Six String Nation

Map Makers

2011-12-08T09:41:00.001-05:00

Not surprisingly, I met Alex Miller - president of ESRI Canada - at last year's conference of the Association of Canada Lands Surveyors in Yellowknife. ESRI is a world leader in GIS (Geographical Information Systems) technology. The world's first GIS was developed in Canada for the Ministry of Forestry by Dr. Roger Tomlinson back in the 1960's.

Basically, GIS is a way of layering different kinds of data on maps. It's how we come to recognize patterns in everything from disease to demographics, from consumer habits to military maneuvers. And what is Six String Nation in not a map of Canadian history, culture, music and memory layered onto an acoustic guitar?

I'll be doing a couple of presentations for ESRI Canada in the coming year but I was very pleased last night to launch the series with a small event at the Kingbridge Centre with a handful of ESRI staff and clients. Following a delightful dinner, I did my presentation for the assembled guests and ESRI employee Peter Miller (pictured) finished things off with a couple of Neil Young tunes. Nicely done!

If you want to see some GIS in action, check out ESRI's free ArcGIS app for iPhone/iPad and for Android devices.

Special thanks to Alex and Mary-Charlotte Miller. Thanks also to Alia Kotb and my great team at the National Speakers Bureau, especially Soniya Tolani and Kimberly Biddlecombe.

Suddenly Stephanie

2011-12-04T10:20:00.000-05:00

Stephanie Marshall (pictured) has been a long time friend and a long time supporter of the Six String Nation. I've known her as a new media producer, MBA student and now communications executive but of late she's revived an earlier aspect of her character: the singer-songwriter.

I was away for her public re-debut at the Free Times Cafe a few months ago but that's OK because it meant I got to provide Voyageur for her to play for the first time in public at her special birthday show at Graffiti's in Toronto's Kensington Market last night.

Just to build the suspense, bandmates Nathan Bishop and Vivienne Suen each took a turn with Voyageur first before Stephanie finally closed the circle on a decade's worth of support for this project. It was a sweet moment.

On the way home, we stopped in at friend John Oswald's new gallery/bar called Art + Drinks. John is one of the world's great electronic music pioneers and theorists so it was extra fun to finally put this acoustic guitar in his hands!

Among Old Girls and New

2011-11-30T17:45:00.002-05:00

Among the "Havergal Old Girls" - alumni of one of Toronto's more prestigious private girls' schools - is friend Margie Zeidler, now head of the UrbanSpace Property Group, who are behind two extraordinary buildings in Toronto that support artists and social entrepreneurs. An invitation from Margie back in 2004 lead ultimately to the extraordinary connection with the community on Haida Gwaii and the acquisition of the piece of the amazing Golden Spruce that is in many ways the face and voice of Voyageur.

So it was an extra pleasure today to be the keynote speaker for Havergal's Partnership Day - a day dedicated to encouraging students to think about the ways they can make a difference in the world. Music teacher Paul McCulloch had written a song for Voyageur just for the occasion and scored it for the school band and orchestra with student Elie Park playing Voyageur for the assembly.

It was an amazing day and an honor to be among some other extraordinary guests who came in to inspire the students, including pal Mark Kingwell, Bishop Mark MacDonald - Anglican Bishop for Canada's Indigenous Peoples - and civic engagement guru Dave Meslin.

Very special thanks to the day's organizers, old friend Ann Peel and new friend Jocelyn O'Connor (pictured) for inviting me to be part of the day. Thanks also to principal Dr. Susan Groesbeck and all the staff and students at Havergal.

Hard to Forget: Ariana Gillis

2011-11-25T00:20:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to mention that one of our favorite people in SixStringNationdom, Ariana Gillis, has a new CD out called "Forget Me Not". We attended the launch tonight at Hugh's Room and it's such a pleasure to see her extraordinary talent blossoming as it is.

Those who have followed Six String Nation for a long time will know that Ariana first played Voyageur back on June 8th, 2007 at the Zooma Zooma Cafe in Jordan Village Ontario. Her father/guitarist/music-director David Gillis invited us to be part of the show with himself and Tony McManus as the main event. Ariana - then aged 15 - played a short set and I was absolutely blown away by her songwriting skills then. It was clear she was going places and I think the new album is clear evidence of that. It's attracted the attention, famously, of Elton John lyricist Bernie Taupin and one of the great rock and roll writers of all time, Dave Marsh.

I'm very proud that Ariana performed at the launch of the Six String Nation book (which makes a great Christmas gift, BTW) and I hope you'll check her music out and help make it the success it deserves to be!

Photo by Doug Nicholson.

Stan Rogers Rides Again

2011-11-19T12:44:00.003-05:00

Stan Rogers was the quintessential Canadian troubadour. So many of his songs have entered the cultural vernacular as if they were born from the land itself - instant "traditional" tunes ("Northwest Passage", "Mary Ellen Carter", "Barrett's Privateers" to name just a few). And, of course, many people encountering Voyageur have chosen to sing Rogers' songs with this guitar in their hands. Stan died tragically in 1983 during a cabin fire on the tarmac of Cincinatti airport so he and Voyageur never had a chance to meet - though they certainly had the same kind of outlook on Canadian history.

So I was delighted to provide Voyageur for Paul Mills - the producer of Stan's records - at last night's "Tribute to Stan Rogers" concert at Hugh's Room, featuring Mills, Ariel Rogers, Rick Taylor, Arthur O'Brien, Tannis Slimmon, Fred Jorgenson and Laura Smith. Paul (pictured) lead the second set on Voyageur with Rogers' "Working Joe".

Although Voyageur won't be part of the show tonight, if you'd like the chance to discover (or rediscover) the music of Stan Rogers, they're hosting a second night at Hugh's Room tonight, November 19th.

Special thanks to Paul Mills, Tannis Slimmon, Ariel Rogers and Holmes Hooke.

Warble, What About a Water Bottle?

2011-11-06T22:11:00.003-05:00

If you see me somewhere, ask me to tell you this joke - the second gem I've received from the amazing Scottish guitarist Tony McManus. Tony first played Voyageur in 2007 at a show with David Gillis in Jordan Ontario and we've been in conversation ever since about finding the right occasion to combine forces again. This was the weekend.

Every year, Tony hosts a guitar masterclass/retreat with special guests in his beautiful hometown of Elora Ontario. This year's special guest was the extraordinary Don Ross, who also has a storied history with Voyageur, as does one of Tony's regular masterclass attendees, David Neale - one of Six String Nation's most dedicated and key supporters.

A public concert is part of the retreat and last night at the Elora United Church I was invited to start the show with my presentation. Tony, Don (fresh in from a gig in Moscow) and David all played Voyageur as part of the show. The camaraderie of the evening moved from the church to the pub and resumed again this afternoon (following a sumptuous brunch) at the masterclass headquarters. I'm sure they eventually got some guitar playing done.

Thanks to Tony, Don, David and all the attendees of the McManus Fall Seminar (pictured - Tony holding Voyageur, Don Ross right behind him), Minister Greg Smith-Young and sound man Ed. Thanks also to Wiggitt Hall B&B, Roger Dufau and the staff of Drew House, and everyone who attended Saturday night's concert. I'll look forward to a return to Elora!

Bill Bourne, Come on Down Here

2011-11-02T23:47:00.002-04:00

That title is actually a reference to one of my favorite songs, "Rain" by the wonderful Bill Bourne. Bill's history with Voyageur and Six String Nation goes way back. He used the guitar to lead 40 artists and thousands of fans for the traditional finale of the Edmonton Folk Festival in 2006 - a sing-a-long version of Ian & Sylvia's "Four Strong Winds". In 2009 he played his song "Pie & Ice Cream" on Edmonton's CITY TV Breakfast Television show with Voyageur. And some of our favorite portraits of all time are with Bill at the EFF and at the 2007 OCFF Conference in London ON.

So I was delighted when Bill got in touch last week and let me know he was coming to my neighborhood to do a show at Hugh's Room and, well, could Voyageur come out to play? Anything to put it in his talented hands!

It was a great night all around, starting with a brilliant opening set by the Selina Martin Triage but the special bonus was two additional guitarists playing with Bill - both long time friends of the project - Madagascar Slim and Pa Joe. Bill, Slim and Joe are all pictured in the book so a couple of audience members got all of their signatures as well as mine. Incidentally, this time, Bill (pictured, left) played "Voodoo King" with Voyageur and it sounded great supported by super tasty licks from Slim (R).

Thanks to Bill, Slim, Joe, Selina, Kevin Lacroix, Christian Hurst and Colin Puffer.

English as a Six String Language

2011-10-29T14:06:00.000-04:00

Ever since doing a very small presentation at the ESL Book Shop for my friend, owner Cheryl McCarron, I've had this wonderful sort of link to the ESL community, who see in the Six String Nation a great tool for their work. After all, part of acclimatizing new Canadians is not only improving their skills in English but also giving them a rich sense of the history and culture of their adopted country - and teaching through Voyageur brings all of that into play while at the same time embracing whatever their own musical traditions might be.

My internal clock being off balance from my trip out west actually worked in my favor as I rose early to be at this morning's TESL Ontario Conference. As I was trying to find correct room at the Sheraton Centre, the volunteer with the clipboard - seeing my guitar case - kept insisting that maybe I wasn't in the right place but once the organizers found me and got me to the City Room, there's no question I was where I was supposed to be. The presentation went really well and the reception was phenomenal.

The guitar was played by John Stevens, Carlos Medina ("Here Comes the Sun"!), Geraldine Alvarez and guest ringer Michelle Rumball (pictured), who was also celebrating the release of her new CD, Welcome to the Beauty Saloon.

Special thanks to Cheryl McCarron, Stephanie Wolf and Mohammed Hashemi.

Swing Across Canada

2011-10-28T23:52:00.002-04:00

I know this jet-lag will catch up with me sometime in the next 24 hours but so far it's been kind of exhilarating. We arrived home from our 10-day west coast trip last night and I spent most of today preparing to host the second of Katrina Anderson's Swing Sets series at Gallery Fontana Swing.

Tonight it was a new configuration of Lisa Patterson's ROAM project. I've known Lisa for many years so it was great to have the short interview with her at the top of the show, which is a feature of the Swing Sets.

The new line up is a trio with the members of Rakkatak - that's tabla player Anita Katakkar, guitarist/bassist Oriana Barbato and Lisa (L-R) with Voyageur in the picture. Oriana played the guitar for a couple of songs at the end of the set and it was great to hear it adapt to her more flamenco/nylon-string style of playing.

All in all a lovely, intimate and supremely musical evening. But a late one - and now it's off to bed to be up early for a presentation to a group of English-as-a-second-language professionals tomorrow morning at the Sheraton Centre!

Thanks as always to Katrina Anderson. Thanks also to Gary and the other volunteers.

The Main Event

2011-10-26T16:10:00.007-04:00

Well, today was the driving impetus for our trip out west: the Engage 2011 National Speakers Bureau Showcase. It's an annual event where the NSB puts some of its speakers in front of their regular clients. It was an honor to be asked to do the Toronto edition last year and Vancouver this year.

Former parliamentarian Deborah Grey was the host and I shared the stage with some amazing speakers, including Bif Naked, Trevor Linden, Bricker and Wright from Ipsos-Reid and bestselling author Joseph Michelli (pictured). Deb Grey called me and the guitar "a national treasure" and lead the room in a spontaneous rendition of "O, Canada" and Michelli (bless his heart) referred to Six String Nation repeatedly throughout his own presentation.

It was a really great event but what sent it over the top for me was the performance on Voyageur at the end of my presentation by international finger-style guitar champion Don Alder, who did simply an amazing performance of his instrumental, "The Wall", written while he was at the Great Wall in China with his day job as tour manager for Man-In-Motion Rick Hansen. Following the performance, Don presented me with an original Man-In-Motion tour button and another souvenir.

Here's hoping that the showcase helps bring us to more Canadians!

Special thanks to Perry Goldsmith, Theresa Beenken and all the staff at NSB, the VanCity Theatre staff, Don Alder, Joseph Michelli for the dedication in his book and all the other speakers and attendees.
Thanks to John Hamilton, Anita Hutchinson, Paolo Pietropaolo, Natasha Aziz and baby Mela and the Air Canada flight staff for a great trip to and stay in Vancouver.

Front and Surrey Centre

2011-10-25T23:38:00.002-04:00

I had been hoping to do more school visits on this trip but a current job action among teachers in British Columbia has meant it's been almost impossible to bring any special program into schools. Almost. Lucky for me, one of our biggest champions is Paul McCabe, president of Roland Canada, who is very active as a parent in his own kids' school, Surrey Centre Elementary. Paul (pictured, left) took on most of the organizing work - not to mention setting up the gear and running the sound.

Students, staff and parents all came to the gym for the presentation and a performance by Gordon Davies (pictured, right) - a fantastic player and guitar teacher at the nearby Heritage Music School - who even managed to get a little Bryan Adams in. One day we'll have to get him on this guitar too.

And hopefully the labour dispute will be resolved soon and we can come back to BC to have a whole bunch of school visits as good as this one was.

Special thanks to Paul, Tracy and the whole extended McCabe Family who attended, Gord Davies, principal Barbara White and the staff and students of Surrey Centre Elementary school.

Fan Tan Return

2011-10-22T14:51:00.000-04:00

It's great that my friend John Hamilton has loaned us a place to stay in Vancouver but we haven't actually spent that much time there yet! After our two days/one night in Seattle, it was on to Victoria. There are lots of great reasons to visit Victoria - apart from it being a rather pretty place. My sister, niece and nephew are there for one. The pacific oysters are amazing. And of course, Voyageur includes a piece of Fan Tan Alley - Canada's First Chinatown - in Victoria. It's also the home of Lisa Cole, one of Six String Nation's biggest fans on the west coast. Last time in Victoria, Lisa organized a concert event. Yesterday, it was an in-store appearance at Long & McQuade on Hillside Ave.

I'm not sure they knew quite what to make of us at first, but we just kind of set up the screen and projector in the central space there and pretty soon 25-30 people had gathered around to hear the presentation and meet the guitar. It turned out to be a really great event and we made lots of new friends. One of those new friends was Bruce Ruddell. Patricia Costa Kim at the EMP in Seattle had told me about Bruce's work with the Seattle Symphony and I called him up wanting to get in touch with him about his oratorio, "The Spirit of Haida Gwaii". Luckily, he lives in Victoria and came out to meet me and Voyageur and was so inspired by the encounter he suggested he write a new work for the guitar!

Thanks to Annalisa, Neil, Callum, Anika and the Willows Park Grocery, Lisa Cole, Bruce Ruddell and the staff of Long & McQuade Victoria (pictured).

Experience Seattle

2011-10-19T19:16:00.003-04:00

We're on the west coast! I'm doing a presentation in Vancouver next week but I figured we'd spend a bit more time and try to justify the jet-lag with some other meetings and events. Today was the first of these and it was a real adventure: the second trip by Voyageur to the U.S.A.– to Seattle WA.

Nothing official... yet, of course, but the director of education at the famed Experience Music Project Museum had been turned on to the Six String Nation project by my friend Kathleen Pirrie-Adams and wanted to meet me and the guitar and bluesky about doing something with it there in the future. It was a great meeting and already some things are starting to bubble under the surface that I hope I'll be able to tell you more about in the near future.

If you haven't been to EMP, it's an extraordinary experience. The regular interactive exhibits are pretty amazing on their own, as is the permanent guitar exhibit; but we were fortunate to be there for not only the "Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses" exhibit - which was great - but also the "Battlestar Galactica" exhibit in the part of the museum that's the Sci Fi Hall of Fame. Plus, of course, the building itself is one of Frank Gehry's most vivid and whimsical signature buildings and worth the visit all on its own.

Thanks to Patricia Costa Kim and the staff at EMP, Kathleen Pirrie-Adams, Polly & Dave and the Cylons for not turning me into a robot (.... or did they?)
Photo of Voyageur and me in front of EMP by Sarah Gillett.

Hanging at Hillcrest

2011-10-14T16:02:00.002-04:00

I first met Ottawa teacher Jeannie Hunter two years ago at the Ontario Music Educators Association Conference. We did a portrait with her there and then another in Ottawa on Canada Day the following summer. She had me in for a presentation at her previous school and when she heard I was going to be in Ottawa this week she invited me to present at her new school, Hillcrest High School.

It was one of the most attentive high school groups I've ever encountered – never more so than when three of their classmates (Calven Aula, Emmett MacKay and Michael Harris, pictured L-R) got up to play at the end of the presentation.

Yearbook photographers were on hand to take pictures of most of the students who came up to meet Voyageur so I look forward to seeing a preview.

Thanks again to Jeannie Hunter and all the staff and students at Hillcrest High School in Ottawa who came to see and be part of the presentation. I look forward to seeing you all again!

Planning for a Good Time

2011-10-13T22:22:00.003-04:00

A while ago, I received an email from my friends at the National Speakers Bureau about an October engagement in Ottawa addressing the OPP. I immediately started looking through our portrait database looking for pictures of police officers with the guitar (there are a good half dozen at least) to include in the presentation. Then I looked more closely at the email and saw that it was actually not a conference of the Ontario Provincial Police but rather the Ontario Professional Planners Institute (OPPI).

As a matter of fact, I'm very interested in the work of urban planners so it was a real treat to address the group. As usual, many people came up afterwards to tell me their own stories connected to Voyageur: the couple from Thunder Bay amazed that the Hoito Restaurant was in the guitar; the woman who had been a tree planter and visited the Golden Spruce before it was felled; and the photographer whose uncle (Kenny Mosdell) had been Rocket Richard's roommate on Habs road trips in the '50's (Kenny is also the only guy to have his name misspelled 4 times out of 5 on the Stanley Cup!); and the gentleman who had just heard about Six String Nation from his daughter whose school I visited just a week ago! It never fails to amaze me the connections that just seem to spill from every encounter with this guitar.

Thanks to the OPPI delegates and staff including Sue Cumming, Denis Duquet, Loretta Ryan and Rory Baksh (pictured) who brought Voyageur to life at the end of the presentation, Jacqui Sullivan at Absolute Events for setting it all up, technicians Wayne and Nathan and photographer Greg Teckles.

Feeling the Love at Cawthra Park

2011-10-07T14:41:00.001-04:00

Teacher Mary-Ann Fratia had been trying for some time to get the Six String Nation presentation at her school, Cawthra Park S.S. in Mississauga ON, and today was the day. In fact, it was the DayX2 as I did two back to back presentations for different grade groupings.

First off, Cawthra Park has an enviable auditorium set up - really nice - but it wasn't just the venue that made today so special. In both sessions, I felt a really great commitment and attention from the students and I think they really connected with the stories in and about the guitar - lots of great comments after the presentations. Also, it's a very diverse school and is known for its arts programs so who knows? May be it was a function of those things?!?!?!

Suffice to say that I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Cawthra Park and very much enjoyed the young musicians who brought Voyageur to life - 2 in each session - including Blake (last name coming), Richard Xu, Jon Butcher and Zining Wang (pictured, who played a great version of the Gary Jules arrangement of Tears for Fears' "Mad World").

Very glad to be part of International Cultural Diversity Day at Cawthra Park.

Thank you to Mary-Ann Fratia, Principal Jane Michalak, the tech support crew, the musicians, Don Ablett, Ian Pettigrew and all the staff and students at Cawthra Park S.S.

First Ride on the Swing Set

2011-09-25T15:15:00.002-04:00

My friend the music teacher, Katrina Anderson (aka artist Fontana Swing) has been running an amazing little invitational concert series in her beautiful studio space on Carlaw. We'd done a Six String Nation presentation there a while ago with Kurt Swinghammer and Lindy and she wanted to somehow involve me in the this upcoming series. We came up with the idea of the SWiNG SeTS, where I would do a brief interview with the artists at the top of the show and guitarists among them would have the opportunity to play Voyageur during their set.

Last night was the first concert in the series, featuring two artists I've known for longer than I'd care to admit: guitarist, composer and environmental sound-sculpturist Mark Sepic and genius of the harmonica Carlos del Junco. Each took a couple of spellbinding solo turns but mostly it was great to see the rapport of a 20-year musical relationship in action.

Mark lead off the second set with a version of the "Hockey Night In Canada" theme played on his hockey-stick-xylophone and then picked up Voyageur for a duet with Carlos on Bruce Cockburn's "Momma Just Wants to Barrelhouse All Night Long". Mark and I had been talking for ages about getting his hands on this guitar so it was a lovely moment, a great song to do it on and a brilliant accompanist in Carlos.

Thanks to Mark & Carlos, Katrina Anderson, Hailey Knight, Jennifer Moore, Kevin and Daniel and everyone who came out and filled the room at Gallery Fontana Swing. Next show is October 28th with Lisa Patterson's ROAM project. Visit the site for more info.

A Golden Meeting

2011-09-19T20:27:00.005-04:00

In 2004, Dr. David Suzuki first told me about the legendary Golden Spruce of Haida Gwaii and alerted me to John Vaillant's article about it in the New Yorker magazine. Suzuki also introduced me to key people in the community on Haida Gwaii and the long adventure began of obtaining the only piece ever taken from the murdered tree that is now the top, the face and voice of Voyageur.

By the time we travelled to Haida Gwaii for that historic expedition, Vaillant's article had expanded into an extraordinary book, The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed, and picked up a Governor General's Award for non-fiction. John and I had spoken by phone and corresponded by email in advance of the trip and following. And we kept missing each other at festivals and author's events in the years since then.

This afternoon, thanks to George Brown College - who had booked John into an event at the college which had to be cancelled due to a labour dispute - we were guests of the college at a special lunch held at the Gallery Grill at the historic Hart House at U of T. I'd always fantasized about being invited to one of Lewis Lapham's famous lunches for Harper's magazine and this felt a bit like that - a lively, literate conversation over a delicious meal. But it also proved to be a remarkably emotional meeting once I cracked the case and put Voyageur into John's hands. While I was looking forward to finally meeting John face to face, I hadn't anticipated how profound a moment it would be for me to see that moment of the Golden Spruce guitar in the hands of the author who had put so much of his life into the story of the death of that tree and to hear it resonate as he played a slow blues.

Deepest thanks to John Vaillant and to our wonderful hosts from George Brown College: Michael Cooke, Camilla Wheeler, Donnalu Macdonald and Gary Kapelus - who also provided the photo.

Remembering Jack in Music

2011-09-13T08:35:00.004-04:00

Last night at the famed El Mocambo was partly a tribute concert for Jack Layton from the music community that supported him for years and partly a transmission mechanism to transfer some of that momentum to Ontario Provincial NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who was the official host of the evening.

I got a call from Davenport MP - and founder of early Toronto punk band L'Étranger - Andrew Cash, who asked if I would bring Voyageur to the event for him to play. I was only to happy to do so. And it was great to be among other friends of the project including our pal Hawksley Workman who may be the only artist to have played Voyageur in three different cities: Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary. I let him know about Luke Gillett's great performance of "You and the Candles" at Niagara College and he was delighted.

Andrew Cash opened the proceedings with Voyageur and then called me up to say a few words and I showed our Jack Layton portraits on the screen behind us. Then Kevin Fox came up to accompany Andrew and Voyageur on cello for the next couple of numbers - that's the two of them pictured at right - before starting his own set. You might remember Kevin for accompanying Steven Page at the Layton state funeral proceedings. I also remember that the last time he accompanied Voyageur was at Hugh's Room behind Derek Downham and Andy Kim.

I had to leave by the end of Hawksley's set in order to prepare for some meetings this morning for which I'm already about to be late. But thanks to all the artists who participated.

Thanks to Andrew Cash, Andrea Horwath, Dianne, Laurie and Frank from the NDP team, Fote from the ElMo and everyone who came out to the show.

FROM THE LOST SUMMER TO LOST WEEKDAYS - PT. 3: Falling for Niagara

2011-09-04T15:09:00.003-04:00

We hit the road out of Caesars Windsor at 11:30pm Tuesday night – exhausted from the morning drive and long day on our feet at the event – but due to set up at Niagara College at 6:30am Wednesday, so sleep was out of the question. Instead, a stop for gas and a record-time drive to Niagara-on-the-Lake, arriving at the Hilton Garden about 3:20am - followed by a 20-minute check in due to some absurd computer difficulty at the front desk. A refreshing 2 hours and 15 minutes sleep later and Doug and I were up and at 'em on campus.

The occasion was an annual pre-start-of-school event called Niagara Days that celebrates the institution and the people who work for it and gets them primed for the coming semester. However, two clouds hung over the proceedings: the sudden passing on July 2nd of Christopher Michael, the college's young Chair of Academic Studies and the pending OPSEU strike of Ontario College support workers with the vote to be held that very night. While either could have been an overwhelming distraction, instead they seemed somehow to bring enhanced weight and poignancy to the event, including my presentation and the portrait sessions. Again, the photos of Jack Layton brought spontaneous cheers and several people reported being in tears for much of the presentation.

Three players brought Voyageur to life at the end of the presentation: Dr. Marc Nantel led things off with the Harmonium tune "Pour un Instant", Prof. Twan Savoia finished with a "Horizons" (for all you Genesis fans out there) and Luke Gillett (pictured) took the middle spot with a perfectly executed version of Hawksley Workman's "You and the Candles" - not an easy song to sing by any means but carried of with aplomb!

The line up for portraits began the second the presentation was done and lasted for several hours. Everyone was in a fantastic mood. Things would not be the same 8 hours later when the strike was called and college support workers across Ontario walked off the job. Hopefully, the portraits will be processed and distributed just in time to announce a settlement. Good luck to all concerned and thanks for coming together for the Six String Nation if not quite on the negotiations.

Special thanks to Valerie Grabove, Shari Carpenter, Tom Otto and our awesome volunteers - including Luke Gillett who also got the ball rolling on our invite to this event.

FROM THE LOST SUMMER TO LOST WEEKDAYS - PT. 2: Gambling on Windsor

2011-09-03T13:55:00.001-04:00

I have never before been to Canada's southernmost city, Windsor Ontario. I have some friends from there but still all I really knew was that it was across the river from Detroit Michigan (though, paradoxically, actually southeast of the American city) and that Windsor had zero murders over the last year compared to Detroit's 350 or so.

We came into Windsor along the 401, following directions to the CBC building on Riverside Drive. Looming before you as you drive is the Ambassador Bridge and we kept thinking "Have we gone too far? Will we wind up on the bridge? Will we still have a chance to turn and stay in Canada?". And there it is – a turn-off at the last moment and spread before you like a Robocop postcard is the Detroit skyline. You couldn't be any closer to a city and not be in it. Appropriate, then, that Bob Steele's afternoon show is called "The Bridge" and our first order of business in town was an in-studio interview there, which you can hear online here.

From there, it was on to Caesars Casino Windsor where – strange as it may seem – we were invited to present as part of an educational conference hosted by the Greater Essex County District School Board. They had booked out most of the conference space in the south tower and students attending were escorted past the gaming floors to the conference rooms and displays. The set up was fantastic and we started by doing an hour or so of portraits before the proceedings began. The presentation (as I mentioned in my previous post) completely energized me and went over exceedingly well. It was capped with performances on Voyageur by students Jesse Ropat and Sierra Shaw (both pictured) and then we proceeded to do further portraits with just about everyone in attendance. The line-up lasted a couple of hours and we began our load out around 11:00pm – a long day that was about to get even longer, as you'll hear in my next post.

Special thanks to Clara Howitt, Theresa Williams, Jackie Connelly, Cathy Pitre, Sarah Boonstra, Dwayne Teskey, Steve McLaughlin, the University of Windsor Bookstore, the Herman High School Band and our amazing volunteers at the portrait station.

From the Lost Summer to Lost Weekdays - Pt. 1: Tumbleweeds

2011-09-02T13:46:00.000-04:00

I confess this summer was a bit of a terrifying drought, event-wise. Normally, each weekend is a new adventure at a new festival in a different part of the country. We get to put Voyageur into thousands of new pairs of hands at our portrait station and we hear it come to life on stage with a new crop of musicians at each venue. It's also how we earn a living and attempt to address the debt that is the founding legacy of the Six String Nation bestowed upon us by Bev Oda right out of the starting gate.

So as distressing as it was not to have any income in what had become our bread-and-butter season, I found that even more distressing was the lack of connection with people. No matter how down I may be feeling about the state of the Nation and the prospects for its continuance, the feedback I routinely get from the people we meet in our travels acts both as a booster shot for my belief in what the whole project is about and an inoculation against depression brought about by the same struggle faced by most people working in the arts in Canada.

The passing of Jack Layton – who had certainly been a friend to the Six String Nation project – was a sad end to a sad summer. And yet the message he left us all and the outpouring that it inspired did implant a renewed vigor and sense of purpose about what it means to share this guitar, the stories it contains, the communities it reflects, the diverse citizenship and the extraordinary country it celebrates with as many people as possible.

And so, after making my own pilgrimages in Toronto and the shared experience of the state funeral last weekend, I checked in at my local Avis to pick up the car that would carry photographer Doug Nicholson and me to our only two events of the summer one day and several hundred kilometers apart in Windsor and Niagara respectively. They were each inspiring in their own way. At each, the portraits of Jack with with Voyageur drew huge cheers and each replenished my psychic reserves and put into practice Jack's final admonition to be "loving, hopeful and optimistic".

It was actually an exhausting couple of days and I am now writing this post facto with a very poor WiFi connection in a very good bookstore in New Liskeard, Ontario called Le Chat Noir – not far from Cobalt (from which a piece of famed silver adorns Voyageur's first fret) and from our family cottage at Bass Lake where I'm trying to put the summer in perspective. So I will likely come back over the next couple of days to complete the tale of Windsor and Niagara and the summer that almost wasn't.

In Honour of Jack Layton

2011-08-22T22:46:00.006-04:00

Like millions of Canadians, I've been riveted to the web and TV today for news about the passing of Jack Layton, Leader of the New Democratic Party and of the Official Opposition in Parliament.

Those who know me know that I was sympathetic to Jack and his brand of politics but my sense of him as a person goes far beyond politics - as it did so clearly for so many people of every political stripe in Canada. He was a genuine person. A real mensch with a real smile and a real ability to connect with people.

Naturally, he was there at our photo session with Voyageur on Parliament Hill but he also simply showed up at an event I held at the Lula Lounge in Toronto in 2006. His enthusiasm for the project was personal and heartfelt and it was an honor not only to put the guitar into his hands but to stand with him for a couple of portraits. See the full set of images here.

His presence in the political arena in Canada was refreshing and inspiring and his absence will be deeply felt. Our deepest sympathies to his family and friends. And to all Canadians who felt, like Jack, that we could have a better, prouder, fairer, more inclusive country - it's up to us to carry on his vision. See the full set of images here.

New Piece has us Over the Moon

2011-08-20T17:19:00.009-04:00

For a long time I'd wanted to recognize the Canadian Space Program somehow in the guitar - perhaps a piece of the CanadArm or something? Of course, I was delighted to find out that Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield was an avid guitar player as is fellow astronaut Dave Williams. In fact, Chris managed to get a Larrivée guitar from Vancouver up onto the International Space Station for all the pickers up there!

Col. Hadfield will be heading back to the ISS in November 2012 as part of a six-month expedition that will see him as the station's first Canadian Commander. Through our mutual friend Paul Mills, I proposed that maybe he could take Voyageur with him. Paul even thought we might be able to do the first album recorded in space with the Six String Nation guitar. Unfortunately, with the demise of NASA's Shuttle program, journeys to and from the ISS are now accomplished with Russian Soyuz Space Capsules - even more cramped for cargo and subject to rougher landings (splash-downs) than the shuttles.

So, sending this Voyageur to space is out of the question but at least there's the Voyager space probe and we'll still aim to get the guitar into Col. Hadfield's hands upon his return (he's now in training). In the meantime, Chris has very kindly sent us his (curiously, guitar-pick-shaped) Mission Patch (pictured) to be installed in the case as well as a very kind handwritten note that reads:

"Jowi: From one musician who dreams on a national scale to another - I salute you! - Chris Hadfield"

Thanks to Col. Hadfield and Paul Mills.

The Other Part of Canada Day

2011-07-01T11:15:00.006-04:00

Herb Davis usually has his portrait taken with Voyageur on Canada Day, not least because of his connection to the piece from the Christmas Seal floating clinic from Newfoundland that's in the guitar: his mother was a nurse on board. I'd asked about the Blue Forget-Me-Nots on his lapel and that has lead to this important addition to Voyageur's guitar strap, especially significant today.

On July 1st, 1916, at Beaumont-Hamel France on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the Newfoundland Regiment (established in 1795 and fighting under a British flag) launched an assault on German defenses. Within 20 minutes, the regiment was virtually wiped out. Of the 780 men who went forward only 110 survived unscathed – a devastating 90% casualty rate. On September 28th, 1917, King George V bestowed upon the regiment the "Royal" prefix. When NL joined confederation in 1949, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment became part of the Canadian Forces. On August 30th, 2010, Corporal Brian Pinkson died of his wounds after being injured by an IED in Afghanistan – the regiment's first combat fatality since WW1.

All of this means that July 1st in Newfoundland always begins with a memorial before turning into the Canada Day holiday and it's a sacrifice I think it's important for all Canadians to recognize. I'm very proud that the shoulder tile and ensignia of the RNR are now mounted on the strap next to those of the PPCLI. And while we're not engaged on Parliament Hill as per usual this year, we're there in spirit and recognizing both aspects of July 1st.

Thanks to Lt. Col. Alex Brennan and the Royal Newfoundland Regiment with help from Herb Davis. Thanks also to Robert Chafe for being the first to tell me about the significance of Beaumont-Hamel.

Long on the Latitude

2011-06-26T14:26:00.003-04:00

Spent yesterday at the Latitudes Storytelling Festival in Kitchener ON. The festival occupies a corner of a larger multicultural festival in Victoria Park, which at times threatened to drown out the lower key nature of storytelling but I was glad to be there just because storytelling is really what the Six String Nation project is all about.

We managed to get the projector and sound set up going for the first presentation for a small but highly attentive group in the first tent, where fellow guest artist Michael Kelly Cavan brought Voyageur to life with a couple of Canadian classics, "Four Strong Winds" and "Hallelujah".

Had some nice conversations with people for a while on the bank of the nearby river after the performance and then made my way to the kids tent where cushions were strewn all about for the little ones. This presentation attracted a much bigger crowd of kids and adults and - as always with my presentations for children - there's a lot more interaction as I prompt kids for answers about Canadian facts and engage them in a Quiz at the end.

Michael was on standby again for a version of "Baby Beluga" and "Puff the Magic Dragon" but first one of the dads in the audience stepped up to play something. Turns out it was Rob Covens (pictured here with his daughters), a fellow alumni of CKLN Radio in Toronto from back in the 1980s!

Thanks to Carol McLeod, Marguerite, Julian, Matt and the volunteers at the festival.

Here Kitty, Kitty - Where's the Wildcat ???

2011-06-23T05:47:00.003-04:00

As you may know, there's a piece of the historic Wildcat Cafe on the face of Voyageur (in the stem part of the half maple leaf pick guard). We had kind of a homecoming at the Wildcat when we were in Yellowknife in 2009 and I'd figured on another pilgrimage this trip but when I went to the Wildcat, there it was: gone! (as the saying goes).

Turns out that the 1937 construction of the Wildcat's foundations were much less surefooted than the building's namesake and it had become increasingly unstable in recent years. Now, for the second time in its history, it's getting a reprieve from the wrecking ball. It is currently undergoing a complete and total reconstruction. A team headed by Rick Muyres, an extraordinary craftsman and bridge builder based in Norman Wells NWT, has taken the building apart piece by piece - with every log and slat and beam meticulously marked and recorded. The foundation is being redone and then each piece will be treated and restored and assembled back into their original form and order. If you'd like to follow the process, Yellowknife photographer Fran Hurcomb has an excellent photodocumentary blog of the restoration.

Assuming all goes well, the Wildcat Cafe will re-open in May of 2012. Until then, you can still get a great meal in Yellowknife's Old Town just around the corner at Bullock's Bistro. It's a bit expensive but treat yourself to a great experience and the best fish & chips made from lake-fresh pickerel, trout or arctic char that you've ever tasted.

For all the hospitality in Yellowknife on this trip, thanks to Lynn Feasey, Air Canada, the Association of Canada Lands Surveyors, CKLB, CBC Yellowknife, the Explorer Hotel, the Yellowknife Book Cellar and everyone in town who made Voyageur feel so at home.
Photo by Loren McGinnis.

Over All that You Survey...

2011-06-22T13:58:00.008-04:00

If you've been following the blog, you'll know I've been in Yellowknife since last Friday and managed to pack in quite a bit. But my actual reason for being here was today at the Explorer.

Back in November of 2009, we traveled to Fort St. John, BC to do some school sessions, some portraits and a public presentation and multiple artist show (with the wonderful Dayna Manning and others) at the Lido Theatre. The guy responsible for shuttling us around town was Richard Redfern. Richard was a surveyor by trade and thought the presentation would be perfect for his association's upcoming conference in Newfoundland. We spoke to the organizers and agreed to do the gig but couldn't make it work for St. John's, so we planned eighteen months out for Yellowknife. Today was the day!

It was a wonderfully appreciative audience who had perhaps a better sense than most of the relationship between the land itself and the people moving about on it! And for their guitar-playing ringer, they convinced former NWT Premier Stephen Kakfwi to do the honours. The honour was mine. I've met quite a few musician-politicians by this time and I do believe he had the nicest voice of all of them. Maybe he was right to quit politics for music - wonder if Charlie Angus and Andrew Cash will make the leap back some day?

Thanks to Jean-Claude Tetrault, Jeffrey Fee, Richard Redfern, Stephen Kakfwi, Ryan and Rick on tech, and Matt, Kathleen and Judith from the Yellowknife Book Cellar.
Photo by Lynn Feasey, Points North Creative Inc.

Oh, and Happy Solstice Too!

2011-06-21T23:09:00.003-04:00

National Aboriginal Day happens to fall on the solstice - the longest day of the year - as does my dear Sarah's birthday.

So, while I'm not with my special partner on her special day, I am in a pretty special place on a pretty special day - nowhere better to experience the longest day of the year than in the land of the midnight sun. In fact, this picture shows just what it looks like at midnight in Yellowknife!

Happy Birthday Sarah, Happy National Aboriginal Day and Happy Solstice.

National Aboriginal Day

2011-06-21T20:44:00.004-04:00

Very frequently, people call this project the Six Nations Guitar. And very often, I'm asked if I am First Nations myself, since there is so much First Peoples' history built into Voyageur. Of course, the project is actually called Six String Nation (think Fast Food Nation, Leaf Nation, etc.) and I'm not of aboriginal heritage myself but I am nonetheless proud of the First Nations and Métis stories that are included in the guitar and proud of the First Nations and Métis friends and communities who contributed to its construction and the First Nations and Métis artists who are among the thousands who have brought Voyageur to life through music.

The whole point of this project was to be a reminder that we are doomed as a country if we fail to recognize and celebrate our own history and culture and we are equally doomed if we limit the picture of ourselves simply to French-speaking and English-speaking donut-munching, beer-swilling hockey fans. We come from all over the world and we just have so much more to offer the world.

In many ways I think Canada's aboriginal peoples are the perfect model for that. For the most part, the larger society doesn't know their history, their cultures, their contributions or their artists and they fall victim to the worst kinds of stereotyping and marginalization. Canadians in general suffer from this lack of recognition in the rest of the world. By the same token, the renaissance of local history and culture on Haida-Gwaii is a model for all Canadians as well. It is robust and diverse and modern and dynamic and speaks proudly and profoundly to the whole world, as so many Canadians of all backgrounds demonstrate every day. Canada is a better place because of its aboriginal people in spite of the often tragic and shameful history of that relationship. National Aboriginal Day is an occasion to reflect on that relationship and renew it in ever more positive ways for the future.

So on this day, let me thank the Dene, Dogrib, Gwich'in and Inuit people who have been so welcoming here in Yellowknife and recommend John Ralston Saul's Fair Country and Ian Gill's All That We Say Is Ours and wish you all a happy National Aboriginal Day!

Celebrity Spotting, Yellowknife-style

2011-06-20T16:57:00.000-04:00

After my appearance on CKLB this morning, I went back to Lynn Feasey's place where she's been putting me up on the couch since my arrival in Yellowknife last Friday. But today is the day I check into the Explorer Hotel for Wednesday's conference so we borrowed Saied's Subaru again to move me over.

Just as I'm taking the guitar case and luggage out of the hatchback, a young couple breezes past coming out of the hotel. The guy is in Canadian Army fatigues but I recognize the woman as Tanya Tagaq. I first met Tanya 7 or 8 years ago at the Stan Rogers Folk Festival in Canso, NS, where - with nothing but her voice - she brought a whole tent full of people to tears (including me) and we shared part of the trip home. She was delightful. Since then, of course, she's gone on to combine her remarkable voice with other media and with artists from Bjork to Bobby McFerrin to the Kronos Quartet. And here I just bump into her on the street - such is Yellowknife!

While she was excited by various parts of Voyageur I showed her, I was especially pleased to be able to show her the muskox horn on the guitar's rosette, which is from her hometown of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.

And there was something for her beau too! Captain Casey Balden has a pretty remarkable story of his own - including his service in Afghanistan - and he was a truly lovely guy to meet. And he's a member of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry - whose shoulder tile and insignia is mounted on Voyageur's strap.

Return to Greenland

2011-06-20T14:20:00.002-04:00

William Greenland is the Director of Radio and an on-air host at CKLB - Aboriginal Radio in Yellowknife NWT. I was his guest on my first trip to Yellowknife for Folk On the Rocks around this time in 2009 and I've proudly displayed my CKLB bumper sticker on Voyageur's case ever since.

I'm in town this week for an event on Wednesday but I've come early to hang out and meet all kinds of new and old friends in Yellowknife (see the last few days of blogs!) and that seemed like a good enough reason to come back on the show.

William played the guitar a little bit during the show as he did last time and then presented me with an eagle feather he's carried with him to events across Canada, to Europe and even to Tunisia. I will find a way to work it into the case somehow.

On my way out, had a nice little chat with Lawrence and Marlene and it was great to meet them too.

Thanks to William Greenland, Hilary Bird, Lawrence Nayally, Marlene Grooms and Saied Mushtagh for the wheels!

Midnight Sun

2011-06-19T16:47:00.006-04:00

I've been seeing a lot of it here in Yellowknife because you're never quite sure when to go to bed. I assumed I'd be going to bed after posting last night's blog from the Explorer Hotel but it was not to be...

I was enticed to swing by the Black Knight pub after the thing with Rick where a few local musicians were playing upstairs. It was the reunion (ironically) of a band called The Break Up. When I arrived, drummer Tina Roy was out from behind the kit doing a solo set and she used Voyageur for her last couple of songs. She's originally from Sudbury and told me I'd brought the guitar in to meet her good friends at Innovative Guitar Ideas there a few years back. There's that big-country/small-world thing again!

Then the whole band came on. It's fronted by Mel Leonard (of whom we got a fantastic bunch of portraits with his infant son when we were here for Folk On the Rocks in 2009) and Amanda Dei, who used Voyageur for a couple of songs. Then they invited up a special guest who was in the house: 2010 Juno nominee Digawolf (pictured) whom I'd met very briefly last year in Major's Hill Park on Canada Day. Diga is a powerful performer with the most amazing growl of a voice and he took Voyageur for a serious spin on stage with members of The Break Up backing him up. We spoke for a while in the break and he's coming to Toronto in the fall to record his next album (all to be sung in the Tlicho language he's working hard to preserve). I hope I'll be able to coax him out to Parkdale for a set at Not My Dog. And just maybe we'll be able to convince them to rename the club Not My Dogrib for the night!

Mel Leonard played a Joel Plaskett song on Voyageur to end the first set and I headed out into the only slightly dimmed sunshine to make it to bed by 2:00am.

C'est What?

2011-06-18T23:30:00.004-04:00

Producer John Hamilton in Vancouver heard I was headed to Yellowknife and let his friend Rick Poltaruk (pictured) know I was coming. It just so happens that Rick and his band The Relics were playing at the closing night ceremonies of the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association Conference at the Explorer Hotel and I offered to come by. As it turns out, the Relics’ bass player is Gary Tees, brother of John Tees, whom I met yesterday on the Trails End show at CBC and the drummer is Norbert Poitras, the host - small world. But it gets smaller....

We sat through the various speeches and presentations - including a wonderful reading by northern poet and storyteller Jim Green. For the benefit of many of the people in the room, the proceedings were instantaneously close captioned by a couple of women whose work was amazing to watch. As the band was setting up and I was bringing up Voyageur in its signature marigold Calton Case, the head translator came up to me and said “Is that the Six String Nation guitar?” Her name was Catherine Siegler and she’s the CEO of Accurate Realtime Reporting and she had seen my presentation at a house concert put on by Robert Burns at his in-laws' place in West Vancouver a couple of years ago. And then it twigged for me that Robert’s wife does the same simultaneous captioning work. Small world, eh? But it gets smaller....

So Rick is a terrific player and he plays a couple of tunes on Voyageur to start the set and then I’ve got to split. So I’m packing up the guitar and one of the delegates comes up and he looks a bit familiar. “Hi Jowi, my name is Brian Marshall and I was your driver in St. John’s Newfoundland when you spoke at the AFofM conference there”.

Canada. Big country. Small world!

Trails End in Yellowknife

2011-06-18T13:34:00.002-04:00

It's great to be back in Yellowknife. I'm here for an event next Wednesday but Folk on the Rocks Artistic Director Lynn Feasey suggested we might be able to generate some additional community events in the lead up. We gave that process a bit of a boost yesterday with a visit to Norbert Poitras' show Trails End on CBC Radio.

As a total surprise, Norbert had pulled down the audio from the previous post, the Mack Edwards song "Your Voice" and used it as the lead in to the interview. That marks the official radio debut of the song and I'm thrilled that it happened here in Yellowknife.

The other delight of the interview was meeting John Tees (pictured) who came in to do me the honour of playing Voyageur on the show. It was great just hearing him tuning up - a terrific fingerstyle player. He did a couple of songs including one in the Hawaiian slack-key style - one of my favourite kinds of guitar music.

Had to sleep with a mask on last night since the sun doesn't go down - it's a bit disorienting. But hopefully I got enough rest to meet Rick Poltaruk with the guitar tonight at an event at the Explorer.

Thanks to Norbert Poitras, John Tees, Lynn Feasey and Saied Mushtagh. Photo by Lynn Feasey.

Sharing "Your Voice"

2011-06-16T22:22:00.003-04:00

So glad I got sent this link today before heading off to Yellowknife in the morning.

So, this is the video made by students at Algonquin College of the song written by Mack Edwards in the recording program there using lyrics written collectively among about 75 students from the Peel District School Board. It's called "Your Voice" and I'm just thrilled with the results. In the event that anyone wants to commercialize the song, proceeds will go to the Coalition for Music Education.

Everything Old Is New Again

2011-06-11T10:15:00.006-04:00

Had a night out without Voyageur last night but in various ways it all tied back to the Six String Nation.

Friends Jason Schneider and Wendy Rofihe had invited us to come out to the re-launch of Jason's book (with Michael Barclay and Ian Jack), "Have Not Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance 1985-1995", at Lee's Palace, with guest performances by King Cobb Steelie, Sarah Harmer & Weeping Tile and Kevin Kane of Grapes of Wrath.

We arrived in the 'hood early enough for dinner at Guu Sakabar (always entertaining!) and then before we headed into Lee's we popped down the alley to make sure mayor Rob Ford hadn't painted over the Six String Nation mural by Kedre Browne and Jessey Pacho (aka Bubblez and Phade) on the back of the building.

Although someone has tagged a bit of the guitar, the mural is in tact. I'm so proud of this tribute and my continued thanks go out to Kedre, Jessey, Lee's Palace, Luminato and Scott Mills of the Toronto Police Crimestoppers unit. Photo by Sarah Gillett.

In the Cathedral

2011-06-09T16:05:00.001-04:00

"Cathedral" is a pretty good name for a Catholic High School but this one - in Hamilton ON - actually lives up to its name in the design of the central atrium where I did this morning's Six String Nation presentation. It's a large school, almost with the appearance of a university building inside where all the floors are built around this huge vaulted central pit with tiered blue-carpeted platforms facing a stage and screen. The whole set up, I'm guessing, really lends a very special sense to whatever proceedings might take place there - it sure felt that way for me.

Today's players were one teacher (Mr. McPhee) and one student (Olivia Brown, pictured). McPhee started with Neil Young's "Heart of Gold" and then Olivia joined him for a beautifully harmonized duet of "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World". After that, McPhee handed Voyageur to Olivia and she ended the program with one of her own songs. That's something I always love to hear.

Thanks to Luana Tabone, the teacher who organized my visit to Cathedral, Principal Cannon and the other helpful staff and students who made it such a terrific morning. Special thanks to student Marie Sison, who presented me with a beautiful pencil-drawing of Voyageur. Thanks also to Linda Lannigan from the Fix Our World festival and Dolores Anderson at Mariposa in the Schools.

Making Sport in Mount Albert, Part 2

2011-06-05T14:27:00.005-04:00

If you've studied the cover of the Six String Nation book at all, you'll know that one of the people depicted holding Voyageur is bluesman Paul James. The picture was taken at the Mont Tremblant Blues Festival a couple of years ago but he didn't actually get to perform with the guitar at that time. Last night Paul headlined the Mount Albert Sports Day event so it was our chance to right that omission.

I've seen Paul play certainly dozens - possibly hundreds - of times over the years, including early shows at Albert's Hall and Harbourfront and it's always a pleasure to watch him play. He's also a tremendously sweet guy and it was a real honour and pleasure to hear him sing "Deep River Blues" using Voyageur last night in Mount Albert (pictured).

From there, a quick bash back to downtown T.O. to catch the last few songs in the reunion set by the Brothers Cosmoline at the Cadillac Lounge. Great to see them all on stage together again and good to talk after the show with Stuart Laughton and Rebecca Campbell (after my encounter with Teddy Leonard earlier in the afternoon - it was very much a Porkbelly Futures kind of day). And that - coupled with Paul James and Paul Reddick connections during the day - was a great reason to think of our lost friend Paul Quarrington.

Thanks again to Bob Delaney and his good pal Gary for the BBQ oasis in Mount Albert and of course to the Paul James Band.

Making Sport in Mount Albert, Part 1

2011-06-05T13:45:00.005-04:00

The village of Mount Albert ON has been around for about 160 years. For the last 86 of those years they've been holding an annual spring fair with a bunch of competitive games including baseball and horseshoes. Yesterday, Six String Nation was invited to be part of the festivities.

A forecast hinting at possible showers in the morning was the definition of understatement as thunder and torrential downpours made for a very soggy set up. None of this was able to dampen the spirits of organizer Bob Delaney, though, who made sure we had whatever we needed - including a couple of fantastic volunteers.

Various local folks came up to get their portrait taken as well as visiting musicians like our good pal Paul Reddick and his guitarist Teddy Leonard, singer-songwriter Sue Wood, Neil Young tribute performer Lawrence Christopher and rocker J. Englishman - who was actually doing sound for the event as well.

We packed up the portraits in the late afternoon and I did a short presentation in the beer tent. It was intended to end with a couple of songs from J. Englishman but we had time and lots of interest so it turned into a bit of an open mic with a few audience members getting up to do a song on the little stage as well.

Thanks to Bob Delaney and his team, volunteers Jaimie and Debbie, MC Stu, J. Englishman, James Elliott and Elli Hingert.

Something New to the Table

2011-05-30T12:15:00.002-04:00

In March of 2010, I was approached at the Canada 150! Conference at the National Arts Centre by Patricia Thompson from YMCA Canada. She and her team had been inspired by the Six String Nation and enlisted me to help develop a project for the Y based on similar principles.

After several meetings and some serendipitous introductions, almost exactly one year ago today, I was invited to YMCA Canada's AGM at Geneva Park to announce the "Table Project" initiative. I have to admit, while I wasn't tremendously involved in the process, I did check in regularly. At the AGM, there was great enthusiasm for the idea that each of YMCA Canada's 53 independent associations would contribute some material that would be crafted together into a new boardroom table for the national office - symbolizing both the individual history and contribution of each association and their collective strength and cooperative potential. The concern was whether they could channel that initial enthusiasm into a great collection of pieces that told stories from each of the associations.

We needn't have worried. For one thing, many of the pieces that came in were just terrific. For another, I was fortunate through my friend Melanie Egan to have matched the YMCA with the remarkable Brothers Dressler design team from Toronto. If anyone could pull this off it would be them. And pull it off they did. The table is an absolute masterpiece. I confess I got a sneak peak last Tuesday but had to keep it under wraps until the table was unveiled at this year's AGM at Geneva Park. All reports are that the table got an overwhelming reception from everyone attending and I'm sure it will provide a touchstone for YMCA Canada's member associations from across the country for many years to come. I'll post more info as it becomes available.

BTW, Pat Thompson - pictured here at the table with Jason (L) and Lars (R) Dressler is not kneeling down and is a person of average height!

Mack finds his "Voice"

2011-05-27T23:45:00.001-04:00

Just a few weeks ago, several groups of students involved with the Peel Regional Heritage Fair at Brampton City Hall collaborated on a song lyric entitled "Your Voice" resulting from a series of workshops we did together. Knowing I was going to be at Algonquin College in Ottawa for the College Association for Language and Literacy gathering, I took a shot in the dark and asked organizers Jean Timbury and Jack Wilson if they thought students at their shop might be able to do something with these lyrics.

Well, it just so happens that Jean and Jack thought it fit their goals of collaborative learning through the arts and it just so happens that Algonquin College has a brand new recording studio program under the direction of Colin Mills and it just so happens that Algonquin College communications manager David Hall knew how to put the two together and it just so happens that a talented young student in the program named Mack Edwards (of Ottawa's The Woody Allens) got some inspiration from the lyrics and this afternoon it all came together in the studio.

I did a brief presentation about Voyageur on the studio wall and then the students experimented with a variety of mic'ing and D.I. configurations before Mack committed a few takes of "Your Voice" to ProTools and we have our recording. The event generated enough buzz that Sandra Abma from CBC Television came down to do a piece on it - it was great to see her again. Our old friend Peter MacDonald from the OCFF also showed up with kids Kate and Neil in tow. One of our favourite portraits is of Peter and Kate taken when she was about 3 and she's about 6 now so it was a great reunion.

Mack did an awesome job with the song. It's getting some post-production treatment over the weekend and hopefully I'll have something to link to or otherwise reveal early next week.

Thanks to Mack Edwards, Colin Mills, David Hall, Jean Timbury, Jack Wilson, Roger, Kevin, Andrew and the rest of the recording studio and communications team who helped make the day such a success. And thanks to all those students in Peel who are now officially songwriters!

Heeding the CALL

2011-05-27T21:26:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, Mohammed Hashemi - the ESL book author whose "O Canada" includes a bit about Six String Nation - suggested that I try to get to the annual CALL (College Association for Language and Literacy teachers) Conference, held this year at Algonquin College in Ottawa. By coincidence, Alexandra MacLennan and others at George Brown College in Toronto who had just hosted me there, were part of the organizing committee for CALL and helped swing me the invite.

Many of the attendees had already had to make their way back home so it was a group of about 40 I addressed this morning at Algonquin but it was an extraordinarily attentive and receptive group. It doesn't matter how many times I tell the story behind some of the pieces of Voyageur, the right audience will make it an exceptionally emotional experience for me - and believe me, this one was tough to get through.

Kevin Mallory (pictured) was the teacher who volunteered to play at the end of the presentation but several others got a bit bolder once the performance pressure was off and we were just hanging around talking, taking pictures and signing books.

Very special thanks to Jean Timbury and Jack Wilson along with the George Brown College gang, volunteers Anna, Tina, Erica and Hari, technicians Sam and Pete and all of the teachers at this year's gathering of the CALL educators.

Hey there, Missy!

2011-05-26T23:47:00.002-04:00

I'm in Ottawa attending a gathering of teachers at Algonquin College for the College Association for Language and Literacy. They held a dinner prepared and served by students in the hospitality program and then they turned to a little entertainment. There were a few stories brilliantly told by Mary Wiggin and then she turned the mic over to Missy Burgess (pictured). Now, Missy had played Voyageur a couple of years ago - briefly - at an Ottawa-area house concert I did with Rick Fines. This time it was all hers.

After opening her set with a couple of tunes played on her Gibson, she took up Voyageur and fell in love with her all over again. In her wonderfully textured voice, she sang three great songs - including her own beautiful and tender "Blue Sweater" followed by Charlie Sohmer's "Take My Possessions" and Justin Rutledge's "Lay Me Down Sweet Jesus".

It was great to hear her take her time with the guitar at last. It was a sweet match.

Thanks to Missy Burgess, Jack Wilson, Jean Timbury, Pete and Sam and the staff at the International Restaurant at Algonquin College.

Halton Educational Assistants Association

2011-05-26T10:00:00.004-04:00

In every school there are kids with special learning needs due to a variety of physical, developmental and behavioural challenges. I've met a few of these kids during our work in schools and I know the Six String Nation project has managed to reach a few of them to special effect but it is nothing compared to the Educational Assistants who work with these kids every day. Last night was their annual dinner where they get some hard earned recognition for the amazing work they do and I was proud to be invited to deliver the keynote presentation for the evening.

I let them know weeks ago that I'd be looking for someone to play Voyageur at the end of the presentation and word went out across the network. It turns out that the husband of one of the association members had been following the project for a couple of years and - even better - had been developing his guitar playing talent in retirement playing in a band called the Random Roads.

Ian Jarvie (pictured) has a full-on Scottish accent - that was one reason he stood out. He was also one of the few men in the room, so that was another. It all leant a bit of a Tom Jones atmosphere to his performance (no, it didn't go quite that far) and I'm sure most of the women in the room fell in love with him a little bit for the first two love songs he performed. But he wrapped up with a tune really suited to his voice that got all the other voices in the room going as well: The Proclaimers' "500 Miles" (ba-da-DA-da, ba-daDA-da...) It was a great finale to a great evening.

Thanks to Lynne Gurzi, Donna Lavery, David Orser, Ian Jarvie, technicians Mike, Rick and Doug, the staff at the Burlington Convention Centre and all the Halton Educational Assistants who came out for the evening. Thanks also to Kathy MacRae at the National Speakers Bureau.

Stratford Curtain Call

2011-05-21T18:57:00.003-04:00

The plan was to head back to Toronto after my late-morning presentation at Music Sebringville but, as I mentioned, I got word that John Till had called during my presentation and wondered if there was still a chance to see Voyageur - which he'd only just learned about from his brother-in-law, Rick Taylor.

Naturally, I wanted to meet John PLUS it was a great excuse to pop into the intriguing coffee shop I hadn't sampled yet on this trip, Revel Café right next to Allen's Alley, which had the most extraordinary ice-coffee contraption you've ever seen. John and his wife Dorcas came to meet me in front of the cafe while Charlie McEvoy rode his bike for cancer in the front window (I donated while picking up my iced espresso!)

John and Dorcas were such a lovely couple and it was such a delight to meet them and give them the little tour of Voyageur. After doing a few pictures with the two of them on the street, John and I headed down the Alley where I took a few more pictures while John played the guitar in front of the picture of his early band, The Revols, which existed before John (R, in the mural) joined Janis Joplin's Full Tilt Boogie Band and bandmates the late Ken Kalmusky (L) joined Ronnie Hawkins' Hawks and the late Richard Manuel (C) joined Bob Dylan and The Band. What did I say in an earlier post about Stratford?!?!?!

Wow - to think that the guy who played guitar on Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee" played Voyageur under his own portrait. That is a great curtain call for this trip to Stratford.

Thanks once again to John & Dorcas, Rick Taylor, Dayna Manning, Barry Payne, Foster's Inn, Music Sebringville, Don Shipley, Ann Swerdfager, John A. Miller, Mitchell DHS and Bedford Public School for such a great lead in to the May long weekend.

In the Market for Music?

2011-05-21T17:35:00.000-04:00

Today was my final event on this trip to Stratford and I started with an early trip to Farmer's Market to pick up some fresh asparagus, Abner sausage and Monforte Dairy cheeses to take home.

I went back to Foster's Inn to check out and thank Craig once again for his hospitality. And then it was off to my final gig doing an in-store presentation at Music Sebringville - just a few minutes outside Stratford. It's a charming and unlikely little shop - offering as it does a carefully curated selection of high-end audio systems and television sets and the most extraordinary collection of all-Canadian music on CD. It's run by Neil and Judy Matheson (pictured), who helped sponsor my trip to Stratford.

We were foiled by mismatched cables in trying to get my laptop presentation onto the giant TV screen behind the counter but it didn't seem to matter as the store filled up with all kinds of folks - including Dayna Manning and her parents, Matt and Mandy of the Funk Trunk Case Co., Stratford Summer Music Festival director John A. Miller and the man with the self-contradictory name Dale Hillman.

I told more stories than usual. Dayna played again and was followed by Dale, Matt, Patrick and several other people in attendance. It was truly a lovely way to spend a Saturday morning. And as we were packing up, Judy came up to tell me that John Till had called and wanted me to give him a call back. Maybe this wasn't my last event in Stratford this weekend after all!

A Man of Leisure

2011-05-20T22:03:00.003-04:00

What luxury! After my school visit this morning to Bedford P.S., my schedule was clear for the rest of the day. It's a good thing because I'd had just 4 hours of sleep for each of the last two nights but napping really messes with my head so I've got to stay up and do stuff until my sleep schedule realigns.

So after doing my blog about the Bedford stop, I had the day wide open to explore Stratford and great weather to do it in. I wandered up to Balzac's again for an Americano and some time reading Tina Fey's "Bossypants" on my iPad, laughing out loud.

I returned to Foster's Inn and went to take Voyageur out of the trunk of the car. Two guys were leaning on a nearby storefront and one said to the other: "bet you anything the guitar in that case is the most expensive one you've ever seen". The other guy seemed doubtful so I took the guitar out and gave them a little tour. It turns out they'd seen the Newsworld doc on the guitar years ago but hadn't realized it was in town. The second guy, Rick Taylor, turns out to be a guitar collector and the brother-in-law of Janis Joplin guitarist John Till. He took me and Voyageur across the street where his friend Rick, the baker at the Passion Flour Bakery "just had to get his hands on this guitar".

Rick is going to try to set something up with John Till for later, which would be an honour. In the meantime, I went and had dinner at the early seating at the wonderful Bijou Restaurant. To get there, I had to walk through Allen's Alley - a great little passageway that honours some of Stratford's musical sons and daughters, including John Till, Richard Manuel, Louis Applebaum, Loreena McKennitt, Dayna Manning, Soylent Green and others. No sign of the Bieber yet!

Bedford Blitz

2011-05-20T11:46:00.001-04:00

Helen Orr, the principal at Bedford Public School, saw my presentation a while ago and jumped at the chance to bring me to her school while I was in Stratford. And it turned out to be one of the best public school presentations ever! Part of that had to do with great kids (many of them wearing crazy wigs for reasons I never did discover...) and part of it had to do with music teacher John Powers, who really encourages his students to stretch out musically.

At the end of the presentation, Voyageur was played by students Owen (center, top row) and Nikolai (blurry one in the picture) and by John himself (L), but we'd also arranged to have a special workshop with the school rock band they've put together. Now keep in mind that the band is between the ages of about 9 and 11 but they were just great. Among the tunes they're working on is Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz" so I got an early morning rendition of that song, which totally rocked!

And I just found out that my friend Roger Honeywell's kids Effie and Rowan were in the audience as well - confirming my impression of Stratford as an intensely musical place. Glad you enjoyed the presentation, guys!

Thanks to Helen Orr, John Powers and all the staff and students at Bedford P.S.

...Barry is the Bark

2011-05-20T02:27:00.001-04:00

In spite of a very full plate, Barry Payne took on every aspect of the organization of tonight's finale to his Foster's Inn music season. Apart from dealing with all the guest artists and the musical and presentation aspects of the show, he also organized my wonderful accommodations at Foster's, tried to drum up sponsors for a proposed portrait session (that we weren't able to pull off in the end), some additional school visits and the Saturday presentation with co-sponsors Music Sebringville. PLUS, his band String Bone opened the show!

Barry opted to play Voyageur for the whole set and it sounded just great - with Aidan Keeley's troublesome double bass pick-up that sound genius John Hazen eventually brought to heel and some tasty pedal steel coming from Steve Wood in the back corner of the tiny stage.

There is a disproportionate amount of songwriting talent in Stratford, Ontario and Barry Payne seems to be one of those guys who's at the epicenter of it all - Justin Bieber notwithstanding.

Thanks to Barry Payne, John Hazen, Jory Nash, Emm Gryner, Chris the bartender and everyone in the audience at Foster's Inn tonight.

Dayna is the Spark...

2011-05-20T01:54:00.001-04:00

I had discovered the music of Dayna Manning a couple of years ago while doing a particularly dreadful radio show for CBC R2. Adding her music (among others) to the appalling "Nightstream" playlist was one of the ways I managed to have any joy or pride at all in the job I was asked to do.

I then had the great fortune of meeting her when she was one of the people asked to play Voyageur at the Lido Theatre in her adopted home of Fort St. John BC when we were brought in for a presentation there. She was such a great artist and such a great presence that Doug and I fell in love with her a little bit and she fell in love with the project in return. She volunteered to assist at the portrait sessions and to play for the school presentations the next day and vowed to help us however she could.

So, when she recently won a design competition for this season's Stratford Festival T-shirt in her original home town, it was an occasion for a homecoming. It happened to coincide with the end of Barry Payne's annual music series at Foster's Inn so they decided to make a Dayna Manning/Emm Gryner show the finale and Dayna asked Barry to include Six String Nation in the plans. From that seed grew the school visits, the presentation at Foster's tonight, an in-store presentation this coming Saturday at Music Sebringville and a great opportunity for me to hang out at Foster's in beautiful Stratford!

Thanks to Dayna Manning, Barry Payne, Craig Foster and the fantastic staff at Foster's Inn. Special thanks also to John Hazen for the extraordinary sound.

"It Takes One" by Jim Ryan

2011-05-19T14:46:00.002-04:00

Principal Jim Ryan composed this song on the occasion of the Six String Nation to his school, Mitchell District High School, earlier today.

I'm touched and honoured that he was inspired to do so. An image of the signed lyric sheet he gave me is posted here with his permission along with a picture of him debuting the song at the school assembly.

A Foggy Start

2011-05-19T13:16:00.002-04:00

My trip to the Stratford area began very early this morning with a drive from Toronto in extreme fog. A little harrowing in spots but also extraordinarily beautiful - like when the sun fought through and created a brilliant gauze around Shakespeare.

After the worst scrambled eggs ever (at Features in Stratford) (but more than made up for by awesome coffee next door at Balzac's), my first stop was actually past Stratford in the town of Mitchell. My friend Don Shipley's wife, Deborah, is a teacher at the high school there and had little trouble convincing principal Jim Ryan to bring me in for a presentation. Not only is Jim a guitar player himself but was in a band at one time with Oliver Schroer, the late and much-missed violinist. We had taken some pictures of Oliver playing Voyageur back in 2006 at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival at Jericho Beach and Jim brought the only other guitar he could say that both he and Oliver had played, his old Takemine.

The assembly was a great start to the Stratford visit with 3 students playing for their classmates following the presentation: Aaron (L) did "Summer of '69", Andrew (C) did "Pinch Me" and Quintin (R) did "In the Early Morning Rain". Principal Jim followed up with a rendition of "O' Canada" and a song he wrote just for the occasion (see next post).

Thanks to Deborah, Don, Jim, Aaron, Andrew, Quintin and all the staff and students at Mitchell District High School.

Unionville Jewels

2011-05-18T08:29:00.006-04:00

One item on yesterday's news was a report from People for Education describing a precipitous drop in the number of school librarians and libraries in Ontario - and this at a time when learning to navigate information is more important than ever.

I heard the report in the morning in the rental car on my way to the Markham Theatre. By night, it operates as a venue for local and international touring shows but during the day the tunnel from Unionville High School next door is open and it's the home for school concerts, assemblies and my presentation yesterday morning. It's a great example of what students can be capable of when they're supported by proper facilities and infrastructure. The show went like a very professional presentation but mostly it was a brilliant setting for the musical jewels from UHS who brought Voyageur to life.

Music teacher Robert Leonard hand picked three students to perform at the end of the presentation and each brought something really special. Devynn Quarles (L) has an extraordinary voice with great nuance and control applied to her jazzy rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". It seems pretty clear she's headed for a career in music; Corey Wu (C) went into a special tuning for an instrumental performance that drew cheers from his fellow students as he nailed complicated passages with great ease; and Jeffrey Lue (R) went into even stranger tuning for a more studied but equally pyrotechnic composition to finish the show. Great performances for a great audience and a great example of students making great use of their facilities and the opportunities they afford.

Thanks to Maria Castagna, Bob Leonard, Ron Lepage, Kevin Chan, Connie Duncan, Melanie McCrea, Don Quarles and all the students of Unionville High School. Thanks also to Dolores Anderson at Mariposa in the Schools.

R.I.P. Johnnie Reid

2011-05-17T17:23:00.004-04:00

Back in March 2006, cameraman Geoff Siskind and I arranged to meet Johnnie Reid at the site of his old bar/lunch-counter/legendary music venue across from the railway station in downtown Charlottetown. By that point, the site was a vacant lot - the building plowed under by the city after Johnnie, off battling cancer, fell behind in his tax payments. You can see the video of our encounter where Johnnie's handyman Harvey takes us through salvage from the bar so that we can take the piece that will eventually become the fretboard of Voyageur. His bar was an important stop on the Atlantic music circuit and was an early proving ground for the likes of Stompin' Tom Connors, Anne Murray and John Allen Cameron. Gene MacLellan very first sang "Snowbird" at JR's and Johnnie introduced Anne Murray to the song.

I returned to Charlottetown with Voyageur in 2007 and we visited Johnnie and his wife Judy at home (pictured). Ever since then, Johnnie and I managed to talk once or twice a year. I'd always get a call around New Year's. He wouldn't announce himself - just launch in to wishing me "all the very best and much success for the coming year" and that's always when I twigged that it was Johnnie. I will miss those calls.

Johnnie died in Charlottetown on May 4th at the age of 84 and now another Charlottetown music institution is buried. You can visit the memorial page here.

Photo by Doug Nicholson.

Kev Corbett, Facebook Friend (and more)

2011-05-16T23:24:00.006-04:00

You gotta love Facebook. I have to admit, I am not what you might call a Facebook "Power User". I often forget to check or post for days at a time (hey, I'm busy. PLUS, I gotta write this blog, man!). Anyway, I'm checking tonight and I discover late in the game that our old friend Kev Corbett is in from Halifax and playing at Not My Dog just down the street.

So we hurried down there just a few songs before the end of his set but managed to catch Kev in time for him to have a little reunion with Voyageur. He last had it in his hands in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia and picked it up again tonight for his final two songs, which were both extraordinary. The man is an exceptional guitar player - for one thing - but also writes extremely clever, finessed, clockwork folk-pop songs whose singable surface belies a tremendous underlying sense of craft. It was really great to see him again.

Coming up later tonight was Cindy Doire - who is also due for a reunion with Voyageur. I have to be up early to make it to my presentation for Unionville High School in the morning but we'll be back at Not My Dog next Monday night for the last night of her residency.

One more thing: I can take as many pictures as I want on my iPhone on HDR setting and they all look like rubbish. This one of Kev tonight was taken on the same iPhone in no light by Sarah Gillett and of course it looks magical. You'll find more of her magical photos here on her Etsy page.

Breathing Easier

2011-05-15T21:30:00.004-04:00

Eleanor Adam saw my presentation for the Halton Learning Foundation some months ago and got in touch to see if I would participate in a fundraiser this weekend for the Toronto Western and General Hospital's Pulmonary Fibrosis Research program. The line up included some old friends I was anxious to see again - including Amanda Martinez & Kevin Laliberte as well as flamenco master Roger Scannura, whom I hadn't seen in years - so it was a easy to say yes.

Eleanor's brother Murray Adam suffers from IPF and served as a very congenial host of the event. Normally, they do this annual fundraiser at their cottage but circumstances this year lead them to hold the event at the Assembly Hall on the beautiful Humber College Lakeshore Campus.

My presentation lead off this afternoon's entertainment and at the end of it I handed Voyageur off first to the wonderful Kevin Laliberte (pictured), whose instrumental performance had many in the room (including me) in tears it was so beautiful. Later, Kevin described to me an experience I've heard from many musicians: that he had one piece in mind to play as he was planning ahead, but once he heard the presentation and then felt the guitar in his hands, a whole different piece kind of presented itself as the right thing to play.

After that, young Daniel Jamieson played an accomplished instrumental of his own composition. Well done Daniel! My only regret about the afternoon was that my top bid in the silent auction was not enough to score me the Monnet VSOP Cognac!

Thanks to Eleanor and Murray Adam, Kevin, Amanda, Roger, Peter, Dough, Daniel, Brittany, Erhart, Joanne, Carol and everyone who came up to meet Voyageur and buy a book. A portion of sales was donated to the PF Research fund. If you'd like to do the same, please contact me and I'll put you in touch with Eleanor.

Google Weirdness

2011-05-14T09:30:00.000-04:00

Just to let know you that there have been some technical issues lately with both Blogger and Google Calendar.

The Six String Nation calendar (along with several other personal calendars) have been obliterated. I would simply re-establish the calendars and re-populate them but there's a trick to getting it into that little calendar events box on the main page that I will have to have my good friends at Tall Poppy Design recreate for me. We're working on it.

Several posts recently disappeared. While a few of them have come back, my post about our marvelous evening last Monday at Hugh's Room with the Wailin' Jennys - where Nicky Mehta played Voyageur for the gorgeous "Arlington" - has not.

With any luck, it will be rescued. In the meantime, here's this lovely photo again courtesy of Tracy Davis.

...And an Appealing Evening to Follow!

2011-05-13T10:21:00.000-04:00

I've posted before about the brilliant little evenings of music that happen every Thursday at the end of my street at the Fat Cat Wine Bar. Daniel Sky and Mark Cassidy (pictured) preside over the evening that also includes a special musical guest or two. The two of them alone are more than talented enough so it can be an embarrassment of riches.

After my long day at Brampton City Hall, a glass of wine at Fat Cat seemed like just about the right thing to do and I had missed Lori Cullen's CD launch. Plus, I already had Voyageur with me - which Daniel and Mark both love to play - AND I had promised the legendary promoter of Canadian music Richard Flohil that I'd see him there by 10:00pm! To my intense delight, he brought along one of Six String Nation's favourite friends - the brilliant young songwriter Ariana Gillis. If you haven't heard of Ariana yet, you will. Her portrait is one of the ones that pops up along the bottom edge of the sixstringnation.com page. Refresh your screen a couple of times if you don't see her at the bottom left in her Cool Your Jets T-shirt.

Mark and Daniel were brilliant as usual and Catherine Bacque as the advertised guest did a fine set but the discovery of the night was Tamara Sandor - a Toronto singer songwriter currently doing Medieval Studies at McGill. Her stuff put me in mind of our good friend Kyrie Kristmanson - studying a sect of Medieval songwriting women in France! Check them both out if you can.

Thanks to Daniel & Mark, Mathew & Rachel, Richard & Ariana and everyone who turned out at Fat Cat.

An A-Peel-ing Way to Spend the Day...

2011-05-13T09:58:00.001-04:00

Ian Pettigrew is the Instructional Coordinator for Social Studies; History and Geography; Canadian and World Studies; Social Sciences and Humanities (Grades 1-12); Instructional Intelligence and First Nation, Metis and Inuit Education (Grades K-12) for the Peel District School Board. With a title like that, it's not surprising that he has a broad perspective on things and has seen in the Six String Nation a project after his own heart. We've met at a number of educational gatherings - including several he's invited me to be part of - but yesterday was brand new territory for me.

Every year, students from around the board research and mount history projects for display in downtown Brampton ON for the Peel Regional Heritage Fair. There's a series of workshops that attend the fair and Ian invited me to mentor a session all day in a conference room at Brampton City Hall. Over the course of the day, I had four groups of students come in. We talked for a while about their own projects - which ranged from bios of Louis Riel, Laura Secord, Frederick Banting and Maurice Richard to analyses of child labour laws, impacts of the gold rush and the role of Nova Scotia Loyalists and immigrants in defining the Canadian experience - and then I did a short presentation introducing them to Voyageur and had one of them in each session bring it to life with a little playing.

After that, we worked collaboratively on writing a lyric which, with any luck, will be set to music in a couple of weeks by students in the music program at Algonquin College in Ottawa!

At the end of the day - at a session in the Brampton City Council Chambers where students and their families were invited to attend - winners for the best projects in various categories were announced and I revealed the results of our lyric-writing experiment on the screen (I'll reveal them hear when the music is done).

It was a great day. Thanks to Ian Pettigrew (pictured here with Brampton City Hall tech Jose Baron) and all the students and teachers who participated in the fair.

A Trip to the Playground

2011-05-12T06:41:00.000-04:00

A month or so ago, I had the pleasure of attending the launch of the Toronto Standard. If you haven't seen this new web/iPad newspaper, I urge you to check it out. Really interesting, really diverse, really well written and a very thoughtful addition to the media this city has to offer.

Anyway, we got into a conversation with a couple of the young designers of the Standard and they took an interest in Six String Nation. We exchanged numbers and agreed to talk more about an iPad app idea for the project.

A couple of weeks later, Ryan Thomas, Managing Partner at Playground Digital - which does the Standard along with many other projects - wrote to tell me that most of the office was obsessing over the guitar and wondered if I might bring it down so they could get a look. Any excuse to go back to the extraordinary Burroughes Building is good for me so I readily agreed.

I ran a little presentation on their lunchroom TV screen and we had a great chat about various things.

Thanks to the whole Playground gang for taking some time in the sandbox with me.

Winding Up a Waterloo Week

2011-05-11T23:42:00.000-04:00

Actually, St. Mary's Catholic High School is in Kitchener but that doesn't quite alliterate!

My GPS had me turn right where I should have turned left but I don't know how I missed the school in the first place - it's gigantic! In fact, we've taken Voyageur to entire towns smaller than St. Mary's. The school was so big that our presentation was spread out over a couple of periods so we could maximize the number of students who could fit into the auditorium and meet the guitar.

I have to admit that it was one of the most reserved audiences I'd encountered. They didn't laugh or sigh in the places in the presentation I've become accustomed to getting that kind of feedback but that distance all evaporated by the end of the presentations when students came up to talk, tell stories, ask questions and take pictures - in fact, they turned out to be one of the most intensely friendly and engaged groups I've met by that measure.

And just to give you a sense of how much this school pushes the envelope: their seasonal musical isn't "Anything Goes" or "West Side Story" or even "High School Musical". It's The Who's "Tommy"! How cool is that?!?!?!?!

For both presentations, Voyageur was brought to life by Tiago Figueredo with accompaniment from friends Jeremy and Dylan (pictured) on a couple of instrumentals. Once again it was original music, which pleases me no end.

Thanks to Mike McKay, Bruce Cameron and the rest of the staff and students at St. Mary's. Special thanks to Tiago for loaning me his Blackberry to take the photo in lieu of my own phone left at home. Thanks also to Dolores Anderson at Mariposa In the Schools.

Riding the Music Monday Wave to Friday

2011-05-05T23:07:00.000-04:00

Well, we kicked off the week on Music Monday in Elmira and spent the last two nights as part of the Kodaly Festival in Kitchener. Thanks again and congratulations to all the participants, organizers and crew there at the Centre In the Square for such a great experience.

But the end of the festival is no reason to leave the K-W area, so today I did TWO visits to schools in the region - starting this morning with Manchester Public School in Cambridge. I met teacher Allison Lupton at the Shelter Valley Folk Festival a couple of years ago when her husband Geoff was playing with the David Francey band and she jumped at the chance to bring the Six String Nation experience to her school. Apart from having staff and student members play Voyageur at the end of the presentation, Allison also invited former student Conor Gains (pictured) to return to the school and play a couple of songs. Remember the name - he is definitely one to watch! You can find some coverage about the Manchester visit online at the Kitchener-Waterloo Record.

From there it was off to Sir Adam Beck Public School in Baden Ontario. It was a beautiful drive to a beautiful new school and a great experience presenting to the students there.

Thanks to Allison Lupton, Josh Brown, Andrea Emrich and all the staff and students at both schools. Thanks also to Dolores Anderson at Mariposa In the Schools.

Kids and Kodaly

2011-05-03T23:50:00.005-04:00

Zoltan Kodaly was a Hungarian composer, ethnographer and contemporary of Bela Bartok from around the early 20th century. His legacy lives on today in the method he developed to teach children music and the choral festivals around the world that the method has spawned. One of the biggest is the Kitchener-Waterloo version, celebrating its 25th Anniversary edition.

I was asked by my colleagues at the Coalition for Music Education to play a small role in the two nights of the this year's festival at the Centre In the Square in Kitchener, giving a short presentation about Voyageur and then having it played to accompany the choirs.

I arrived early this morning at the CITS for a technical run through and got a sense of how things would unfold. Then, I headed off to Cedarbrae Public School for a presentation to a few classes there and then back to the theatre in the early evening. With 500 students from 143 schools participating, you might think it would be mayhem in the house but they were an amazingly focussed group and the corralling of them by the teachers and festival organizers is down to a science.

If there's any doubt about the value of music in education beyond the ability to appreciate music, the poise and confidence demonstrated by these kids is something that they will carry into all facets of their lives.

The presentation went wonderfully - thanks in part to a great crew and a state-of-the-art facility - and then I handed the guitar to Rod Gimpel (pictured) who accompanied the orchestra and 500+ voice choir in a rendition of "Homeward Bound". Because of the vast number of people on the stage for the song, there was no elegant way to exit after my presentation so I was required to sit on the stage after handing the guitar to Rod. It was great for the immersive view but potentially embarrassing as hearing Voyageur amidst this stirring swell of voices and instruments was a truly moving experience. We'll do it all again tomorrow night with a different cast of students!

Thanks to Mark McMath, Rod Gimpel, the CITS crew, the Kodaly Festival organizers, the Coalition for Music Education and all of those AMAZING singers!

Music Monday

2011-05-02T12:01:00.002-04:00

Apart from it being Election Day in Canada, it's also Music Monday - an initiative of the Coalition for Music Education in Canada, for whom I'm proud to be one of their official "Champions". Connected to their Music Monday activities, I'm participating in the Kodaly Choral Festival in Kitchener tomorrow and Wednesday evenings at Centre In the Square. Since I was going to be in the Kitchener-Waterloo region, I figured it would be a great opportunity to line up some school visits and the communities really responded. I'll be at a different school every day this week!

And it all started brilliantly today at the seemingly talent-packed Elmira District Secondary School. Following the presentation, Cody lead things off on Voyageur with what I believe was an original instrumental composition. Teacher Paul McLeod was joined by students Veronica (violin) and Nick (upright bass) for a rendition of Boston's More Than a Feeling. Then another instrumental from Scott who really mixed it up with some percussive techniques on the guitar and finally a duet from Jordan & Nathan (pictured) who wrote a brand new song just for the occasion - and it was excellent.

And then (I'm kind of ashamed to say) Scott convinced me to..... SING for a finale! In talking before the presentation, we discovered a mutual admiration for the Weakerthans. While I've sung along to the recording of One Great City many times, this was my opportunity to take the lead and really butcher the song in front of a large audience. Thanks to the Elmira staff and students for indulging me and I promise not to inflict my "singing" on any other schools. And, my humblest apologies to the great John K. Samson!

Thanks to all the musicians who played today. Thanks also to Ryan, Tyler, Lydia and Brandon for technical and logistical support and to Dave Vandenberg for getting the ball rolling at EDSS. Thanks also the rest of the EDSS staff and students and to Dolores Anderson at Mariposa In the Schools.

Island Clay

2011-05-02T00:03:00.007-04:00

Lennie Gallant - brilliant songwriter, Juno and ECMA winner and Member of the Order of Canada - is the salt of the earth. But because he hails from PEI, you have to also say that he's that rich, red clay.

Lennie made one of his periodic stops tonight at Hugh's Room in Toronto with Jamie Alcorn on guitar and Sean Kemp on electric violin. I'm honoured that he asked me to come out so he could play Voyageur during the set.

Lennie has a deeper connection than most musicians to Voyageur because part of his family history is in the guitar: a piece of the Doucet House - the first dwelling on PEI built by the Acadian couple Jean Doucet and Margueritte Gaudet in 1768 in Rustico. The piece of the house was presented to me by Lennie and his cousin, the late Bobby Doucet. You'll find the video here.

It was his usual wonderful set - a mixture of songs in French and English, up-tempo sing-a-longs and bittersweet ballads. He brought Voyageur out twice: once to do one of his best loved songs, Which Way Does the River Run, and once in the encore to do the beautiful Island Clay (pictured). The evening was being recorded on both audio and video so hopefully we'll all get a chance to hear those songs again.

Thanks to Lennie, Jamie and Sean on stage, Dave Lang on sound and the rest of the staff on the floor and at the door at Hugh's Room.

Speaking a Common Language

2011-04-28T17:02:00.001-04:00

I suppose it's only fitting for someone who has a degree in Linguistics that the Six String Nation project should bring me full circle with language-learning specialists in the educational sector finding a special resonance in the story of Voyageur.

While my presentation to the teachers assembled at OISE this morning was booked months ago, it comes in the midst of a half dozen or so events revolving around the English as a Second Language (ESL) community that began with my informal talk to some teachers at the ESL bookshop in my very own neighbourhood.

The event at OISE was especially nice since there were teachers visiting from different regions of Canada as well as a handful of observers from the U.S. and elsewhere.

With the subway rumbling beneath the building on Bloor St., teacher Brian Herman (pictured) gave us a couple of Neil Young songs to finish the presentation and really get the rest of the meeting off to a great start.

Thanks to Paula Markus and Lyle Pearson from the Toronto District School Board, to Helen Webster and Chris Chanter for being special guests, the ESL Shop for handling book sales and all the staff and teachers at OISE for attending the event.

And smaller packages still!

2011-04-13T11:11:00.004-04:00

Across Limcombe Rd. from Bayview Glen Public School, a new home is being built that looks like it might have more or less the same square footage as this tiny school. But principal Harald Grammenos had the big idea to give his students the Six String Nation experience when we met at the York District School Board's Quest Conference several months ago and yesterday we finally made it happen.

I've done a lot of school presentations by this point and there's always a moment at the end of each presentation when I ask if there are any questions that there's a kind of pregnant pause in which you can feel the questions rising up but not making it past the lips of students who are too shy or are worried about not asking a good question. No such issue today. The school was small enough that after the assembly (and recess) I took Voyageur around to each of the classrooms for a short Q&A and in not one did we have time to answer all of the questions.

Fortunately, there are now a couple of copies of the Six String Nation book in the school library so hopefully many of the questions we didn't have time for can be answered that way.

Kudos to 8-year old Justin (pictured) who bravely came up to play Voyageur for his classmates at the assembly and proved to be way beyond both his years and his hand size in his guitar skills!

Thanks to Principal Harald Grammenos and assistant Ruth Yeates and all the other teachers and staff at Bayview Glen P.S. A special thanks to parent Carolyn for preparing the amazing venison lunch for me and the staff!

Knights of the Breakfast Table

2011-04-10T16:13:00.005-04:00

I've written a couple of times about Peter O'Donnell and the Arbour B&B he runs with his wife Jennifer in St. Thomas ON. They've been very generous about hosting me and Voyageur there on a couple of occasions so I was glad to respond to Peter's invitation for me to speak at an annual breakfast for his chapter of the Knights of Columbus this morning.

Following the presentation, two of the members stepped up to play: John Nolan performed a Murray McLauchlan tune and Cliff Maxwell (pictured) - showing remarkable recovery from a stroke - played an original song from his former bandleader days.

Then, as an absolutely wonderful surprise, Nova Scotia's premier storytelling songwriter Dave Gunning - in town for a house concert at the Arbour - emerged from the back of the room and favoured us all with his brilliant song, These Hands of Mine. Dave is one of the people I had my eye on to play Voyageur before it was even built. Our last best opportunity for him to finally play it was the first time we were in St. Thomas at the same time but that was the weekend of the infamous "bridge break" so fate had foiled us. I'm so glad we finally managed to hear Dave and the guitar together. It's worth a recording!

Another nice surprise was the appearance of the Maass Family, Six String Nation enthusiasts from nearby Ingersoll, who took a chance and crashed the end of the breakfast for a chance to get close to Voyageur. They were welcomed by all.

Thanks to Peter and Jennifer O'Donnell, Tim Buchanan and the rest of the St. Thomas K of C.

GOOD THINGS small packages

2011-04-10T15:42:00.000-04:00

Saturday was rescheduled from many months ago as an opportunity to speak to a gathering of teachers from the Ontario Geography Consultants' Association (OGCA) and the Ontario History, Humanities and Social Science Consultants Association (OHHSSCA). With all the letters in their combined acronyms, you might expect it was a large group but this was a meeting of about 20-25 people. And, frankly, I enjoy sharing the project with even the smallest number of teachers because they are in turn inspired to share the project with their students and they give me amazing feedback about the ways in which the Six String Nation connects to curriculum.

The thing that was especially fun about presenting to this group - where so many are well versed in history, geography and social studies, the meat and potatoes of the project - is that I still managed to share some stories that weren't well known among the group and it's always a delight to feel you've passed on a story someone didn't already know and that will be passed on again.

Even on the second floor of the OISE building, we had to compete a little bit with the rumble of the Bloor St. subway underneath, but teacher David Spencer lead off the music with a rendition of Pete Seeger's This Land is Your Land (Canuck/Travellers version). The big surprise was that organizer Babe Santucci (pictured) - who offered her guitar skills only as a pinch-hitter in the event David didn't show - was easily convinced to step up, whereupon she did more-than-justice to a Stan Rogers / traditional Newfoundland tune.

Thanks to Babe Santucci, Ian Pettigrew, David Spencer, Dolores Anderson at Mariposa In the Schools and all the staff and members of the OGCA and OHHSSCA.

Weekend? What's that?

2011-04-05T17:13:00.003-04:00

I'm sure it refers to something but I can't quite recall...

We stayed probably a bit too late at the Naismith House last night – late enough that the long drive got us home around 1:00am and I had just a few hours sleep before heading up to Bathurst Heights Adult Learning Centre for a presentation to a group of ESL students from a number of different parts of Toronto. To tell you the truth, it was more fun than most weekends!

These students were all Level 5 and up in their English but I was advised to take things a bit slower and mind my vocabulary - explain things where I felt it was necessary. I did notice that I wasn't getting the audience laughs where I've come to expect them in the presentation. While it might just have been an issue of fluency, I was worried at some points that maybe the crowd just wasn't really getting the presentation as I hoped they might.

All of those fears absolutely vanished when the Chinese-speaking students sang a song in Mandarin and another French West African couple did a song in French and a woman named Blanca and her friends (pictured) performed a song in Spanish and Huberto performed a latin/classical instrumental. And after that, we were so swarmed with people wanting to hold Voyageur and take pictures with their cameras and phones that some people actually missed their busses home rather than miss the opportunity to hold the guitar. Honestly, it was one of the most beautiful embraces of the Six String Nation that I've ever seen....

Thanks to Cheryl Richman from the TDSB, Earl for the gear and all the students who attended and added such life to the project!
Photo by Cheryl Richman.

A Hoop-full of Homecoming

2011-04-05T14:59:00.000-04:00

One of the ongoing goals of the Six String Nation project is to return Voyageur for a visit to all the places it comes from. Since Almonte ON was such a short drive from our appearance in Arnprior, it was a perfect opportunity to pay a visit to the James Naismith House - homestead of the famed inventor of basketball.

Rick Edwards is the guy who contributed a piece of wood from the rafters of the house to the project and we'd been in contact a few times since so I rang him up to see if he'd be around on April 4th. His partner, Elisabeth De Snaijer, answered the phone and we immediately got into a conversation like old friends. Not only did they want me to pop by with the guitar but she suggested we make an evening of it and invite some people around for a chance to get to know Voyageur and the role of their home in its story.

The Naismith House could not have landed in better hands than those of Rick and Elisabeth. Not only did they both study cultural history, but Elisabeth is a seasoned antiques hound and dealer and Rick is a handy craftsman and an engineer to boot! As a result, they have meticulously restored the house over many years using original period materials where possible and everything is in the neo-classical spirit in which the house was originally built. The piece of rafter that is now part of the pick-guard on the guitar was once above the kitchen. The original ceiling was taken out giving lots of lofty space to the room and a beautiful modern kitchen with a large expanse of white wall above the fireplace. This area became our screen and presentation area when their friends and neighbours gathered for the presentation around 6:00pm.

Honestly, it was such a fantastically interesting group of people and together we enjoyed wine and cheese before the presentation and a wonderful homemade chili afterwards.

Thanks to Rick and Elisabeth for hosting, Ed, George, Joël and the other players who sang everything from originals to Beatles to Barenaked Ladies and to everyone who came to share this homecoming experience.

On to Renfrew County

2011-04-04T18:30:00.002-04:00

After our Sunday in Edwards ON, we headed NW to Renfrew Country where we were due for a presentation at Arnprior District High School.

I dropped Sarah on John St. to browse the used book store and settle in for a local latte while I headed for the school.

After all the school visits I've done, I know I shouldn't be surprised anymore by the response from students but it continues to be amazing and gratifying to me the way students respond to Voyageur and its story. The presentation went really well and there were lots of great questions and people coming up afterwards for pictures and to give the guitar a try.

For the performances during the presentation, student Evan Wilson (pictured) lead things off and was followed by Dan and Cain. Teacher James Hrkach also took some time with the guitar and some of his guitar-class students hung out afterwards to pass the guitar around for a while before heading back to class.

Thanks to Jacqueline Poirier of the Renfrew Country District School Board, principal Neil Farmer, music teacher Frank Pecora, James Hrkach and all the Redmen and classmates who attended. Thanks also to Dolores Anderson at Mariposa In the Schools.

Last Sunday in Church...

2011-04-04T17:20:00.004-04:00

Back in the fall, Beverely McKiver attended the OCFF Conference in Ottawa and took a last minute gamble to bid in the silent auction on a Six String Nation presentation for her community. Sunday was the day we honoured the pledge and made the trip to the Knox United Church in Edwards ON, southeast of Ottawa.

Anyone contemplating putting together a community event around a Six String Nation presentation could take a pointer or two from Beverley! Not only did she secure the church for a Sunday afternoon and use her networks to get lots of people from the community out, she also galvanized a whole legion of volunteers and put on a Canadiana Dinner in the church basement after the presentation that included a stew of fresh venison (hunted with a crossbow!) and wild goose meatballs along with fresh baked bannock, wild rice and baked beans flavoured with the local specialty.... maple syrup!

The presentation went really well but what was truly exceptional about it was how many people in the community volunteered to come up and play Voyageur at the end of the presentation. I can usually count on 2 or 3 players to volunteer even when I know there are others too shy to play in public but it seemed like just about the entire community wanted a go. And those who didn't play happily joined in on the sing-a-long numbers. It really was an object lesson in how to bring a community together and Six String Nation was proud to be a part of it.

Huge thanks to Beverely McKiver and her husband Victor (pictured), Keith and Sallie for handling technical and sales details, Gib and Elsie for putting us up at the Emerald Links, Katharine Partridge for supporting this visit, Sarah Gillett for her help and partnership on the road and all the people who came out to be part of the Six String Nation story in Edwards.

Treasure at the end of my street.

2011-03-31T23:40:00.004-04:00

Fat Cat Wine Bar is one of my favourite spots in my west end Toronto neighbourhood. Unpretentious, comfortable, great food, fantastic back patio in the summertime. I've known proprietor Mathew Sutherland for many years and was glad when he set up shop in the 'hood. Never have I been gladder than tonight.

Mat let me know of a new Thursday night tradition at the restaurant with live music and suggested I come by. I offered to bring Voyageur in case his musicians wanted to give it a go. He didn't tell me who they were. Sarah and I came a bit early to enjoy a glass of wine and some cockles and cirrípedes in garlic with chorizo and then the musicians showed up. One of them was Daniel Sky, whose music I already knew and loved. The other was Mark Cassidy, whose music was an absolute revelation: voice like a bell, gorgeous poetry and beguiling melodies. They took turns playing Voyageur for the first half of the set and then brought a guest into the mix: the equally extraordinary Milo McMahon, who also played it for a few songs. That's the three of them pictured together - Daniel, Milo and Mark from left to right.

Thanks to Mathew for putting the evening together and thanks to all three of these wonderful artists for bringing the Six String Nation home to Roncy. They'll do it again next Thursday so come on out to 331 Roncesvalles Ave., Toronto.

Photo by Sarah Gillett.

Falling for Niagara, Part Two

2011-03-28T14:33:00.004-04:00

Jim Papple's Niagara TESL gathering was one reason to come to St. Catharines but it's also where my girlfriend Sarah's brother Luke and his partner are working to refashion the profile of the Arts in the city with the BrainFarm. And given that they're currently trying to attract people to their new exhibition at Charter House on James St. downtown in the offices of the St. Catharines Arts Council, we figured it would be fun to put on a little event of our own.

Actually, my part was easy. I just showed up with the guitar and did my presentation in the space we cleared at the back of the offices. Luke and Kim did an amazing amount of work on pulling the event together. For some strange reason, the St. Catharines Standard newspaper chose not to profile the event and as far as I'm concerned they missed a real opportunity. L&K lined up three stellar talents to perform and they all shone.

Joe Lapinski is a singer-songwriter from the area with great fingerstyle technique.
Bryson Waind (pictured) is cut from country-style cloth and writes songs drawn from his experience there in grape country in the Niagara region.
Honest Frankie out-Tom's Stompin' Tom with clever, crafty songs that could easily go head to head with the Bard of Skinner's Pond.
What was really special about all of them is that while Voyageur often inspires musicians to take on the Canadian classics, each of these artists played their own music - music that really spoke of location and experience in the Niagara Region, which is what I wish Canadians would do more often - not change the names of their hometowns so an American audience is more likely to buy the record. Having said that, Frankie did wind up the set with a much appreciated version of the McGarrigles' "Log Driver's Waltz". Kudos to ALL the musicians who brought Voyageur to life in Niagara yesterday.

Special thanks to Luke Gillett, Kim Odine, the St. Catharines Arts Council and everyone who came out to see the show.
Thanks also to Don MacLeod, Mike Sawchuk, the Kilt & Clover, Booker, Bix and the Scotties. And here's to bacon-infused vodka!

Falling for Niagara, Part One

2011-03-28T10:49:00.005-04:00

Following an informal presentation at the ESL Shop in my neighbourhood, I received a late-breaking invitation to come and speak to a small group of English as a Second Language teachers from the Niagara region this past weekend. The ESL Shop event actually generated a few enquiries and ideas from the ESL community and I think it's a fascinating fit. So many of the people who are studying English as a second language are at the same time trying to find ways to connect to Canadian society and identity. Voyageur, at the very least, creates an occasion for discovery and discussion and an invitation to explore the roots of Canadian-ness in all its diversity. And, of course, the invitation is there for new Canadians from all over the world to add their own music to the repertoire of the guitar in all kinds of performance settings as well.

The response was fantastic in the classroom - although there was one question at the end which I should address a bit. One attendee questioned the lack of pieces in the guitar that she thought would have been better representatives of particular communities or constituencies - but I have to stress again for those who may share her concerns: while I cast the net very wide for the pieces that would be contributed to the building of the guitar and while I did reach out to various people and communities whose story I would like to have reflected in the project, not all of them responded and not all of them felt they had something they wanted to contribute. We had a drop-dead date by which luthier George Rizsanyi needed to have all the pieces and begin building them into what would become this remarkable instrument. It is in every way the best guitar it could be and by any measure is an achievement in terms of both a Canadian identity project and of guitar-craft. There is no way it could ever have been a perfect representation of all of Canada nor a perfect guitar. But in the same way that learning about the project opens a door to reinventing notions of belonging, playing the guitar opens the door to a similar rainbow of musical possibilities and it has proven over and over again to be more than up to the task of playing everyone's song. Thanks for the question.

Special thanks to Jim Papple, Stephen Goode (pictured) who played at the presentation, and the attendees of the Niagara TESL event.

Another Green... Day

2011-03-25T20:59:00.003-04:00

George Brown College's annual focus on environment and sustainability goes by the name "George Green Day" and this year's activities included a GBC Reads program where they encouraged everyone to read the same book, John Vaillant's "The Golden Spruce". Of course, perhaps the most extraordinary part of Voyageur is the only piece ever taken from the legendary and sacred tree felled on Haida-Gwaii in 1997. Naturally, the organizers of George Green Day thought it would be a good fit to invite us into the proceedings.

I had a chance to tell the story for participants in the GBC Reads initiative and we mounted the portrait feature right in the gorgeous atrium lobby of the Hospitality and Culinary Arts Building. After that it was off to the nearby student lounge where professor Paul Royes reprised his song written for the occasion, "The Great Canadian Voyageur Song".

I've included a photo here of a young culinary arts student who stopped me in the hall and asked to hold the guitar but keep your eyes peeled on our Flickr site in the coming weeks - you'll see some fantastic new portraits!

Special thanks to Donnalu Macdonald, Camilla Wheeler, Cindy Gouveia, Paul Royes and the other helpful staff and students at George Brown. Thanks also to our wonderful volunteers for the day at the portrait station: Camila Veeck, Marikris Bongolan, Hayley McNamara and Danielle Connor.

Union Made

2011-03-23T20:09:00.005-04:00

I set out on the road to Port Elgin this morning with much trepidation... for two reasons:
1. After gorgeous spring weather, winter made a surprise return today with white-out conditions and slippery roads.
2. My destination was the Canadian Auto Workers National Executive Board meeting at the CAW Family Education Centre and I would be showing up in a rented Kia Rondo!!!!

Our friend Peggy Nash had arranged for me to address the meeting in hopes that I might garner the union's support for some vehicle and other sponsorships and this seemed like the right setting to make the pitch.

It's a great facility and I felt very welcome there. The songs sung by Woodstock local's Stephanie Johnson at the end of my presentation took me back to sing-a-longs from childhood.

While I don't expect Six String Nation to be a bargaining point in the next collective agreement, it's good to feel you've got the CAW behind you, as they literally are in this photo. That's president Ken Lewensa with Voyageur along with other members of the National Executive.

Thanks to the amazing staff at the CAW Family Education Centre, Peggy Nash and all the Brothers and Sisters at the meeting in Port Elgin.
And now, after another awful drive home ahead of me, I get to see Jeff Tweedy tonight at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre!

Up the Creek...In a Good Way!

2011-03-22T17:49:00.001-04:00

In Oakville ON, there is Joshua's Creek Road and Joshua's Creek Trail and yet it was Joshua Creek Public School – no s –who hosted me for a presentation this afternoon. I guess they're just not possessive about the name. Ha...ha...

An absolutely fantastic group of students in the group today - really attentive and engaged with great questions. As an added bonus, it turns out I already knew their music teacher: Jamie Shea first encountered Voyageur around a campfire at the Hill Family compound near Owen Sound during our visit to the SummerFolk Festival in 2006. He got another chance to play it at the assembly today as did students Sam and Jesse - all pictured together here.

Thanks so much to Jane Laughlin for spearheading our visit and to all the staff and students at Joshua Creek P.S. for such a great day.

SOAR Winners

2011-03-18T13:02:00.002-04:00

Filling out the audience last night for my show with David Myles in the Arbor Room at Hart House was a group of First Nations and Aboriginal Ancestry youth in grades 10 and 11 who were on a March Break field trip to explore the University of Toronto. When I asked what the group was all about they said "we're SOAR" (though, to me, it sounded like they said "we're sore", which didn't sound quite as nice). When they saw me mentally struggling, they assured me that S-O-A-R wasn't an acronym for anything, just a name.

Anyway, a very nice bunch of students who showed a lot of enthusiasm for Voyageur and the Six String Nation.

They were a great part of a great audience and I hope they had a great experience at U of T!

Patrick Who?

2011-03-18T09:22:00.003-04:00

It occurred to me far too late that the timing of our Six String Nation presentation at Hart House last night wasn't the best. But it hit me on the streetcar ride down College St., seeing seas of people with green novelty hats and line-ups outside almost any pub with a Guinness banner out front, that this was St. Patrick's Day and I could only hope that enough people would venture to the Arbor Room to see me and David Myles that we wouldn't be left crying in our non-green beer.

In fact, it was a very nice turnout and all drinks served were of their regular colour. David, originally from Fredericton NB and now living in Halifax, has played the Arbor Room at Hart House before and had lots of folks come to see him again. CBC Radio's Here & Now talked up the event as well and of course there were some folks just drifting in for a meal or a drink who stuck around for the show.

David's been on the road with Stuart McLean's Vinyl Café of late and at this moment is on tour opening for Joel Plaskett but he took this night in Toronto to connect with regulars, new fans and Voyageur. After I'd highlighted the New Brunswick elements in Voyageur (the Machault and the Hartland covered bridge), David played a terrific self-deprecating song about his home province called "Drive on Through" but there was a wonderful connection later in his set when he played a Gene MacLellan tune. The fretboard of Voyageur is made from a piece of the late lamented J.R.'s Bar in Charlottetown, where MacLellan very first sang the song that would be come a monster worldwide hit for Anne Murray and others, "Snowbird".

Thanks to David Myles, Zoe Dille, Spock, Tian and Marina Wray.

Return of the Snowbird

2011-03-12T13:18:00.002-05:00

Mae Moore is someone I've known since she was a rising star from PEI (in spite of being from Brandon, Manitoba!)
By the time Voyageur was born in 2006, Mae had moved out to Pender Island, BC and taken up organic apple farming with partner Lester Quitzau. But we managed to connect at the Summerfolk Festival in Owen Sound in August of '06 where she and Lester were playing and we were doing our portraits. She was set to play Voyageur (unnamed at that point, actually) and spent quite a bit of time mulling over what to play and then going into a special tuning for her choice. She came into the venue - a tent with about 300 people in it - and announced she was going to perform a song she had grown up hating and proceeded to deliver the most delicate, haunting version of Gene MacLellan's "Snowbird" you've ever heard - reclaiming it from a million and one elevators. The whole tent was in tears. It was a moment I don't think any of us will ever forget.

And then, I was lucky enough to re-live it.

Mae is currently touring across Canada in support of her new album Folklore and had a rare Toronto stop at C'est What? last night. I got in touch and asked if she'd like me to bring the baby by and she replied: "Yaaayyy!". That was good enough for me. She delivered a terrific set and ended it by reuniting with Voyageur (her third go in all) for "Snowbird" once again. And once again it was lovely.

Thanks to Mae, Lyn, Adam, Chris MacLean, Rosemary Phelan and Marina Wray.
Photo by Doug Nicholson.

Canada as a Second Language

2011-02-27T12:11:00.004-05:00

The whole point of the Six String Nation project was to expand the palette of colours we use to paint the picture of Canada. That's something that newcomers to Canada do every day and I've always thought it would be great to get Voyageur involved with events including new immigrants. While that happens all the time one-on-one at events across the country, we took a great step towards formalizing the idea this weekend and didn't have to step far to do it: Cheryl McCarron invited me to give a presentation to a gathering of English-as-a-Second-Language professionals at her ESL Shop right in the neighbourhood!

As part of my presentation, a few ESL teachers volunteered their talents for a song. Dave Burt lead a Ronnie Hawkins-styled sing-along of "Bo Diddley" and Becky Bourinot belted out Joni's "Big Yellow Taxi" - one of the songs included in the new ESL "O Canada" workbook by Mohammad Hashemi, presented after the performance and which includes a little bit about Six String Nation; and our old pal Bill Heffernan played his stirring ballad of Marie-Joseph Angélique - the runaway slave (possibly wrongly) convicted and hanged for starting the great Montréal Fire of 1734.

I also got to meet the impressively young new-Canadian/Nigerian author Yahaya Baruwa. That's me and him with his girlfriend Joy. (Photo by Gerald LeBrun)

Thanks to Cheryl McCarron and the ESL Shop staff. Thanks also to Jim Papple, Steve Marsh and Cheryl Richman. Special thanks to Bill, Dave and Becky for stepping up to perform and Gerry for catching it all on camera.

Back to School in Kingston

2011-02-24T21:50:00.001-05:00

The Kingston Family YMCA very generously supported an extra day in town for the Six String Nation project to present at Canada's oldest high school, Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute - founded (in a different building) in 1792. KCVI's alumni include our first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, and author John Ralston Saul among others.

Skye Cuthbertson is the student who took on organizing the event on behalf of her school as part of her Leadership Project and she did a great job. And thanks to the YMCA and Homestead Landholdings we were also able to mount the portrait feature following the presentation.

Two students played Voyageur for their classmates as part of the presentation so thanks very much to Mike Patterson and Brogan Chaput (both pictured) for bringing the guitar to life at KCVI.

After school it was back home to Toronto - but not before getting in a quick visit to Cooke's Fine Foods - a store that still has the feel of an old provisioners. Cheese man David Currie had come by to get his portrait on Monday so we dropped in to taste some wonderful Fifth Town cheeses. Then we stopped for a burger at Harper's on Princess St. Don't miss it if you're in Kingston!

Thanks also to principal Darlene Scarlett and the rest of the staff and students at KCVI.

We Are Family

2011-02-22T08:16:00.005-05:00

In 2008 - the first year of the new February holiday known mostly as "Family Day", we were in Winnipeg (where the day is known as "Riel Day") at the Festival du Voyageur, officially bestowing the nickname Voyageur on the Six String Nation guitar.

Three years later, Voyageur was front and center for Family Day in Ontario at the Kingston Family YMCA. It was an incredible turnout - with 1300 people in the building shattering expectations for the event. It was a full house in the gym (pictured) where I delivered the presentation to a crowd that included Kingston Mayor Mark Gerretsen and our old pal Speaker of the House Peter Milliken - a Kingston native. It being Family Day, there were quite a few little kids running around during the presentation. It occurred to me at one point to ask Speaker Milliken to call "order" but then I realized he's used to way worse in the House of Commons and I got through the presentation just fine! When it came time for someone to play, the folks lined up chickened out so Jeff Lamothe stepped up. Not only did he play brilliantly, but he played Don Ross' "Dracula & Friends", which is no mean feat!

This was also a special presentation because I was able to announce the addition of a brand new piece to the project. But I've decided to leave that an exclusive for the people of Kingston at the moment until the piece(s) are officially mounted on the strap next week. Stay tuned.

Special thanks to Joy McNevin, Trevor Cornelius, Mary Kloosterman and the rest of the YMCA staff for their help. Thanks also to Skye and Andy for volunteering at the portrait station and swimming legend Vicki Keith for bringing by her "penguins" from the Y Knot Abilities team to get their portraits taken with Voyageur. And to Homestead Landholdings for sponsoring the portrait feature. Look for the photos on Flickr in a few weeks.

Putting On the Ritz

2011-02-15T16:18:00.004-05:00

Well, actually, the brand new 5-star Ritz-Carlton Toronto put Six String Nation on at their pre-opening pep rally for staff.

While the Ritz-Carlton in Montreal opened in 1912, it's actually a legacy name (there were others in North America as well, built in the image of the Ritz in Paris and the Carlton in London) and not managed by the same group running the Ritz-Carlton chain today. The opening of the Ritz-Carlton Toronto marks the the official return of the brand to Canada. Another hotel for Vancouver will follow soon.

I was asked to speak to the staff earlier today as they reviewed their training and prepared for the official opening of the hotel tomorrow - February 16th. The theme of my talk was "Making History" in that - in the same way that Voyageur not only contains many histories but makes its own history all the time by engaging with Canadians in a multitude of ways - the staff of the hotel were not only connected with each other and the legacy of the brand but would go on to help guests celebrate their own historic occasions and make their own indelible memories of their time at the hotel.

Staffers Sudheer, Mitzi and Ahmed (pictured) provided the presentation finale.

Special thanks to GM Tim Terceira, Danielle Saint-Louis, Rainer Zinngrebe, Valerie Porter, Melanie Adams, Matthew Gdyczynski, Michael Heath, Tom Brodi and all the staff at Ritz-Carlton Toronto. And thanks to David Nowak for the introduction.

Meeting a Worm on Walmer

2011-02-11T08:43:00.004-05:00

Last night, the Royal St. George's College school in Toronto hosted a Six String Nation presentation for the community at the Walmer Rd. Baptist Church at the corner of Walmer Rd. and Lowther Ave in Toronto's Annex neighbourhood. It's an absolutely gorgeous building inside - opened in 1889 when the Annex was a new suburb of Toronto a block north of the Bloor St. boundary.

It was a bitterly cold night but a cozy crowd inside for the presentation. If you've ever seen one of the presentations, you'll know they always end with someone bringing Voyageur to life with music. This was beautifully handled last night as we started with student Francis Blair - a very promising young guitarist and an overall smart and interesting guy. He lead with a jazz tune and then we introduced Chris Patterson, whom you might recognize for his recent solo kids-music record, "Small Potatoes", or from his full-time adult (and occasionally childish) band, the Arrogant Worms. Chris came out to join Francis (pictured) and together they played a couple of Worms tunes, including "Celine Dion" and "Proud to Be Canadian" with some special new Six String Nation verses written in the dressing room by Francis and Chris.

Thanks to everyone for coming out on a cold night with very special thanks to Emma Roche for organizing the event, Chris and Francis for playing, Royal St. George's College for hosting and Walmer Rd. Baptist Church for sharing their beautiful venue. Thanks also to Barry for the sound, Titus from Ben McNally Books, Paul O'Leary, Janet Somerville and all the friends and teachers who came up to say hello at the end of the evening.

A Musical Anniversary

2011-01-21T15:41:00.003-05:00

Hard to believe that this is the first anniversary of one of Voyageur's most extraordinary experiences.
Check out this spectacular performance by Paul O'Brien and the senior orchestra and choir of St. Michaels University School in Victoria BC. Paul wrote the song especially for the guitar and the arrangement is by Donna Williams.
Thank you all for this amazing gift.

Home Away from Home

2010-12-18T11:55:00.000-05:00

The trip to St. Thomas yesterday to make good on the promise to let Gabe Cairns play Voyageur at last, was an out-of-pocket affair. An Avis coupon let me rent the car for free but I still needed to try to make up the gas money. Fortunately, on the last trip to St. Thomas we were privileged to make new friends in Peter and Jennifer O'Donnell (and Jennifer's mum Mary) at their Arbour Bed & Breakfast in Talbotville. The cozy furnishings and enveloping landscaping alone would make you feel very much at home but it's the hospitality of the hosts that really makes it. Peter & Jennifer kindly invited me to consider the Arbour Six String Nation's home away from home whenever I was in the area. And boy, did they ever make me feel a part of the family last night. I ate at the kitchen table with the whole family - including son Ryan, just days before heading off to Melbourne to do a stage in one of the finest restaurants in Australia.

But rather than singing for my supper, other guests came by later in the evening to sing for my breakfast, as it were. A dozen or so friends and O'Donnell extended family members gathered in the warm and inviting living room where I did my presentation projected above the hearth and then passed Voyageur around for a bit of carol-singing lead by Peter (pictured). I've been busy enough lately not to really think much about the impending holiday so this was just about as perfect an introduction to the season as I could possibly get. And thanks to a few book, T-shirt and guitar-strap sales, I could cover the gasoline and pick up some fresh eggs and chicken from nearby McSmith's Organic Farm in Elgin County on the way home. Thanks to Ryan for the great local food tip!

Thanks once again to everyone at the Arbour B&B for the warm hospitality.

Return to St. Thomas

2010-12-17T15:55:00.001-05:00

You might recall that my visit to St. Joseph's Catholic High School in St. Thomas Ontario on November 18th was a big disappointment for one young student. Gabriel Caron - a grade 8 student from nearby Monsignor Morrison school - was primed to play Voyageur at the St. Joe's assembly (as was the guitar teacher) but a broken bridge made the guitar unplayable. I promised at that moment that, once the bridge was repaired, I'd return so that Gabe would get his chance to hold history in his hands and play Canada!

So we set up a visit to Gabe's own school but we were a bit worried because the St. Thomas area has been through some record breaking snow storms in the last couple of weeks. Lucky for us, while the storms closed some of the highways in the area and really walloped the city of London, St. Thomas remained largely unscathed and the roads re-opened in time for my trip.

Today was the last day before the Christmas break so everyone was in a great mood - with lots of students and staff wearing Santa hats and other festive gear. Gabe's grandmother came by as I was setting up and told me that Gabe was very excited to finally have his chance to play Voyageur. You wouldn't have known it when he showed up because Gabe is one of those super-cool kids who looks like nothing fazes him at all. And there was certainly no sign of nerves when he got up to play for his classmates at the end of my presentation - this is a guy who taught himself to play "Flight of the Bumblebee" after all!

Thanks to principal Judith Colwell, the staff and students at Monsignor Morrison and especially to Gabe Caron for his extraordinary talent and for his patience.

Ontario School Adventures 2: Oakville

2010-12-09T18:30:00.002-05:00

A day off after Uxbridge and today it was off to Munn's Public School - a part French-immersion school in Oakville, between Toronto and Hamilton.

We actually did two presentations at Munn's, one for the older kids and one for the younger. Thanks to some useful critiquing from my friend Dan Kershaw, I modified the presentation just a little bit to provide a bit more detail for students about what "oyster shucking" is (it's always fun to talk to little kids about oysters, because you get good laughs for saying it's like the most delicious snot you've ever tasted!). Just to make sure the new description worked, Dan accompanied me to sit in on the presentations, which is handy for another reason. Because although you might know Dan as a Sheridan College instructor or for his work with SOCAN, Dan also happens to be one of the country's finest songwriters. So although we had Warren, Spencer and Nathan (pictured) on hand to play Voyageur for the older kids' session and Spencer alone for the younger kids, we were also lucky enough to have Dan step up and favour us with a tune at each session. For the older kids it was "Blue Moon of Kentucky" but for the younger kids it was a perfect seasonal sing-a-long, "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer", which the whole assembly performed brilliantly!

Thanks to Principal Carol Thompson and the staff and students at Munn's. Thanks to Spencer, Warren, Nathan and Dan for the music and to Dolores Anderson at Mariposa In the Schools.

Ontario School Adventures 1: Uxbridge

2010-12-08T13:05:00.001-05:00

I was warned in advance of my visit to Uxbridge Secondary School yesterday that it was a school known more for its sports than its arts. Sure enough, when we arrived in the gym where I'd be doing my presentation, the stage was occupied by a class of weightlifters! But you know, I've always found that Voyageur connects with all kinds of people with all kinds of interests. And there is enough sports history (hockey, basketball, skiing...) built into the guitar that it connects with jocks as much as it rocks!

And just because the stage was filled with barbells, don't think that means they don't know how to put on a show. It's a big school and for this assembly they filled the gym plus the gallery that ran down one side of the room for spectators. We had the sound and the LCD projector all working just fine when I suggested things would look better if we could kill the first couple of rows of lights in front of the screen. One of the tech assistants said: "we'll get the follow-spot on you". I laughed - just assuming he was kidding - but next thing I know they've got the house lights off and a follow-spot operator in the crow's nest. Unbelievable!

The presentation went really well and - just to prove the point about the meeting between arts and sports - it was the weightlifting coach who came up to me afterwards and told me it was the best presentation he'd seen at the school.

Thanks to Karen Doble for instigating this visit and the rest of the staff and students at Uxbridge Secondary School - especially Mickey Wilbur (pictured) who played beautifully and had a genuinely great voice. Thanks as usual, also, to Dolores Anderson at Mariposa In the Schools.

Home for the Holidays

2010-12-05T13:35:00.004-05:00

Not my home, in this case.

When I knew I wanted to reflect Thunder Bay's Finnish community somehow in the materials of Voyageur, I asked my T-Bay-born friend Cynthia Kinnunen what might be a good representative piece to get. She instantly replied: "You've got to get something from the Hoito!".
The Hoito Restaurant, in the basement of the Finnish Labour Temple at 314 Bay St., Thunder Bay, is Canada's longest running restaurant and operates as a co-op today - as it did when it opened in 1918. Cynthia sent me on the adventure of getting a soup paddle from the Hoito, which now forms a couple of internal struts in the guitar. And yet, Cynthia had not held the guitar until last night at her home in Waterloo, Ontario.

Cynthia (that's her in the picture with the apron her mother made for the occasion) and her husband Ben have an annual Christmas party (distinctly devoid, I should say of mojakka, hernekeitto or Finnish pancakes!) and seem to invite the whole neighbourhood. This year, they invited me to join them and do my presentation with my computer hooked up to the TV in their living room.

At first I felt bad that the party hushed when Cynthia introduced me but it quickly became genuine focus and attention and I felt very warmly received. Ben is a bass player but a couple of his guitar-playing friends (and former bandmates) got up to play and pass Voyageur around for photos while I enjoyed the miniature marshmallow and peanut butter squares!

Thanks to Ben, Cynthia and all their friends and neighbours in Waterloo.

Bonnie, Stephen and the Sterling Studio

2010-12-01T17:38:00.000-05:00

Sterling Sound in New York is one of the great, famous studios. I'm lucky that drummer Jean Martin runs a studio on Sterling Ave. just around the corner from me. Along with David Travers-Smith's studio, they anchor Toronto's own Sterling Sound.

Jean Martin's "Farm" on Sterling was the site today for a really wonderful experience.
A few months ago, Bonnie Ste-Croix wrote to me asking if Voyageur might be available for a recording session for a project she's doing that's taking her into studios in every province and territory of Canada. It seemed like a perfect fit. An even more perfect fit turned out to be the availability of the amazing Stephen Fearing who was passing through town and agreed to add some of his extraordinary guitar playing to Bonnie's recording. Now, you probably know that Stephen was the first person to officially play Voyageur on Canada Day 2006 and has played it on a number of occasions since so it was a nice little reunion in Jean's cozy studio.

He laid down a few takes of different stuff using Voyageur and you'll hear the results on Bonnie's "Canadian Girl" CD when it is released in the New Year.

Pictured clockwise from top left: Lynne Hanson, Bonnie Ste-Croix, Jean Martin, Stephen Fearing.
Thanks also to David Travers-Smith.

Home School

2010-11-30T20:57:00.001-05:00

Over the last few years, I've done many school visits to talk about Voyageur but today the school came to me!

Canadian artist and author Robert Fones lives in (and is represented by a gallery in) the neighbourhood and we spoke at our local coffee shop a while ago about trying to do something with a class he teaches through Sheridan College. As it turns out, he was leading a little walking tour of our neighbourhood for a group of Sheridan design students and asked if he could bring them by.

My living room became an impromptu classroom and I think we had a pretty productive class. It must have gone well since Robert has suggested I come to the school next time and speak to a larger group. Looking forward to it.

Thanks to Robert and everyone who accompanied him on the tour!

BTW - since I'm bound to be asked - the Haida artwork on the wall in the picture is Jaalen Edenshaw's "Box of Treasures" - a piece that I marvel at every day.

Hop, Skip, Halifax

2010-11-20T10:24:00.002-05:00

This trip to Halifax was done in record time - certainly not enough time to see any of my Nova Scotia friends (including Voyageur's luthier George Rizsanyi or Six String Nation book co-photographer Sandor Fizli) but it was enough time to make a couple of hundred new friends at the 13th Annual Recreation Nova Scotia Conference at the Westin, where I was invited to deliver the closing day keynote address.

Initially, it was a tough sell to bring a guy and his guitar to a gathering of recreation industry experts but a couple of the organizing committee members had seen my presentation at the YMCA Canada AGM in the summer and advocated on the strength of the links the project makes across generations, across cultures, across interests and across demographics. Since that was a focus of this year's conference, it seemed to have some real relevance. But - as always - the real relevance comes as audiences see the presentation and see themselves, their communities and their constituencies reflected in its story. It is fundamentally about people and place and each of our roles in the larger story. That really resonated with the group yesterday and I was told afterwards that it was the "best keynote in 13 years" and "... a standing "O" at an RNS keynote? That NEVER happens!".

As is the custom, Voyageur was brought to life by musicians chosen by the hosts at the end of my presentation. In this case, Chris Falcione and Blaise Landry did the honours - Chris opting for a Neil Young fave and Blaise going with a whole-room sing-a-long of Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl". That's Blaise holding the guitar and Chris holding the lyrics in the picture.

Thanks to Heather MacDonald, Rhonda Lemire, Christina the volunteer, Chris Falcione, Blaise Landry, Tyler Rodgers, Mickey Quase, Doc Hutchinson, the Westin Nova Scotian, Air Canada and the team at NSB.

A Successful Quest

2010-11-17T21:38:00.002-05:00

Teachers, students, policy makers and educational experts from Canada, the U.S., UK, Finland, South Africa and elsewhere gather this week in Richmond Hill for the York Regional District School Board Quest Conference. I was proud to have been invited to address the whole assembly as part of this afternoon's pre-conference activities.

The whole conference is about engaging students to encourage learning at a multitude of levels and the Six String Nation project fits nicely into that paradigm so it was a crowd that I knew would be receptive. But BOY were they receptive! First of all, as far as technical facilities go, this was a real Cadillac of an event - with dual screens with high quality rear projection, dual slide monitors, wireless lav mic - all coordinated by an expert crew from Rogers Television and run tighter than the Oscars. So I had that going for me as well but it all served to help deliver the project and its message to a room at the Sheraton Parkway ballroom that was with me every step of the way.

They were also with Graham Young every step of the way - and so was I! Graham (pictured) is a grade 9 student at Dr. J.M. Denison Secondary School in Newmarket ON and he was chosen to play Voyageur at the end of my presentation - but he picked a piece that some might think way beyond his years: something by the late great Canadian guitar wunderkind Lenny Breau. Like Paganini, Lenny's fingers could just do things other humans' couldn't and Graham really pulled off a brilliant performance.

Afterwards, all kinds of people came by to see the guitar and get me to sign their books, which one of the retailers brought in for the occasion. Both in the presentation and in the lobby, it was a great feeling to really connect with these folks who - at every level - are committed to making learning work in the 21st century and I'm glad they see Six String Nation as a partner in that goal.

Thanks to Jane Cutler, Kevin Merkley, Mary Florio, Dean Bodkin, Graham Young, Intellectual Property Books, Rogers Television and the team at NSB.

A Swingding with Lindy and Swinghammer

2010-11-15T12:15:00.003-05:00

Last night's event at the new Gallery Fontana Swing on Carlaw Ave in Toronto was one of those bittersweet events. Sweet because it's a remarkably beautiful space and the people who came to see the Six String Nation presentation each had a moving experience as so often happens. Sweet also because of the generosity of Katrina Anderson and everyone who helped run the event and because of the wonderful and generous performances by Kurt Swinghammer and Lindy Vopnfjord. The only bitter part was that it didn't turn out to be a fundraiser - more like a breakevener. Still, there were enough great moments that I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Immediately following the presentation, Kurt Swinghammer stepped up to take Voyageur and deliver two brilliant selections in his own inimitable style. He started with Owen Pallett's "This Is the Dream of Win and Regine" and followed it with a stunning rendition of Gordon Lightfoot's "Affair on 8th Avenue". As usual, Kurt brought brand new things to each of these songs. Whether he is in a studio, with an electric in hand and a rack of pedals at his feet or sitting with a completely unplugged acoustic as he was last night, Kurt has a knack for coaxing extraordinary sounds from ordinary tools.

Then came Lindy (pictured, with new fan Evangeline). We had four songs from the gentle giant - all of which used his remarkable technique of arching is voice into a kind of heavenly register that sounds as effortless as it does powerful. He also told some great stories and included a riding song from his Icelandic heritage to really give Voyageur a workout. Later, he mused that this guitar may be played by more people than any in the world and that - as a result - it has a glow that will only get stronger with time. I hope he's right.

A real highlight of the evening for me were the comments of a gentleman in the audience who has just adopted Canada as his home and for whom this encounter encapsulated so many of the emotions he's felt in starting a new life in this country. Thank you for sharing that with me, Jeff.

Thanks of course to Lindy, Kurt, Katrina, Sarah, Jen, Hannah and Hailey and everyone who attended the show. But a special thanks also to Rodney Clark and the gang at Rodney's Oyster House. Rodney is always part of my presentations because of his connection to one of the pieces in the guitar from the oyster world in PEI but he was present in a delicious way at this event, having donated some beautiful smoked salmon with all the fixin's for all the attendees to enjoy. Thanks also to Joe Sutherland Rentals for the great deal on the projector. Photo by Hailey Knight.

Mighty Mighty Popo

2010-11-12T01:06:00.004-05:00

One of the very first people to play Voyageur in public was Popo Murigande. He was on the stage in Major's Hill Park for the afternoon show in Ottawa on Canada Day 2006, the day of the guitar's debut. I handed it to Colin Linden first (since I knew Colin from Ranchdale Public School!) but Popo might have been the next to play it after Colin. This was all before the official evening unveiling with Stephen Fearing on the main Parliament Hill stage later that day.

Suffice to say that Popo's relationship to this guitar goes back to the beginning and he's one of those artists who has played the guitar on a number of occasions over the years: at the Vancouver Folk Festival, once before in Toronto and at his last CD launch at Barrymore's in Ottawa. Tonight, he returned to the Lula Lounge in Toronto to launch his new album "Gakondo" and I'm thrilled that he asked me to be there with Voyageur.

This album is the culmination of some recent trips back to his birthplace of Rwanda to study and reconnect with the roots of his music and, not surprisingly, "Gakondo" is much more acoustically oriented album. That was reflected on the stage tonight with 3 acoustic guitars, dobro, mandolin, 4 background vocalists and the always astonishing Kofi Ackah on percussion. For the most part, Popo played an acoustic gourd-body guitar swapping it out a couple of times for a hollow-body electric and once for Voyageur for the sole instrumental tune of the evening, "Ibra". It was a gorgeous, lilting performance and a real honour to hear the guitar in his hands again.

Thanks to Popo Murigande, Nadine McNulty, Otimoi Oyemu and the Batuki Music Society and - as always - sound man Howard Laurie and the amazing staff and management at Lula Lounge.