So Long Salmon Arm
It's what Doug called a "gold-plated festival".
Everything was beautifully organized. The hospitality was top notch and everyone from the audience to the artists to the vendors to businesses in town were fully there for the festival.
We did a record number of portraits for a festival of this size, taking more than 3000 images in almost 250 separate sessions over two days. It was great that Hugo had me do a presentation of the guitar - complete with visuals on the jumbotron - on Friday night so that everyone had a better sense of what we were all about.
The only disappointment was that Voyageur didn't get played at the festival this time. We had hoped that Sam Roberts was going to include it in the finale and he was game. However, his technical team was concerned that because they hadn't had a full soundcheck of their own, they'd have too much to deal with without including a new instrument in the mix. However, Sam promised me we would eventually do something together and I take him at his word. He's the nicest rock star you ever met.
A big thrill for me at the festival was getting to introduce Dr. John. He even shook my hand as he came on to the stage!
It rained like crazy on Friday, drizzled a little bit on Saturday and was partly grey on Sunday but the real cloud over the weekend was the death last Wednesday of guitar and recording pioneer Les Paul at the age of 94. I had the pleasure of interviewing Les for a radio series I did called "The Wire: The Impact of Electricity on Music" and later meeting him in New York after winning a Peabody Award for the series. He truly had a generous musical spirit and without him, none of what we think of as commonplace in music today - from electric guitars to multitrack recording - would have been possible. It was an honour to have had even such a brief encounter with such a person.
Appearing in the picture are (from left) Paolo Pietropaolo, me (Jowi Taylor), Les Paul and Chris Brookes. Paolo and Chris are my brilliant radio partners and co-producers of "The Wire".
I heard about Les' passing on Thursday just after having had a wonderful midday presentation at the SAGA Public Art Gallery in Salmon Arm where people came to meet the guitar in a kind of informal setting. It was just perfect.
Thanks to Hugo Rampen, Gail, Tori, Diane, all the staff and volunteers at the festival and everyone who came up to meet us at the booth. It was truly a wonderful experience
(except for the water I got in my ear at the hotel pool that is STILL there 4 days later!)
Posted at 9:28 AM