Jan 25, 2010
VIDEO: Paul O'Brien's "The Voyageur"

Wow, that didn't take long! Special thanks to Kent Leahy-Trill and Art Makosinski!
Have a look at this video.
The song and the performance are stunning.

Posted at 4:36 PM

Jan 24, 2010
Bird Songs

Laura Bird is a friend from our days on the board of the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals. She's also the one who put together the amazing night at the Orangeville Opera House with Don Ross a couple of years ago.

Last night, she held a kind of late celebration of her latest CD, The Water In Between, at the Edward Day Gallery on Queen St. West.
I offered to bring the guitar and she responded enthusiastically. As an added bonus, she was to be joined on stage by the ever lovely Tannis Slimmon, bluegrass monster Emory Lester and bassist Kene Hyatt. Tannis and Laura both played Voyageur during the set while Emory and Kene both played it backstage.

Normally, when someone asks me to sign their Six String Nation book or brochure, I say something like: "To xxxx, Citizen of the Nation". But when Kene Hyatt asked me to sign his, I was simply able to put "Citizen Kene". Love it.

Thanks to Laura, Cathy, Julia, Javier, Tannis, Louis Melville, Emory Lester and Kene Hyatt.

Posted at 4:25 PM

Not So Lazy Saturday

No rest for the wicked, eh?

Managed to sleep in fairly late on Saturday but still feeling pretty tired from the travel and late nights.

But we had two things on the agenda for the day, the latter being an appearance with my friend Laura Bird at the Edward Day Gallery celebrating her latest CD.

But first, a trip to our all-time favourite Toronto music hangout, the venerable Cameron House, for a sort of reunion of the Backstabbers featuring Colonel Tom and Bob Hannon.

I only had Voyageur with me in order to have it ready for Laura's gig but Colonel Tom spied it as I was going to show my friend John Maxwell and asked if he could do a Hank Snow song on it – which indeed he did and brilliantly too.

Thanks, as always, to the Cameron House. May it stay in the hands of someone who understands what it means.

Posted at 3:12 PM

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