Tag Archives: The Skydiggers
A Skydiggers Christmas Returns To Meaford Hall
This Thursday The Skydiggers bring their annual Christmas show to Meaford Hall. This is part of a tour that actually started back in mid-November in Winnipeg. The first part of the tour was to promote their latest album, “The Warmth of The Sun” and as we get closer to Christmas it has become a combination of songs from their album along with their Christmas favourites.
As Andy Maize told Exclaim! magazine, the new album “is a reflection of the live band, how good the players are, how quick they are, and we wanted to capture that energy and not overthink it.” He added “I don’t think it was intentional, but I can hear a thread on these songs about reaching out, being honest with yourself and making a connection with people, in order to get to a better place. That’s definitely a goal for us, it always is.”
The original songs on the album were co-written, as always by The Skydiggers’ core members Andy Maize and Josh Findlayson. The title track was inspired by Gord Downie’s solo project “Secret Path”, which took a hard look at Canada’s national shame, the residential schools which wrenched indigenous children from their families right up until the 1990’s. Josh Findlayson was particularly moved by the message of the album, and its accompanying graphic novel. He was a close friend of Gord’s and played on most of the solo albums that he had released outside of The Tragically Hip. He played in the live show of “Secret Path” last year, not long before Gord’s passing.
‘Tis The Season, Fa-la-la-la-la
It’s that time of year again when choirs raise their voices in song and Christmas specials abound. Live music takes on a special flavour this time of year. Here’s a guide to some of what’s happening around our area.
Meaford’s longstanding Women’s Choir, The Goldenaires, presents their annual Christmas concert at the Meaford United Church on Sunday afternoon. The choir is under the direction of Catherine Robertson and features special guests the Beaver Valley Concert Band, directed by Don Robertson. The show starts at 2:30 pm and admission is by donation.
Tonight at The Historic Gayety Theatre, classical guitarist and five time Juno Award winner Liona Boyd presents “A Winter Fantasy”, featuring music from her 2014 Christmas album accompanied by guitarist and vocalist Andrew Dolson. This is her third Christmas themed work. The first one, entitiled “A Guitar For Christmas”, was the first classical album to go platinum in Canada, establishing her as Canada’s “First Lady of the Classical Guitar”.
Blackie And The Rodeo Kings To Play In Collingwood
Blackie And The Rodeo Kings will be playing at concert at Collingwood’s Historic Gayety Theatre on Sunday, Feb. 26th, the second stop on their new tour to promote their latest album “Kings And Kings”, released late last year. After the kickoff concert at Massey Hall the night before, they will coming up to the southern shore of Georgian Bay at the behest local music promoter Steven Vipond. “Steve’s an angel,” says Blackie co-founder Tom Wilson, “and you need guys like that in the community who do it for the music”. Local fans can be grateful indeed to have a chance to see a band of this quality.
Willie P. Bennett
Although they are categorized as “Americana” music, Blackie And The Rodeo Kings are to some extent the archtypical Canadian band. They began as a gesture of love toward the legendary singer-songwriter Willie P. Bennett (taking their name from one of his songs), who ranked high in their collective esteem. “Willie’s music was just so powerful,” says Wilson, “but just when it looked like success for him was just down the road, he would always take a turn right into the ditch. This was our way of supporting what he gave all of us”
The three principals who came together to make up Blackie And The Rodeo Kings, Stephen Fearing, Colin Linden, and Tom Wilson were already highly respected Canadian talents at the time, with Junos, platinum sales and even film appearances in their individual histories. It wasn’t so much a matter of them hitching their fortunes to Willie P. Bennett’s as it was of hitching his star to theirs. And this reflects an essential element of the band’s mindset: they exist not just to promote their own (formidable) talents but to share with their audience the talents of other (mainly Canadian) artists for whom they have the greatest respect.
It began with “High or Hurtin’: The Songs of Willie P. Bennett” twenty years ago. As they continued to record new albums, they added tributes to other great and sometimes underrated Canadian tunesmiths such as Bruce Cockburn, Fred J. Eaglesmith and David Wiffen. In a band that had excellent songwriters built in, it was inevitable that they would eventually record albums that were all originals of their own. But that would never be a permanent situation. Their sixth album, “Kings and Queens” was a collection that brought their favourite female artists to join them on each track. Along with high profile American artists like Roseanne Cash and Emmylou Harris, they included such Canadian treasures as Mary Margaret O’Hara, Holly Cole, and Serena Ryder. Their sequel, “Kings And Kings” teams them up with another mix of great talents, male this time, that includes vocal as well as composition credits from Bruce Cockburn, Rodney Crowell, Nick Lowe and Dallas Green, among others. And they haven’t forgotten Willie P., including on the album his song “This Lonesome Feeling” brought to life by Vince Gill.
Blackie And The Rodeo Kings have become, as a band, a great Canadian treasure in their own right. But they have never forgotten nor ignored the idols of their youth, stretching back to the days when Colin and Tom haunted the coffee houses of the day to catch performance by the artists they continue to pay tribute to.
These days you can count the Canadians winning Grammy Awards to find ample evidence that Canadian music is appreciated well beyond our borders, but it wasn’t always that way and these three guys have been around long enough to remember how tough it has always been for Canadian talent. If you listen to songs like David Wiffen’s “Coast To Coast Fever” or Willie P. Bennett’s “White Lines” you get a stark portrait of how difficult it has been in the past for Canadian original talent to succeed. Wilson says they still end every concert with “White Lines”, a song that inspired him to make music his life’s work.
Tom Wilson with his paintings
Tom Wilson has always been a triple threat creative artists and, like his bandmates, he pursues other projects outside of Blackie. One of Colin Linden’s recent gigs has been as technical supervisor on the TV show “Nashville”. And Stephen Fearing, in order to join the others on this tour, has had to insert it into his own solo tour, flying in from the U.K. just before the kickoff Massey Hall show, and then picking up his own tour after this tour ends in mid-March. Tom Wilson has always been musician, artist, and writer simultaneously. These days he earns a third of his income from his paintings and he’s currently contracted to Random House for a memoir he’s writing with Dave Bidini of The Rheostatics, due out this fall.
To itemize the careers of these three extraordinary creative artists would require a book in itself but it is worth spending a few moments looking at another Tom Wilson project because of what it says about Canadian music and his personal dedication to it. That project is a band called LeE HARVey OsMond, formed by Wilson in 2009 as a collective that includes members of The Cowboy Junkies, The Skydiggers and 3’s a Crowd (along with Suzie Vinnick). Like Blackie And The Rodeo Kings, it’s a band that also carries the history of Canadian folk-rock in its personnel, and it is a band built around a specific vision.
The Skydiggers’ Energy Warms A Wintry Night
Review by Bill Monahan of The Skydiggers at Meaford Hall Dec. 10, 2016
It was a wintry night when The Skydiggers stopped at Meaford Hall on Saturday. That may have prevented a few from making the trip, so the audience was a little smaller than the full houses that the Opera House is getting used to lately. But they brought a whole lot of energy to the room. Vocal and mobile, they cheered every song, often spontaneously leaping to their feet and running into the aisles to dance. From the opening bars of the first song Andy Maize had the audience in the palm of his hand.
They had said they were bringing their famous Horseshoe Tavern Christmas show on the road but since that longstanding tradition involved crowding the stage with friends from a quarter century career, it’s a little difficult to bring on the road. But they did bring friends, and everybody caught the spirit. The Skydiggers gave us a great show from end to end.
There was a solid band, with keyboards, drums and bass, accompanying singers Andy Maize and Jessy Bell Smith, and guitarist Josh Findlayson. Their groove was locked in enough for Andy to execute some of his famous dance moves, ranging from leaping leprechaun to Chubby Checker, with some frenetic jazz hands thrown in for spice. Michael Johnston, on keyboards, stretched out several times with some exciting solos. Guitar leads were scarce, just hinted at when Josh briefly strapped on an electric guitar. Mostly he played an acoustic, picking and strumming.
The most compelling aspect of The Skydiggers live show is the blend of voices. Often everybody but the drummer was singing and it created a beautiful choral sound. Andy Maize on lead vocals uses the full range of his voice to put across a variety of songs and when Jessy Bell Smith adds vocal harmonies things suddenly become ethereal.
She is the kind of vocalist that has you thinking as you listen “I wonder where she’s playing next.” She’s been a member of The Skydiggers since 2013 when her version of one of their songs inspired them to release “She Comes In To The Room”, a collection of songs with female singers. She has also released an album of her own recordings. On stage she seems shy but relaxed. When she takes the lead you are transported. It’s one of those voices.
She did a version of “We Go Rambling On”, a song written by Peter Cash, one of the founding members of The Skydiggers. She lost herself in the performance and so did the audience, which spontaneously leapt to their feet to give her an extended ovation afterward. I think that’s what they call a show-stopper.
But the show was full of great renditions of wonderful songs. “Remember Me” is a longing look at the years of Christmas parties at The Horseshoe. Andy says it has become such a solid tradition, “I think they could have it without us”. The audience disagreed and it sounded like several people promised to follow them to The Horseshoe for the big show next weekend.
Their version of The Tragically Hip’s “Are You Going Through Something?” was moving, and their take on Gene Clark’s “Eight Miles High” added some musical treats that weren’t there on the original Byrds version.
It was a show that was over too soon. It was the kind of band you wanted to be able to listen to all night, and you got the feeling that they would be happy to play for you. Maybe they’ll do that when they play two days next week at The Horseshoe.
