The drive to Hugh's Room on a Friday evening is not as bad as it might be. You don't have to go on the Gardiner, so you save a lot of trouble and if you know enough to stay to the left as you go up Parkside, it's pretty smooth sailing. Free parking at the grocery store lot across the street is a real bonus in the Big Smoke. Then it's a short stroll across Dundas to the best (or certainly one of the best) music venues in Southern Ontario.
A Man Called Wrycraft is dining with the musicians who will perform James Taylor's songs tonight, and as my wife and I enter the room his voice booms, "Kidney!...and, ummm, Mrs. Kidney!" It's nice to be noticed.
There's a buzz in the room tonight, there was a full page article in the Sun today announcing this show, another in a series of Wrycraft organized tribute concerts. The way he does it is, select an artist (he does Tom Waits every year, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Randy Newman, The Beatles and even Pink Floyd) and ask eight singers/bands to do two songs each.
Then you pays yer money and you takes yer chances!
We take our table, order a drink, order dinner, dine and wait for 8:30. Michael Wrycraft is a big dude, wearing a black t-shirt with a design of his own creation on the front. He has a great head of hair and a finely trimmed beard, and a voice like Orson Welles. He knows a lot about music, and he especially knows what he likes...and he LIKES James Taylor. Me too. I first saw JT at Mariposa in 1970. The
Sweet Baby James album was just being released so no-one knew what to expect. He'd been on Apple Records, and if he was good enough to pass the Beatles test, he was going to pass ours. We spent the day on Toronto Island listening to David Rea, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and many others. JT was playing the big show at night. He seemed shy, self-effacing, maybe a bit clumsy...and he couldn't get his electric guitar to work when he tried singing the Coke ad for us. I bought his album the very next day! and have bought everything he's released ever since. Even records on which he sings harmony are in my collection because his harmonies are just downright amazing. Listen to "Back In The High Life" by Steve Winwood if you don't believe me! Anyway, suffice it to say expectation were high for a good time tonight.
It started off well enough as Sam Turton and a few friends took the stage and did acceptable renditions of "Shower the People" and "Mexico"...and they were followed by Ivy Mairi who introduced "Blossom" a song she claimed to have heard on the
Amchitka live album. "Blossom" is an older tune, from 1970's
Sweet Baby James album, and the Amchitka concert was in October of '70, but the album wasn't released until 2009! Well, you can't expect everyone to have such a long history with these artists as old guys like me (and Wrycraft) do!
Mexican guitarist Quique Escamilla did a reggae spiced "How Sweet It Is" and a rough "Gorilla" (Wrycraft had requested this tune, a forgotten gem from 1975's album of the same name). Then The Donefors provided the first real highlight of the night by doing spot on versions of two songs which are personal favourites of mine. First "Copperline" from 1991's
New Moon Shine is almost perfect, harmonies, rhythms, instrumentation...aah! Then they top it with "In line, in line, they're all in a line, my ducks are all in a row..." The first half ends on a high!
Dessert arrives during the break, and a cup of coffee. i run out to the lobby to pick up a copy of the poster Wrycraft designs for each of his tribute shows, and grab Sam Turton's CD since he mentions that he plays a lot of slide guitar, "this is my Ry Cooder hand, and this is my James Taylor hand" he says. I'm curious to hear how those two hands work together.
Jory Nash opens the second half with powerful takes on "Fire and Rain" and "Something in the Way She Moves". Burke Carroll gives a two song workshop on the beauty of the pedal steel guitar, if Jadea Kelly (who joined him for vocals) had seemed familiar with the songs it would have been a highlight, too. She didn't even get the melody right for "Bartender's Blues". Her admission that the first time she heard James Taylor was on an episode of
The Simpsons was terrifying! This iconic songwriter and singer is a yellow faced ink sketch now! (Shudder!)
Jacob Moon proved that he takes his job seriously. All week he'd been promoting this Tribute Concert on facebook, and on his YouTube site. He posted a series of solo performances of JT tunes, and ran a little contest for free tickets. He sang a lovely version of "Song For You Far Away" from JT's
That's Why I'm Here album. Next Jacob played the
song that made him the absolute star of the night. He had remixed some of Taylor's own recording of "Traffic Jam" and sang and played guitar over JT's backing. It was stunning and deserved all the applause and cheers!
Wrycraft admitted, "I don't even know what to say about that." If you can render Michael speechless you're really doin' something!
Unfortunately the night reached its nadir right after Jacob's mountaintop experience. The duo Scarlett Jane took the stage and murdered both "You've Got a Friend" and "Steamroller". Their harmonies were off, their grasp of the blues non-existent, they acted as though they'd been practising looking 'sexy' in front of the mirror at home. They should've listened to the original recordings a couple more times. Hugely disappointing.
Then Michael called all the artists back on stage for a rousing romp through the classic "Sweet Baby James". These closers are usually as loose as a goose (or a flock of geese) and Friday night was no exception, but it did help to take the sting off a bit. Out into the cold for an easy drive home, and a weekend spent listening to the originals. Gotta love that sweet lovin' man JT! Baby, don't you loose your lip on him!
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A week or two ago we attended another of Wrycraft's tribute shows at Hugh's Room. This one was in honour of Carole King. The lady knows how to write a song, and the performers Michael chose certainly knew how to perform them. The stipulation was that each performer would choose (or be assigned...make no mistake, sometimes Michael picks your songs for you) one song from the early Brill Building years (when Carole was married to and writing with Gerry Goffin) and one from the Tapestry years. The amazing thing is how many songs Ms King wrote that have made an impact on our internal jukeboxes! With every song somebody in the capacity crowd whispered (or gasped) "I didn't know she wrote that!" Yep, songs that we knew in versions by The Monkees, Herman's Hermits, or James Taylor...they all flowed from the pen of Carole King. And the artists involved turned them inside and out but however they played 'em...they still had that unmistakeable meldoy that wouldn't let you go. Paul Reddick, who was accompanied by Colin Cripps on guitar, turned his tuens into blues, Chloe Charles offered R&B, George Koller had Carvin Winans to gospelize a pair and Aaron Jensen and Countermeasure sang accapella...gorgeous. Every one of the eight acts gave it their all. And with songs as good as Carole King's that made it a pretty special evening.
Then there was an opportunity to see The Zombies in concert! That's right! The Zombies. Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone together with a tight as a drum band playing all the songs. Oldies like "She's Not There," "Tell Her No," and "Time of the Season" plus solo tracks from Colin's career, and "Hold You Head Up" from Argent. The crowd was...ummm...grey haired but young at heart, and the band was fantastic sounding like the originals on the old stuff and not unlike Steely Dan on the new songs. I picked up the new CD and have been playing it ever since. Rod & Colin signed everything.
Gerry & the Pacemakers are coming to Fallsview Casino in June, so I bought a pair of tickets for that. Of all the Merseybeat bands they were my favourite (next to The Beatles, of course). It will only be Gerry Marsden and a band of professionals but Gerry still has the voice!
Jesse Winchester is coming back too, after recovering from throat cancer. The tribute CD that Jimmy Buffett put together is a great introduction to Jesse's work, but you have to hear Jesse do his songs. The guy's a genius of relaxed singing and a fine songwriter too.
