How quickly the prairie is lost to the shield. Eastbound from Winnipeg, where I spent the morning with my frequent tour pal, Big Dave McLean. He told me that the producer/director of his recently released bio-pic had cut me out to save money. That's the second time this year I've been able to help this way with a bio-pic, so it gives me a strong, move ahead kind of feeling. Right now I'm moving ahead through the scrub lands north and east of Winnipeg. The roads are good for a while, but they grow rougher as the farmland fades to abandoned properties, as the rocks and trees become more prominent.
How quickly do I reach the edge of Manitoba. The eastern edge- where the flatlands die off. Abandoned fields. Forty years of scrub and brush to blow off a hundred years of labour. Medonites. Magazines with stories about Medonite sex. Big, blonde women who wear dresses and braided hair. Men who buy rye in plastic bottles at 4:30 on a Monday afternoon. Ice. Coffee cups. We sit outside a Ukrainian cemetery and drink. The groaning trains on the main line, just behind the trees, the almost forgotten graves. Clever candle holders cut into some of the stones. When was the last candle lit and burnt here? Never to be Forgotten. Mother. Father. Sister. Burn a candle for me when I'm gone. On my birthday. Until I, too, am forgotten, and the stone, lichen covered, tilts dangerously. Soon this stone will fall to join the other forgotten stones, forgotten souls, smashed and run over by the challenged one who drives the lawn tractor. But now it is the black flies that drive us away: the truck in a storm of dust. My car, into the little church parking lot where I shall sleep tonight.
It's a nice ride out of here in the early morning light. A couple of black bears saunder across the road. My camera is buggered up, so by the time I've stopped the car and got it ready, I'm alone on Hwy 44. From here, it's a pretty quick ride out to Ontario. It has a low speed limit, and a low tolerance, so I set the cruise on "slow," turn up the stereo, and roll towards my gig in Kenora, ON. I'm back on the TransCanada, and desperately seeking coffee.
In Kenora, I hit the coffee joint, work the internet, and then go out to check on the Thrift stores. Nothing today. I'm looking for those china, Queen Elizabeth, Canadian bourbon glasses. Nothing like having the old girl scowl at you while you have a drink. These are pretty popular with my pals on the southern route, so I try to stock up when I can.
Although Kenora, ON has come a long way in the past decade, it still has a tough underbelly of lost and damaged First Nations people. Change is underway. Changing economy. Changing opportunities. Changing mind set of a new, younger population with new dreams and ideas. The mercury poisoned residents of Grassy Narrows no longer stagger up and down these hard slopes. Or not as often. Still, I make sure my car is locked up tight when I'm away from it. Syringes litter the sidewalk of this downtown street. Blue skies overhead, I can smell spring flowers in the air.
Tonight I'll be playing a nice club where most of Canada's touring shows stop. Good stage, good lights, good sound. Folks in this old mill town know a lot about music. Some have come here from other places. It's pretty. It's on a big lake. Everybody agrees it has a future. Change is in the wind.
Soon the rocks and trees will be behind me. The rough Northern Sheild just a memory again. The black and white Ontario Provincial Police cruisers- sleek, souped-up SUVs- behind me and no longer following. They were waiting outside my show in Kenora, ON. I didn't get in or start the motor until he hit the traffic circle. Then my pal Dave and I took off in the opposite direction. We circled around to the top of the hill and looked down to watch them looking for the Lincoln. I was good to drive, I just didn't want to go through another Kenora shakedown. I've been here, and had that happen before. But it's a thin line of blacktop across this land. Every escaping criminal running east of west has got to blow through on this little band of road. There's no telling who you might meet. You might get scared. You might suspend constitutional rights for ordinary citizens. Particularly guys in nice looking Lincolns. I could be a doctor, coming in to operate in the morning. The engineer, to assess your bridge. A musician, to bring the Blues to Your Town. Healing music, to a place that still needs healing.
When we got back to the house we played with this 1940s amp that Dave is preparing for me. A very heavy 30 watts! Life is good! Why is the blues so fine? And why do cops love beautiful Lincolns so much? Now, the Tour takes a right hand turn east, and south. The beginnings of a plunge down the map.
Dryden, the smell of money in the air. The mill doesn't employ as many as it once did, and the young folks are drifting away to Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Toronto. No stop this year- but I've played a few shows in the shadow of these stacks. Last winter my car froze solid in this town. Battery shattered, air suspension locked in the down position. Damn cold ride outta here on black ice, semi trucks pushing on my tail, white knuckles on the wheel. Nice to see this place in spring, but I've got six hours of driving- and a time change- before my show tonight. A quick coffee stop, but no time to check in with any of my people.
A quiet night in Thunder Bay. I leave a tour jacket at the Apollo. Did anyone get a picture? My little camera didn't. There's a core of people in Thunder Bay that come out to all my shows, year after year. The Apollo is a great room anyway, but my friends here make every room a great room. I've yet to play the Thunder Bay Blues Festival. But I think I get the picture there. The big picture. Meanwhile, my pals, the band Carmanah, were playing across the street at another venue. We chat between shows, between loading in and loading out. Their first tour. I wish them well, and safe travels.
With construction, it's a ten hour drive to The Sault, ON for tonight's show. My picture is on the door, which is a good sign. But I have not played a show here in 9 years, so I have no idea what to expect on a Thursday night. They have a nice stage and PA, but I end up sitting at the bar- playing a few tunes to the few people that have wandered in for a drink. I'm in here on a door deal, but thankfully the owner gives me enough to cover a tank of gas, plus a bit more. On this Ride Over the Hump back of the Great Lakes, I continue to be thankful for the smallest kindness. We're all on the edge. We're all trying to figure it out. We've all got to ride the wave, or drown.
Hard rock town. Sudbury, ON. Riding the blacktop. Trains outside. Northern Ontario where I used to play six nights at the Colson Hotel. I think that was here. I think that's how you spell it. These places all torn down now. Boarded over in the boarded over mill towns. Faded "cold beer" signs still up on the walls. Places where there used to be a salt shaker on every table. For the beer.
None of the bikers at my gig tonight wore leather. No disputes with the hard rock miners, now mostly retired. Or the railway crews, in from the bush, drinking elsewhere. No FBIs in for a punch up. That's a joke to some, an insult to others. It depends on who's saying it to who, and when. It's not nice. It's historical. It's the way it was. You might laugh. Or you might be mad about it. Part of the almost worn away fabric that covered the seats of this train side town. A place where some things need to be forgotten, and other things need to be remembered. Tonight, it's a mixed crowd of mostly arty professionals and students. Wine and cheese plates. Designer beer. I start early, end early, meet some facebook friends, an old pal from the rough and tumble days. At the end of the night I'm paid $65 by the bar, and make another $50 in tips. Gas money to the next town. I knew this gig was fuzzy around the edges. Not finding it listed on the web, I wasn't going to stop if my picture wasn't in the window. It was. I did. Now I'm going to sleep in the Lincoln Hotel, parked next to the tracks again. These trains will wake me up once in a while. Just to see if I'm still alive. Maybe it is a dream, and I'll wake up in the old Colson to the sound of my drummer screwing a hooker in the next bed. Or maybe I'll wake up to room service at the Best Western in Mobile, AL, wondering, how the hell did I get to this place? Is this the breakfast I thought it would be? Did I order this? Has there been a mistake?
Something is always for sale in Sudbury...
Down the road to Lavigne, a charming and wonderful gig on the shores of Lake Nipissing. My people. They treat me right. I've been here a few times before. A little, francophone community, so I try out my rough, french language skills. I could stay up all night and swap stories with the owners, but I need to be on the road in just a few hours. Meanwhile, the cops have got a road check set up just over the hill. It's the only bar left in the county, so they have nowhere else left to go. Maybe they can close this place down, too. They'll be long gone by morning, and I'll make some time on these empty, secondary highways.
A soft seater at the Orangeville, ON Opera House this afternoon. Here I am with Orangeville Blues and Jazz Festival AD Larry Kurtz. As well as being a harmonica player, wood worker, festival director- he's also a painter! Who knew?! Pre-show we stopped in at a Main St. art gallery to check out this painting. I'm honoured.
Post-show, at the Mississippi Tourism booth with my friends Connie "Mississippi Queen" Rouble, and Paul Reddick. This is my only Canadian festival this year. Of course, this is also a country where Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman headline "blues" and "folk" festivals, and money looks funny. Remember the Guess Who? How about BTO's "Takin' Care of Business?" I could get used to the funny money- if I saw more of it. Canadian money, that is. Randy must be a blues guy at heart- he made a blues album this year, I think. Just like Steve Earle. Peg Leg Sam used to say "funny things happen in this world!" And he was right! I sure do miss those days when we used to drink moonshine and play all night outside his little cabin: the young girls and the old girls dancing, calling out "hey, Doc-Tah, hey..." Never did play Mojo. And the only business we took care of was hogs, late at night.
Back in the "Big Smoke," Toronto, ON. Not a moment too soon, either. Power steering pretty much done. Air not working. Tires looking a little smoother. Engine trouble light flashing. Ignition coils acting up... Back in my own kitchen for a few weeks. A stranger in my own house. All the drawers look strange, nothing is in the right place. Everything is just as I had left it nearly three months ago. Even the stuff in the fridge. I pace around. Thankfully I've got some shows to go and play. A car to fix. A garden to weed. Gigs to book. I've come to realize that I'm now more comfortable on the road than off. Maybe it's the city itself. I don't know. I do know the maps on the table. It's not a town that's ever had it's arms around me. Well, rolling through with my big band, hanging out at the Elephant Walk, The Paper Door, The Paramount, Tiger's... After hour joints crammed full of musicians: Donnie and Jane, Wilcox, show bands out of Detroit, out of work boxers, bouncers, jazz guys I should of known. Albert's Hall, The Horseshoe, The Elmo, The Holiday, The Jarvis House, The Algonquin, The Blackhawk, Grossman's Tavern, The Colonial, The Riverboat, The Silver Dollar, Sneaky Dee's, The Black Bull, Spadina House, The Victory, The Bev, The Rivoli, The Purple Onion, The Cameron House, Edgerton's, The Chimney, King of Hearts, The Isabella... There were other rooms, too. But I can't remember them now. Crazy. Crazy energy. Crazy neon nights. Playing hard, soaked in sweat, playing the blues. I blew harp in those days. The upstairs joint where Ben lost his drums, and Wilcox lost his strat in an all night poker game. I wonder who has that guitar now? I never gambled with money. Just with life. And it's all different now.
Working girl. Blues girl. This guitar will never be bought or sold. It will change players again sometime: gripping somebody else, edging out strange sounds from the dark side, telling new stories, old secrets. Sweat. Sex. Booze. Conversations overheard. Hard rooms. Cash. Late nights in 49 states, 10 provinces, two territories. Oh, if this girl had a tongue instead of a fretboard...
Big Chuck played her twenty-five years ago. Some day she'll leave me for another, younger man. Or woman. As long as you touch her right she doesn't care. Delta songster. Cold, nickel plated steel. National Type O. Built in 1929. I string her pretty heavy on the treble side, a bit lighter on the bass. Bare fingers. Dead strings. 250 shows a year across North America. Thanks for riding with me on this western leg of the adventure. Soon we'll go south for a couple of months- Chicago, St. Louis, Mississippi, Alabama... then up the eastern seaboard into Atlantic Canada, Newfoundland... The National Steel "Big X" Blues Tour. North America's biggest little blues tour. Watch for some very special guests down the line.
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