Category: Folk

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Album Release Bluegrass Collector Concert Folk Local History Music

Bernie Houlahan and Eddy Poirier

CD cover
I don't think it's tea!

BERNIE & EDDY INVITE YOU TO ENJOY THE CUP OF TEA.

 

CD cover
I don’t think it’s tea!

A picture on a CD, from Moncton, ten years ago I would have been sure was trick photography!

It’s a picture of New Brunswick’s veteran king of the bluegrass fiddle, Eddy Poirier, sitting across a circular table from a leading senior folk and Irish music interpreter, Bernie Houlahan, little tea cups raised. Eddy, on the left, a saucer in front of him and Bernie,on the right, an orange and black cat perched. Between them is a teapot….a Brown Betty, no less…objects I would never have associated with either.

Yet, I must admit years ago, whenever I’d meet Eddy at a festival he’s always invite me to: “Come over to my camper and have a cup of tea, We need to talk.”

Funny thing it never was tea. But it was served in mugs. Mugs! Not dainty little china cups!

Here’s another rub, too! They even named this album of six instrumental Irish fiddling tracks… each a medley of two tunes…and six Irish songs The Cup Of Tea- Irish Traditional Music.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise though. Eddy and Bernie have been getting together for years and have played the odd Moncton venue together. And each has always had a great admiration for the other’s musical talents. The surprise should have been that it took so long!

I have listened all night long to Eddy’s fiddle and banjo around campfires at early NB festivals that his Bluegrass 4 staged on the old Shediac Road! And on more nights until near daylight listening to Bernie sing dozens of songs from the inexhaustible repertoire he’s filed in memory during a lifetime dedicated to learning all the beautiful songs and melodies, he’d find, through ceaseless searching.

They’re two of my favourite musicians and people. But, so different in the perception of many who know them. Both driven, however, by the same unquenchable thirst to learn both old or new-to-them music and perform it for audiences in an effort to give such discoveries a deserved new life, the appreciation such treasures deserve!

‘Two veterans of the Maritime music scene,’ this CD’s back notes read, ‘have collaborated on a collection of their favourite Irish music. Although they’ve pursued somewhat different musical paths they’ve always enjoyed getting together to ‘play a few tunes’ around a kitchen table or to appear together in public performance.’

Well, in their words, “ it’s nothing fancy”, but to most of us who have known them since the 1970s this CD is a treasure. A wealth of Irish fiddle tunes…12 on six tracks… with six of the loveliest, and perhaps most enduring, Irish ballads thrown in to sweeten the pot… brew, that is!

The fiddle tunes played by Eddy, Bernie’s guitar backing him, include: Toss The Feathers, Woman of the House, Cup Of Tea (the title theme), Tarbolton Lodge, Home Ruler, Cross The Fence, Jackson’s Morning Brush, Tongs By The Fire, Cooley’s Reel, The Wise Maid, The Peeler’s Jacket and Love At The Endings.

Eddy Poirier has been featured on nearly a hundred albums…lps, cassettes, CDs and, I think, maybe an 8-track or two, over at least four decades. Many of those were as one of the Blue Diamonds during the decade that that quartet of singing musicians were Toronto’s leading country club band. Then he did a few with Smiley Bates, and with his wife Rose and Smiley. Then back home with various alliances of top NB performers called The Bluegrass 4, a number of solo recordings and an unknown number with performers Moncton to Toronto he’s backed at recording sessions in those years.

I first met Bernie Houlahan when he joined our Saint John Folk club in the late 1970’s.. By then he had belonged to several Moncton music groups and during at least one bluegrass flirtation was part of an alliance that brought in such legendary acts as Flatts & Scruggs, Mac Wiseman and others. At that time he was hosting a weekly Moncton radio folk music show that had a long run of nearly 18 years. And Bernie was a part of the Hal ‘n Tow folk trio, from the early 1980s until this past September, with composer, multi-instrumentalist James Stewart and the late, lamented great musican and vocalist John Murphy. For the last twenty he has been a member of the Miramichi’s Comhaltas Irish Chapter, too,

Some of the most treasured evenings of my life have been listening to Bernie and Portland, Maine’s Kendall Morse taking turns dredging up old songs from memory and performing them thrillingly downstairs at a club in Belfast, Maine during folk gatherings yearly .

On The Cup of Tea Bernie sings: The Blarney Roses, Welcome Paddy Home, Lord of the Dance, Bridget Flynn, Galway City and Far Away In Australia.

This great CD was recorded at E.J.P. Studio in Moncton, mi

xed and mastered by Eddy Poirier. For copies, phone Bernie at (506) 389-2042 or Eddy at (506) 384-8655.

Categories
Folk In Memoriam Local History Memories Music

John Murphy, arts community losses

IN MEMORIAM…AMONG THOSE WHO LEFT US IN 2009

Looking back at the year 2009, it seems New Brunswick, the southern half particular, was more bereaved by deaths in our musical community than in most recent years. Among those were:

John with Anna singing at home in Hampton

JOHN DOUGLAS JAMES MURPHY

In September 1975, John Murphy who had immigrated from England a year before, with his wife Pip (Susan), visited The Telegraph-Journal offices. He had just accepted a position as an art teacher in the Saint John area. He wanted to insert a notice of a meeting to form a folk club, such as he’d belonged to in London.

John, as it turned out played guitar and button accordion and had a very distinctive voice. Along with others who had a love of folk music I became a regular. At first it was sing a-rounds but in a few months John decided some were gifted enough to stage concerts. Admission monies raised were pooled, used later to book local name artists for special concerts, Ned Landry, Lutia and Paul Lauzon, Jim Clark and others were early featured stars.These were successful enough that in a couple of years the club was booking such famous acts as Ladies Choice Bluegrass, Stan Rogers, the National String Band, even international acts like Gordon Bok.

Bok, a Camden, Maine, musician and singer was Folk Legacy Records mainstay with over a dozen albums released in the US. A twice yearly link-up was forged between his close-knit group of Belfast to Rockland, Maine performers and our Saint John Folk Club. Out of our club a quartet, Hal an Tow emerged that became the trio of John, Bernie Houlihan and Jim Stewart. They won acclaim here and abroad with a recording, the Marco Polo Suite, for which Jim wrote the score and lyrics. The trio, also, appeared on The National Film Board’s Marco Polo: The Queen of The Seas

Another trio to emerge from our ranks was Dawg’s Breakfast (a.k.a. Exploding Do-Nuts)…Stan Carew, Costas Halavracos and Bill Preeper…all CBC Radio staffers. Preeper and Steve Sellars, a duo, were featured on an ATV New Faces episode, as were Valerie MacDonald, who staged monthly Hampton coffee-houses, and Debbie Harrity. Another trio, Windjammer…Paul McCavour, Kevin Daye and Gayle Vincent (Katie Daye when Gayle dropped out,)…emerged and a Fredericton folk club was a spin-off.

In the mid-1980’s the Saint John Folk Club ceased to exist but remnants continued to interact with the Maine folk-scene.

John Murphy became active in school mural art projects and in school musicals. He also appeared in various local stage productions, involved himself with various local fund-raisers, became active with Amnesty International, visited Africa and helped bring about Hampton’s partnership with the Swaziland community of Piggs Peak.

He died very unexpectedly while driving into Saint John Regional Hospital in mid-September. Those of us who attended a three-day music gathering at his home only weeks before, received the news with utter disbelief. To all appearances John had been his usual imperturbable self, He is already sadly missed not only in Hampton, his home for over 30 years, but beyond. Many from Maine and England attended his Sept. 21 funeral.

A colourful and remarkably detailed mural entitled Article 26: The Right To Education, unveiled Dec 10, 2009 on the Hampton High School exterior has John’s picture at the top with other NB human right luminaries, symbols and visages, depicted across its wide expanse.

JOHN ‘EARL’ MCGINNIS

Canada Day 2009 brought sad news: John, known to most as Earl, McGinnis had died the day before at home in Norton. He was 89 but was one of those people who seem eternal. For over 30 years Earl coached the Norton Kings hockey team and was a die-hard Montreal Canadiens fan. Many of us, however, loved him for his vast repertoire of old Irish ballads, a treasure shared with his brother Willie who predeceased him. Together and individually they were hits at early variety shows in Norton, Hampton and Sussex. Austin, one of his sons, has led a country music dance band in that area for many years. Earl and his wife of 63 years, Beatrice, had two sons and three daughters. Austin’s son Darren, one of Earl’s 12 grandchildren, is now a rising young Canadian country singer with a manager and booker. In recent years Earl frequently joined Austin and Darren to perform on country shows as Three Generations of McGinnises. But for a few of us our most cherished memories of Earl were of him singing The Croppy Boy and other Irish songs at Randy Vail’s maple sugar, pancake nights on Bull Moose Hill. Although his passing left a gap Earl will live on in the memories of all who knew him.

HELEN GRACE SMITH

Another major loss occurred Aug.31 with Helen Smith’s death. She was 88, a petite woman but full of energy and spirit who once at 16, while still with chicken pox, walked five miles across Kennebecasis River ice, Summerville to Drury Cove, to play with Don Messer at a 1937 Saint John concert. Although only four-foot six, never more than 70 pounds and a widow, she had lived in her own Long Reach, Kingston Peninsula home until a week before her death when she moved to Kings Way Care Centre, Quispamsis. Friends described her as ‘comical, the life of the party and someone drawn to music like a magnet.’ She played ukelele first then guitar. Later she studied fiddle with Winston Crawford and was a member of the Maritime Fiddle Association. Her son Fraser, a singing guitarist and daughter Sylvia Campbell, a yodeling singer, who plays guitar and fiddle, organize the Long Reach Kitchen Party concerts. Helen performed on one just before moving to Kings Way. It was the second 2009 Smith family tragedy: Fraser’s son, Evan, 23, died in a snowmobile accident Feb.28.

ALLIE B. PRATT

Allie Pratt, is another that is impossible to imagine gone, even though she was 84, I had talked with her at a Tom Connors concert just weeks before her death Oct.1. She had invited Carol and I to her next Allie Oop music weekend, a gathering of musicians and fans at her home in Lower Greenwich. They were events that often saw over 300 show up to camp and enjoy barbeques, meals and music. Allie played several instruments and only two weeks before had received a standing ovation at the Grand Bay KBM. She was a CWAC staff car driver in WW 2. At the time of her 1972 retirement she had served 38 years as operator/supervisor with NBTel. I met Allie at the early Valley Jamborees which she often video-taped. We had been her guests at dinner theatres and restaurants

ROBERT ‘BOB’ CRAWFORD

Well-known, multi-instrumentalist, Bob Crawford, passed away at his Sussex home on Dec.22 with his wife Helen, sons Shaun and Christopher, brothers Winston, Frank and Richard there to mourn. I first met Bob at a Saint John fiddling competition: he was his brother Winston’s guitar accompanist a role he reprised just months later when Winston won a Maritime Fiddling Championship in Dartmouth. A bout with polio when he was four resulted in Bob walking with a limp but he never let it slow him down. He was energetic and resourceful in both his daytime employments and the music which fueled his zest for life. Bob enjoyed playing with numerous musical friends in duos, trios or multiple bands but especially as part of the Crawford Brothers & Friends and with his sons. Over the years he taught many to various instruments. He was just 61 when he died, after a six month battle with cancer.

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Categories
Country and Western Folk Local History Memories Movie History Music Music History Writing

US Influence on Canadian Country Music

In my childhood, Wilf Carter was the only Canadian I heard on radio

From October 28, 1983

Any examination of Canadian Country Music would have to take into account the enormous influence of early American Country performers. In my childhood, Wilf Carter was the only Canadian I heard on radio;  later of course by 3 years came Hank Snow,then  Don Messer with Charlie Chamberlain, Duke Neilson and Ned Landry, but all the rest were US singers, morning, noon, suppertimes  and late nights. Soap operas and The Happy Gang ( they were happily, Canadian) took up radio afternoons and into the evening dramas and comedy sketches the length of the diual from 7 p.m. to midnight. There was Fibber McGee and Molly, The Shadow, Amos and Andy and all other fabulous situation character epics that made up radio’s golden age.

Early mornings, in Eastern Canada, you could hear the WLS National Barndance stars such as Linda Parker, Bob Atcher and Bonnie Blue Eyes from six a.m.; perhaps you could hear them earlier but that’s when my father usually turned the radio on and I awoke and knew I had another hour before I had to get up for school.

At noon there were live or transcribed US country music shows and at suppertime, mixed with the news broadcasts, nearly every station had a request country music program.

There were singers like Jimmy Rodgers, Hank Snow’s avowed patron saint for whom he named his only son, Jimmy Rodgers Snow and Gene Autry who made” Silver Haired Daddy of Mine” a stock song of nearly every country singer in Canada. There was blind Georia-born tenor Riley Puckett, whose many solo recordings  included “Rock All Our Babies to Sleep”, later recorded by WIlf Carter and which is reputed to be the first disc to feature a country yodeller. Gid Tanner’s Skillet Lickers created an international hit with “Down Yonder” and Jimmy Davis gave the world “You are My Sunshine” and won an election as Governor of Louisiana in 1944 with it. He inscribed it indelibly in every Canadian country singer’s repertoire for many years to come.

Then late at night there was WWVA Wheeling with all-night disc jockeys and live music mixed. Saturday nights were special; that’ is when you could tune in the great WWVA World’s Original Jamboree with such top country personalities as Doc Williams whose “Old Brown Coat And Me” was recorded by many Canadians; Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper who made “Walking My Lord to Calver’s Hill a show finale with many Canadian  travelling groups; Lulu Belle and Scotty who wrote and recorded “Good Old Mountain Dew”, “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You” and other great international country favourites.

Earlier on Saturday Night there was the Duke of Paduca, Amer’ca’s crown prince of country comedy and the inspiration for many Canadian travelling shows comedians; Judy Canova had her own radio program and who became the prototype of numerous standup girl comediennes both American and Canadian; Red Foley the first country star  to have his own US network TV show.

Countless great US country music stars crowded the dial including the Grand Ole Opry with Roy Acuff who made the “Wabush Cannonball” as well known in Canada as in the US.  (I’ve even heard a Norton area place name version of it.), Ernest Tubb, a Jimmy Rodgers disciple who arranged Hank SNow’s Grand Ole Opry debut and those two early bands, the Crook Brothers and the Fruit Jar Drinkers who inspired and influenced the creation of many early Canadian country bands. There was an endless procession of  performers, each possessing his own magic. Never to be forgotten either are the National Barndance Saturday night roster, Patsy Montana, the girl who wrote “I ant To Be A Cowboy’s Sweetheart” and was the inspiration of a host of Canadian girl singers such as Terry Parker and Marie King. Irene was Arky The Arkansaw Woodchopper who sang many lumberjack songs familiar to Eastern Canadians and America’s favourite comedian for two decades,  and on and on.

How could any single Canadian fledgling country singer not have been influenced by them? It would only have been possible to escape the i9nfluence if he or she had been raised in a completely isolated backwoods area without radio or phonograph.

I lived in a veyr rural section of N.B., ten miles by horse and wagon to the nearest town. Neither electric lights nor pavement reached us but the telephone did. We had the last phone on the line and it was my job toi run up Jordan mountain and “hollar” the message across to our neighbours.

Yet we did have a battery radio, one of the old timers, operated by a pack of telephone “round cells” . And we had entertainment over it that not even the King of England or the most wealthy potentate in the east could have commanded 30 years earlier in spite o  their power and riches.

That was the first wave of American influence, you might say, the radio wave.

Then there were the movies….the “B” Western was 100 per cent American.

Ken Maynard was the first cowboy to sing on the silver screen. The songs he did were rough, rowdy renderings of authentic western plain songs such as “Get Along little doggie”, “The Trail to Mexico” and “Home On The Range”, songs almost every Canadian was soon singing.

He was followed quickly by Gene Autry,. Maynard featured Autry in his first movie rold “In Old santa Fe” (1934). He brought to celluloid the rest of the Jimmy Rodgers  school of song writing and singing with professionally written songs, professionaloly staged and sung with phantom strings and choruses that seemed to issue from the sagebrush, probably from a vand of hidden Cherokees.

After him came a host of others, including Roy Rogers, Jimmie Wakely, Tex Ritter, Dick Foran and many more. There had to be a musical interlude or two in all these movies. It seemed to be an unwritten law; it was part of the receipe of success.  Those who couldn’t sing pressed the services of Bob Nolan ( a boy who grew up in N.B, and who wrote “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” “Cool Water”, “Wanderers of the Wasteland” and dozens of other classic western songs) and the Sons of the Pioneers, or Roy Williams and the Riders of  the Purple Sage, or a number of other groups of their kind who, in the guise of cowpunchers or dance hall performers, would gather at the round-up campfire or the parlor social hour to sing the latest western hits or a newly composed song the group had written for the occasion.

How could anyone not be influenced? Nearly every radio program record and movie bore the “made in the USA” stamp and most Canadians consumed a large portion of them daily.

Categories
Folk Visitors

After the Spinney Brothers concert in Norton

After the Spinney Brothers concert in Norton (more than great bluegrass, a group that can entertain with a variety of  songs) … friends treated us to a few folk songs … a perfect ending to a terrific night.

folk music and tea, a perfect combo
folk music and tea, a perfect combo
Categories
2008 Performers Country and Western Festival Folk

Buffy Sainte-Marie to Open 51st Miramichi Folksong Festival

All the lights of Broadway don’t amount to an acre of green,
And I’m gonna be a country girl again.

gtbuffy08smEntrancing, wild, jubilant … like no voice I had ever heard before! So beautifully controlled yet so primitive in its passion, evoking visions of native village fires of long ago!

That is how I felt on hearing Buffy Sainte-Marie on radio in 1964 for the first time. It was a voice I required daily doses of for the next dozen years, as she released 12 vinyl LP records and two ‘best of” doubles, which I quickly acquired. Each had its treasures, the plaintive lamenting of Now That The Buffalo’s Gone, the wild exuberance of Cripple Creek, the beautiful soaring intonations of Gonna Be A Country Girl Again and the eerie haunting falsetto of Vampire…so many creations of her pen that no voice but her own will ever imbue with the same magic!

Then she released number 13, Sweet America, in 1976 and, as unheralded as she appeared on charts internationally, she vanished from the recording scene. It left me grieving I had not seen her live in concert, that, although born in Saskatchewan, she had never appeared this far east.

But that is soon to change! A bulletin from Susan Butler lists Buffy Sainte-Marie as headlining the Official Opening Concert of the 51st Miramichi Folk Song Festival, August 4, 7 p.m. at that city’s Civic Centre.

Born on a Cree reservation in Qu’Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, Buffy, orphaned in infancy, was adopted by relatives, Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie, and raised in Maine and Massachusetts.  Musically gifted she taught herself piano and guitar at an early age and on graduating university with a PHD in Fine Art and Oriental philosophy and teaching degrees, she quickly became known as a writer of protest songs. In 1962 Buffy hit the concert trail, booking her own venues and traveling alone, playing universities, First Nation community centers and concert halls.  In 1963 appalled by Vietnam campaign wounded returning, she wrote Universal Soldier, which included on her debut Vanguard album, It’s My Way, quickly climbed singles charts, leading to her being voted Billboard magazine’s Best New Artist in1964.

As well as her own phenomenal chart successes that followed, numerous songs she penned,like Until It’s Time For You To Go and Piney Wood Hills, became block buster hits for Barbra Streisand, Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, Bobby Bare and Donovan among others.

By age 24, Buffy had toured Europe, Asia, Australia, the US and Canada, was showered with awards, medals, and many honours. And, although, opting to quit recording in 1976 she embraced children’s TV, joining the Sesame Street cast for five years.

Involvement with writing, Aboriginal teaching, computers and art followed.

In 1992 she recorded Coincidence & Likely Stories and in 1996. France named her Best International Artist in 1993 and the United Nations selected her to proclaim 1993 International Indigenous Peoples Year. Induction into the Juno Hall of Fame came in 1995. In 1997 she won a Gemini Award Up Where We Belong, released in 1996, and was made an Officer Of The Order of Canada. A resident of Hawaii for many years, she limits herself to 20 concerts a year so the Miramichi is greatly honoured. It’s her only NB concert…so don’t miss it!

Tickets are now available at Books Inn and Bill’s Kwikway, Miramichi Stitching Post, Bathurst, by calling Susan Butler at 506-662-1780, or emailing bb2@nb.sympatico.ca

Categories
2008 Performers Album Release Blues Folk

Jackie Washington, Mose Scarlett and Ken Whitely

George Hector’s Son Jim Amazed by Jackie Washington

jackiecd11
Jackie Washington CD cover

I called Jim Hector in November about a matter not music related but found him still excited by a TV concert he’d seen days before. Jim is one of the late George Hector’s sons, NB’s legendary banjo man, “Had I heard of Jackie Washington?” he asked.

“The other night there was this guy Jackie Washington singing a song I never heard anyone else but my father sing..Save The Bones For Henry Jones. I never thought I’d hear it again!” Jim is a blacksmith who travels the province, when able, shoeing horses at riding stables, race tracks, and at many private owners barns. And although semi-retired due to a severe back problem he still manages to keep active. In fact, for decades Jim has been almost as popular with equestrians as his father was by music fans.

George Hector of the Maritime Farmers
George Hector of the Maritime Farmers
Or as George’s other son Ed, a mechanic, was with vehicle owners. The Hectors, including Jim and Ed’s sister Rhoda are a diversely talented family. “Another guy on that show sang He’s In The Jail House Now,” Jim said. “Another song Dad sang!” “Guy with a short black beard? I asked. He nodded.

“Mose Scarlett,” I said. “There’s a guy with a white beard usually with them, too…Ken Whiteley. But Jackie’s the only one, I guess, owns a razor.“ “He was there too,” Jim said.

“They record for Borealis,” I said, “Canada’s leading folk and blues label. They’ve CDs out solo and as a trio.” Jim’s enthusiasm rekindled mine. This trio of folk-blues singing musicians are so infectious, I’ve long intended reviewing their CDs but never, until now, found a window to do it.

Jackie Washington has recorded two CDs at the Borealis Toronto studios.

One titled Midnight Choo Choo includes such vintage favourites as: Street Of Dreams, Little Dutch Mill, Dinah, Triscadecaphobia, Where Did Robinson Crusoe Go (With Friday On Saturday Night?), Alabamy Bound, Save The Bones, the title song and ten more that, probably have haunted your dreams for years!

And, although Jackie does all lead vocals, his trio partners contributed their multi- talents along with 14 other musicians including J.P. Cormier on fiddle. His other Borealis CD, Keeping Out of Mischief, is a 19-track album, also, that includes such nostalgic hits as: At Sundown, Girl of My Dreams, Foolish Questions, Blue Turning Grey Over You, Drifting,Old Folks, Take The ‘A’ Train, the title song, a powerful version of Everybody Will Be Happy Over There, and 11 more. Ken backs him on guitars, mandolin, organ, piano, harmonies, Mose guitar, and another 13 musicians that include Nashville’s sensational dobroist, Jerry Douglas.

Mose Scarlett CD

Mose Scarlett is one of a kind! His self-taught guitar finger-picking defies categorization or comparison. Dubbed ‘stride guitar’ by experts, it’s so syncopated it beguiles. And over and under it slides one of the most unique, emotional bass baritone voices you’ll ever hear. It can reach to the basement of the vocal registry, yet come up floors so effortlessly without a pause.

Mose’s Borealis Precious Seconds CD, is a 15 song album running a time line from 1912’s the I Used To Love You But It’s All Over, to 1917’s Darktown Strutter’s Ball, 1918’s Somebody Stole My Gal, 1921’s Anytime, 1925’s Bye Bye Blues, 1927’s My Blue Heaven, 1935’s Lulu’s Back In Town, up to 1975’s Don’t Go Lookin’ For Trouble and Mose’s own catchy Muscatel Tale. In between are wedged Sweet Lorraine and four others including the longest version of He’s In The Jail House Now, I’ve heard.

Ken Whiteley CDS

Ken Whiteley is a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording history is long, both as a solo artist, dueting with brother Chris, in trio with Scarlett and Washington, or with Gospel choirs. Ken plays mandolin, piano, ukulele, washtub and acoustic bass but the magic instrument in his hands is his National steel body guitar with its haunting dobro sound. He has a wonderful natural singing voice, that he can turn into a forceful gospel or blues instrument. Of three solo CDs he’s issued on Borealis my favourite is Musical Mystery Machines, a project of Mariposa In Schools that matched him with children performers to create learning programs for school curricula. Ken uses only his natural voice on this CD, enhanced by intriguing sound effects and a thrilling child chorus.

Another, Gospel Music Makes Me Feel Alright, recorded Live, into which he poured his soul. is emotional. You can feel the prophetic fervor of a Billy Graham in his voice on such songs as Let My Life Be A Prayer, the title song, Voice Of The Lord and Wilderness. But Traveling On sung in his natural voice is my favourite.

The Trio ‘s Borealis CDs

The trio’s three Borealis CDs … Where Old Friends Meet, We’ll Meet Again and Setting On A Rainbow…are the most beautiful and captivating folk blues I’ve heard. Their blended talents make rarities like Lady be Good, Mood Indigo, When You’re Smiling, Wait ‘Til The Sun Shines Nelly and dozens more, sparkle like new, take your breath away.

To learn more visit www.borealisrecords.com or phone 1-877-530-4288. Check out Ken Whiteley’s new One World Dance CD, too.