovely, you come on like a dream, all peaches and cream) with the new closing lines “We’re the Chicks (voiced by the four Chicks) and The Doclings ( voiced by the Doclings), and we’re here. If you’re digging the songs just sing along. We’re not famous, we’re not rich. It’s the end of the show and we’ve got to go.”

This wonderful CD, you’ll play over and over again, Just Hatched, is available Saturday at it’s Portland United Church launch or you can phone the office of Dr. Wendy Stewart, 848-4622 for a copy.

Column Archives Folk Music

Stompin’ Tom

Post author By Gerry
Post date March 13, 2013

Stompin' Tom 1936-2013

from Gerry’s 2009 when Stompin’ Tom was last here.

STOMPIN TOM’S NEW CD A MILESTONE IN HIS NEVER ENDING STORY

Stompin' Tom 1936-2013 — Stompin’ Tom 1936-2013

A perception once rooted is hard to disinter.

On page seven of Tom Connors’ own biography Stompin’ Tom Before The Fame he writes: I had been born Charles Thomas Connors at the stroke of midnight on February 9, 1936, in the General Hospital in Saint John, New Brunswick. My birth certificate shows my mother’s name as Isabel Connors.
Tom was in high school at Saint John Vocational (now Harbour View High) in 1950 when I was in the commercial art course there. He posed for several of the murals painted by Fred Ross that distinguished the corridors of that institution of learning for many decades. And long time RCA fiddling legend Ned Landry is Tom’s cousin on the Sullivan side of their families.

Yet even such an authority on the unique personalities that embroider the pages of Canadian history as Wayne Rostad was amazed a couple of months ago to learn that Tom hadn’t been born on our Garden of the Gulf. And a favourite recording artist of mine Stew Clayton begins his Tribute To Stompin’ Tom with “From Skinner’s Pond in PEI”.

Part of the myth, of course, derives from Tom himself who for many years opened every concert and TV telecast with “Hello, I’m Stompin Tom from PEI” and, of course, his was the voice of PEI’s TV commercials in those years, as well. Tom in a letter to me, 15 years ago, explained the paradox this way:
“When interviewers ask what they believe to be a simple question they don’t want you to go into a long speech about your entire historical background. I therefore use the following rule of thumb.

“When asked “Where were you born?”, I say Saint John, NB, because that is where I first saw the light of day. When asked “Where are you from”, I say Skinner’s Pond, PEI because that is the first place I could ever call home. When asked where is your home? I presume the question means right now, so I say, just outside Georgetown, Ontario.”

I was amazed a couple of years ago, giving a talk on New Brunswick songs at the Saint John Art Centre, how few of the audience realized Tom was from this city or that he had written songs about the province and Saint John.

In fact the first song he wrote, My Reversing Falls Darling was composed when he was attending Vocational. He, also, wrote and recorded Saint John Blues, The Don Messer Story, Tribute To Wilf Carter (with the line ‘Til the wood camps of New Brunswick hired Wilf for a better wage) and a great radio air-play hit New Brunswick and Mary.

And, now, on his new Ballad of Stompin Tom CD, there’s a very haunting song Rose of Silver Falls, perhaps inspired by a gypsy caravan he saw during his two years at the St. Patrick’s Orphanage near the Falls.The most hilarious song on it is an NB inspired one too, (Working In The) Bush of Bouctouche (because of a gal in Tatamagouche). And the title song Ballad of Stompin’ Tom affirms in its opening line the place of his birth, “I was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, by the sea.”

I think this is Tom’s most impressive and enjoyable album since his release of Fiddle & Song in 1988, an LP/cassette that included such powerful folk ballads as Return Of The Sea Queen, Entry Island Home, Wreck of the Tammy Anne, I Am The Wind and Lady k. d. Lang.
This new CD album of his resonates with the same powerful folk feel! He even includes a real Irish folk song, of IRA origin, Kevin Barry and Wilf Carter’s six decade old Take Me Back To Old Alberta.

Others with a definite folk gene include Birth of The Texas Gulf Mine, My British Columbia Home, Lady Slipper and Ottawa Lures.
And only Tom could take a bawdy song popular during the Second World War, Chase Me Charlie, change the lyrics, but keep its lilting racy rhythm, while transforming it into such a beautiful country love song, one you’ll be humming for days after hearing it. It’s omething he did with a song of similar origin The North Atlantic Squadron 33 years ago.

Another selection so hilarious it should have you laughing from beginning to end (it did me) on this new CD is Chickee Pooh (curly eyes and laughing toes, and where did you get those?). And there is a variant of an English folk song that Hank Snow gave new life to in the 1940’s The Cowboy’s Broken Ring. Tom’s mother Isabel died last year, that her favourite song. And there’s another beautiful new song from Tom’s pen, the Bride And Groom Waltz.
The others are updated re-recordings of three of Tom’s greatest hits, The Olympic Song (with a verse about the 2009 Games in BC added), The Hockey Song and the Hockey Mom Tribute.

In his early recording years before details of Tom’s troubled childhood surfaced I wondered why neither he nor Donald Sutherland, who even then had appeared in an amazing number of Hollywood feature movies never mentioned Saint John, their birthplace, in interviews. Unhappy childhoods or, in Donald’s case, I understand, school years, aside, it seemed to me an apathy exist toward entertainers in NB giving Cape Breton and PEI a decided edge. Various international music authorities, in conversations over the years have accessed our province as having more gifted musicians and singers than either of those, The difference, they felt, was we just don’t merchandise tour talent nearly as well.

I had one dismaying example of that myself! When Tom came out of his 1980s decade long hiatus from entertaining and was planning an 80 concert 1990 Ontario to British Columbia and back across to the Atlantic tour his road manager Brian Edwards asked me to inquire if should their first Atlantic provinces concert be in Saint John would his birth city acknowledge the fact with some fanfare?

I took the proposal to the city’s much beloved mayor, a lady I had known since we were children. She thought it was a great idea and that she would present it to council..A week later I had a phone call from a city hall secretary saying council had turned it down..Summerside and Charlottetown, however, grabbed it up quickly, staging a parade, elaborate publicity and banner draped streets.

The new Ballad Of Stompin’ Tom CD should be available at music stores everywhere, or you can visit visit www.StompinTom.com

Tags 2009 column, memorial, Music

Album Release Folk Music Recording Launch

Christmas Folk Music Sale

Post author By Gerry
Post date November 22, 2010

With Jim Stewart of Saint John NB of Marco Polo Suite Fame

Some of the World’s Greatest Folk CDs at Sale Prices

By today’s reckoning, Timberhead Music CD’s are unbelievably bargain priced at their regular catalog price of $16. But now slashed $3-only $12.99 a disc-during their Annual Christmas Holiday Sale, Nov. 22 to Dec. 22, they’re an incredible bargain. That’s considering that this Camden, Maine mail order service stocks some of the most excitingly beautiful folk music anywhere and Canadian and U.S. currencies now at par.

Moncton folk singer and traditional music garu Bernie Houlahan three decades ago expressed the feeling of many devotees of real folk music, when he said he’d ‘almost entirely given up interest in anything new called folk music.’ So many inept young songwriters releasing navel-gazing two month wonders and calling them them folk. Songs that would never be sung by anyone else of their own generation let alone survive decades of others singing them to meet the folksong designation. “ Then I discovered Folk Legacy Records,” he said, “ and realized there were still singers writing songs he could envision standing the test of time. The recordings Folk-Legacy were releasing restored my faith.”

And Gordon Bok, their most popular artist, had a lot to do with that. A folk song by original definition is one still sung after who wrote it is forgotten by the masses. It’s a song that has been enhanced by many singers and polished over time .

Gordon Bok’s first album, self-titled, on Verve Folkways album featured a song Fundy that became a favourite of mine. Another debut album The Magic of Mayo Muirby a goldenvoiced singer Anne Mayo Muir on 20^th Century Fox Records soon filled a like niche. They’re still among our most played 40 years later. So when I read about an album Bay of Fundy by Gordon Bok with Anne Mayo Muir on Folk-Legacy I lost no time in acquiring it. That album opened the door to a whole new world of folk music and communication with the label for me.

Started by two great traditional singers Sandy and Caroline Paton with a friend Lee B. Haggerty, their studio was in Sharon, Connecticut. Their recordings were only available in Canada by mail-order or at import specialty stores. Gordon Bok after his first solo recording in 1971 Peter Kaggan And The Wind become their most recorded artist.

When Folk Legacy, due to the failing health of its founders, cut back recording operations, Gordon purchased his masters along with others from them and established his own distributing retailing company Timberhead Music. That label’s catalog now includes over 50 of his CDs. Those include solo albums, those of the trio of Bok, Ann Mayo Muir and Ed Trickett, with whom he toured and recorded for three decades and various other duo and chorus alliances.

And over those years Gordon Bok has been a frequent visitor to the Port City and Hampton. Because of a Saint John Folk Club concert here he forged a chain between the club and the New England folk community which still exists 30 years later. And for travelling expenses he came up from Camden in the late 80’s to do a Bi-Capitol concert to raise funds used in purchasing the building that became Saint John’s Imperial Theatre.

And he took part in the original Marco Polo Folk Opera written by Rothesay’s Jim Stewart in that theatre, a presentation of towering stage sets and audio visual effects that which took $100,000 to mount in the fall of 2002. As well, many of his recordings feature songs of enduring beauty written by Stewart and other local songwriting musicians.

Gordon Bok in Concert

His recent Gordon Bok In Concert is Bok’s only live album except for the Bok, Trickett, Muir trio’s, Minneapolis Concert recorded in 1987. This solo In Concert CD will open your ears to the warmer, more humourous side of Bok, and the repore he shares with audiences. I was amazed by the reaction of a couple of friends we took to a trio concert at Harvard University years ago . Not aware of traditional balladry even as it turned out, they were amazed at the capacity audience singing along with the trio on songs those two had never heard of, much less heard. Sadly such songs are not on commercial radio or even CBC now.

In Concert begins with an introduction and the comedic ballad Queer Bungo Rye for instance; a salute to Nova Scotia’s Canso Strait; The Angelius; a nostalgic While The Cane Fires Burn, an inspired rendering of Let The Lower Lights Be Burning, the rare Oysterbed Road and boisterousScottish Hie Awa with it’s introduction make this a ‘live’ music experience you’ll want to relive often, 16 songs interspersed with humour and stories.

With Jim Stewart of Saint John NB of Marco Polo Suite Fame

There is also the Bok Trio’s 1994 Languages of The Heart CD, it’s 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 rarities as Blue Mountain, Stephen Foster, Merlin’s Waltz and Ballinderry: 15 exquisite songs all beautifully sung.

And, also, 15 rare, lovely songs on Harbours Of Home by Gordon, Ed and Ann, such gems as: Australian Henry Lawson’s The Outside Track; Scotsman Dave Goulder’s Pigs Can See The Wind; a lyrical treasure The Great Valley’s Harvest; Jim Stewart and Gordon’s 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 a favourite songwriter of mine, Joan Sprung.

Also in the Timberland catalog 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 the emotional Three Score And Ten, I Drew My Ship, Gentle Annie, How Can I Keep from Singing and six others.

These and many others including Jim Stewart’s Narco Polo Suite, are available for only $12.99 U.S.-some cassettes $5, by phoning (207) 236-2707, or visiting www.timberheadmusic.com

Country and Western In Memoriam Memories Movie History Music Music History Writing

Bob Nolan’s Inspiration

Hatfield Point Funeral Brings Back Memories of Bob Nolan

I had expected more Southern New Brunswick country music entertainers to attend a funeral in Hatfield Point two Saturdays ago.

The name in the obituaries that week filled me with a sense of deja vu: Robert Nobles, his place of birth, Hatfield Point. According to a brief bio, although born at the point his family had moved with him to Massachusetts when he was four. He was 89 when he died in Holliston, MA on Oct. 14 making the year of his leaving N.B. 1921. Another Robert Nobles, a cousin it was explained to me, had lived with his grandparents at Hatfield Point from the time he was three until he was 12. The Point’s Baptist Church from which the service was held overlooks the beautiful Belleisle from a high hill,

This Bob Nobles with a brother younger brother Earle had left there a year earlier in1920, to live with an aunt near Boston in that same state. Joining their father in Arizona a years later they found their family name had been legally changed to Nolan. Bob claimed his father had it done because Nolan sounded more ‘western’. That Robert Nolan would grow up to become a founding member of the Pioneer Trio, later the Sons Of The Pioneers. The other two singer songwriters were Tim Spencer and Leonard Slye, a name Hollywood studios signing him would change to Dick Weston, then Roy Rogers.

Bob Nolan would eventually become internationally famous for penning such western classics as Tumbling Tumbleweeds, Cool Water, Touch of God’s Hand along with scores of others including two of my all-time favourites: Song Of The Bandit and Echoes From The Hills. Many of the songs would be used in the 79 movies in which he and the Sons of The Pioneers would back western action stars of the 1930’s to 1950’s: stars of the calibre of Charles Starrett, Ken Maynard, Gene Autry, Dick Forin and, of course, Roy Rogers.

A study two decades ago published a statement that Cool Water at that time had been recorded by more different groups and solo artists than any other song. Those included blues artists, rock ‘n roll bands, jazz ensembles and choral groups. In a letter to an aunt in Hatfield Point Bob wrote that when he composed that song he was thinking of the cold, cl;ear spring on his grandparent’s farm. What a claim to fame for this province! But, as so often, we waited to milk the fame of it.

In the 1980’s when our provincial parliament was planning a Come Home To NB Year I suggested Bob’s wife, his brother and daughter: some of our most famous ex-patriots were being invited, all expenses paid. I was assured they would given a priority and lent them biographies, newspaper and magazine articles I’d collected. Bob had died on June 16, 1980. They assured me they would be returned. When I checked two months later I was told they hadn’t been able to locate even one of the three. With just six phone calls in 24 hours I had located and talked with all three. When I called the Come Home Committee spokesperson I was told it was too late, all funds had been allocated. Although I made requests I never saw my loaned items again.

Every country music history book written until a half decade ago, listed Bob as born in New Brunswick and Roy Rogers on his weekly TV show often said Bob had been born just a few miles from Saint John New Brunswick, Canada. When I asked his brother Earle if he was sure they had been born at Hatfield Point he said he was sure he had been but on a visit to the Point in 1938 he’d heard a suggestion that Bob might have been born somewhere else. Winnipeg perhaps. Bob, however, when he’d asked him, said he’d no recollection of living anywhere in Canada but Hatfield Point.

An Elizabeth MacDonald in BC, engaged by the University of North Carolina to collect details of Bob Nolan’s life and to assemble all the songs written by him, in talking with relatives was told of the rumour. Regretfully I mentioned Winnipeg when she asked me. She then hired a professional researcher who found Bob’s birth certificate dated April 8, 1908, Winnipeg. He’d always thought he’d been born on April Fools’ Day. When Bob was elected to the International Songwriter’s Hall of Fame a half decade ago the mayor of Winnipeg and assorted Manitoba dignitaries were there to take bows. New Brunswick was never mentioned.

The Bob Nobles buried in the Point’s Bayview Cemetery on Oct 23, had led a very interesting life, as well. He returned every summer with his parents to holiday at the Point and continued that ritual with his own family. His wife, Lillian J. (McKellar) whom he married in Scotland during the Second World War, in 2006, was buried in the same family plot. A Rev. Boyd who had been pastor of Hatfield Baptist for a dozen years in a eulogy, spoke of Bob’s interesting military career. He had, in one phase of it, manned a listening station in Scotland, part of a code breaking team monitoring German U-Boat radio trans missions. When discovered he was Canadian born, however, he was immediately replaced. Evidently it was thought Canada harboured terrorists even then!

Most of his family had made the trip up. It was one of the warmest, most family oriented funerals I’ve ever attended. And there was lots of talk about the other Robert ‘Bob Nolan’ Nobles, as well.

Event Music Visitors

A Few NB Country Music Hall of Famers

Post author By Gerry
Post date June 25, 2010
No Comments on A Few NB Country Music Hall of Famers

GaryMTamEtcJune2410 — Part of the Board of Directors

From the left: Ivan Hicks, President; Vivian Hicks, Sectretary and Treasurer; Gary Morris, Director and idea man; Gerry Taylor, acting Vice President; with Tammy Morris (centre), teacher, singer and songwriter of musicals including on on the history of Sussex and the murals.

Album Release Column Archives Concert Event Folk Music

Gordon Bok’s New Release

Post author By Gerry
Post date June 21, 2010

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.

Gordon Bok "Peter Kagan And The Wind" — Gordon Bok “Peter Kagan And The Wind”

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.