So I have a feature up on the Straight site about Steve Dawson's Highway 61 Re-Imagined project, taking place Saturday. I am not being hyperbolic when I say that Barney Bentall's take on "Desolation Row" was one of the top concert-going experiences of 2023, for me -- the element of surprise was a factor, and ways in which Bentall schooled me (inadvertently) in my own snobbishness. But I sincerely loved it, and am keen to re-experience the song on Saturday (as well as Bentall's own set, slightly earlier in the afternoon).
Because (I confess) I recognized almost no names at the Festival this year besides those in the Dawson project -- which I caught at Kay Meek -- I thought, initially, that this year's festival was relatively slim pickin's, but turns out there are several people I am excited to see; but none more than Grace Petrie, playing tomorrow afternoon.
See, as those who read my previous post will know, I actually love music that occurs at the nexus of punk and folk -- music that follows tuneful, traditional songwriting structures, but has pointed, witty, and sometimes rude lyrics. A Christmas song where the singer opines about why people must continually vote for Conservative cuuuuuuuuuuuuunts? (13 U's, I counted)? I love everything about this; I can see immediately why someone like Billy Bragg would choose Petrie for a touring partner.
It's not all Petrie does. In fact, most of her songs are quite a bit more earnest, like "Black Tie," a song about asserting your identity against the various forces trying to squelch it and trying to reassure your high-school aged self that it's all going to be okay. It brought tears to my eyes, it's so movingly done, and I'm not lesbian, queer, or in any way gender non-conforming (that one Halloween aside, and, uh, a few articles for Xtra; no, really, I just wanted to get paid writing work, seriously. Shh). Mostly I just love her songs, and find myself politically simpatico with them -- you don't have to be butch or even female to be horrified with the rollback of women's reproductive rights in Texas, for example. So from someone I did not know on Monday, she's gone to the artist at the festival I'm most excited to see -- playing Friday afternoon. (Note: if you worry about butch lesbians maybe getting TERFy, listen to "Black Tie" forthwith -- she's supporting gender nonconformity of all sorts and even has a barb aimed at Germaine Greer. It makes me want to ask her if she knows Nomeansno's "No Sex" -- "there's no sex/ only fucking"). (Someone should do a flat up disco version of that).
(I digress. Boy I hope she has her new album in vinyl!).
There is much else I am keen to experience -- I like both banjo and fiddle, so I'm keen to see Allison de Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves, also on Friday. I like what I've heard of (two-spirited Indigenous artist) Jeremy Dutcher a great deal, but mostly that's stuff I've peeked at on break at work, based on a friend's recommendation; I don't know Dutcher's music well at all. Ditto Chris Pierce, who seems more of a conventional songwriter, but a very good one (he comes up in the Dawson article). And I want to see everyone who is involved in the Dylan tribute do solo sets if I can -- especially Ndidi O, whose "Ballad of a Thin Man" was my SECOND favourite song at the Dylan event last October, and whose "Call Me Queen" reminds me a bit of Amythyst Kiah's "Black Myself," but a bit darker and heavier. I am sure I'll get to take in some interesting world music on the fly, as well (I liked what I heard of 47Soul, in particular). It all remains to be seen: what's the temperature, where is the shade, where can I sit, and who will I have the hardest time seeing outside the festival?
Meantime, here are some outtakes from my conversation with Steve Dawson. (Uh, who is the guy on the left here? I feel like I should recognize him).
Photograph by Sharon Steele, from Folk Fest 2023
Allan: So are you at the Henhouse, now?
Steve: Yep!
Allan: Tell me, does that relate to the Tragically Hip's Trouble at the Henhouse, or...?
Steve: It was all sort of tied into our label that we ran for a long time called Black Hen music, and so the Henhouse was sort of an offshoot of that, and then by the time I thought about changing it to something else, it was too late.
Allan: When and why did you relocate to Nashville?
Steve: I’ve been here about 12 years now, and… I spent my entire career in Vancouver, and basically just wanted to make a change at some point; I figured if I didn’t do it when I did, I probably would never get around to it… and I was probably right! We kind of randomly came here; we looked around at some different cities, and just really liked Nashville. At the time, it was really cheap here, too. It’s not cheap anymore, but it used to be so we kinda timed it well, too.
Allan: So this project, where you gather people together to interpret an album... did that have its origins in Nashville, or Vancouver?
Steve: Well, it’s sort of a long story. Basically, Fiona Black and I have been working together for almost 20 years on things. She used to book my band, Zubot and Dawson, which was my project in Vancouver. And she would put on shows for us at Cap University, because she’s been working there a long time – over 20 years. So we started working on putting on shows together, and we had a concert series before I left at a place called the Electric Owl; that was a place on Main Street. We were doing shows there, and that was the genesis of it: we’d bring in a band and we’d bring in an artist, and the artist would choose all the music, but it was supposed to be music that they didn’t normally play. So it was really cool and fun and we did probably twelve of those, every couple of months at the Electric Owl. Then I moved away, the Electric Owl ended, and that was the end of that. Then Fiona was visiting me in Nashville ten years ago, and we kind of had this crazy idea to do this Vancouver show, and she had this venue that she was starting to work with, over in West Van, the Kay Meek, and she thought it would be perfect; the first one we did there was Get Your Ya-Yas Out, the Rolling Stones' record, and then every year since then we’ve done one, except for the COVID years; it would have been ten years by now, but because of COVID, I guess I’ve done seven or eight. We did Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen, we did Ziggy Stardust, we did a Tom Waits record via John Hammond, because John Hammond did a record of all Tom Waits tunes; so it was sort of a roundabout way of doing Tom Waits songs. There were a couple of others, in there, but those are the ones that come to mind.
Allan: Is it a new thing to repeat a Kay Meek show at the Folk Fest?
Steve: Well, it started last year, actually. We always do two nights at the Kay Meek, every October. This album series happens every single year, and people have started to get used to it and really like the series. So right at the last minute before the Folk Festival, Fiona got the job to put the Festival together; that was like, in March, which is incredibly late to put on the festival. And so she called me right away and was like, hey, if we did this, and could actually pull it off at the festival, it would kind of help me, because it’s a whole bunch of artists at once; if we could get those people booked, it would be great. So that’s what we did! Surprisingly, almost everybody from the show that we did was available for the folk festival. This was pretty last-minute, but it was kind of miraculous – we were able to do it last year at the Folk Fest. So Fiona’s the connection between the shows in West Vancouver and the Folk Festival; she’s booking the festival now, and it seems to be heading in the direction of our repeating the Kay Meek thing at the Folk Festival.
But the Folk Festival one is scaled down, because it’s a shorter set, and those shows can be pretty epic. Some of them are two and a half hours. The Folk Fest is the scaled down version.
Allan: I gather that Rich Hope was involved in the Clash show you did. I must say, I thought it was perfect, last year, that you had Rich do "Truckin'." It's one of those songs that no one in Vancouver could possibly do better than Rich. It was perfect.
Steve: Rich has been a real go-to for those concerts. We sort of travelled in different circles when we were playing in Vancouver, a lot; he was more heavily ensconced in the Railway Club scene. We played in some of the same places, but not much. So we didn’t cross paths a lot, but we’re kind of the same age, we know all the same people, and we started to know each other around that time. I just love his energy. Actually, we met in England, we were both doing solo tours at the same time, and we had the same agent. I think we had a couple of days where we were off and were hanging out in some crazy town in the middle of England. So that’s where we really hung out for the first time. He hasn’t done all of these concerts – he didn’t do the Dylan one, but he’s done almost every other one. He’s a big part of it. I just love his energy; everybody knows and loves Rich.
Allan: He's seemed to have gotten even better the last few times I've seen him -- he's just blown me away. But coming back to Dylan are the performers who are coming back all doing the same songs as at the Kay Meek gig?
Steve: So at the show at the Kay Meek, we do an entire record – I assign a song to each person, so that takes care of the record, and then in the second set… the Kay Meek is broken into two sets, so in the second set, each of the guests gets to pick their own song by that artist not from that album. So that’s how the show works at the Kay Meek. So when we do the folk fest, it’s the songs from the album only, so everyone’s second song, we’re not going to do. And we’re going to do it sort-of all in order of the record, so these are all the songs I assigned to everybody, and if anyone saw the show at the Kay Meek, it’s basically the same guests. Two of them couldn’t make the festival, so we’ve swapped two of them out, and we’re bringing two festival artists in, we’re bring in Mick Flannery and Pharis and Jason Romero, and they are filling in for two people who couldn’t do it.
Allan: Joachim Cooder and…
Steve: Yeah, Joachim won’t be there, and Maya De Vitry won’t be there. So that’s where Mick and Pharis and Jason are setting in.
Allan: Do I remember correctly that Ndidi did “Ballad of a Thin Man?” What’s you’re history with her? I thought that was another outstanding performance.
Steve: Well, I’ve known Ndidi for 20 years, maybe. We met at a festival up in Dawson City. I was probably playing with either Zubot and Dawson or the Great Uncles of the Revolution, one of those bands. And we hung out that week, and that sort of led to me producing a record for her in 2008 or 9? [We're guessing The Contradictor]. Maybe it was earlier than that, I don’t remember. But she kind of went off, she moved to LA, and then she was living in Paris. I hadn’t seen her for a long time. And then we reconnected. I did a festival with her in Canmore and she was in and out of Vancouver, so I started getting her out to the Kay Meek shows, when she could. We just finished making another record that just came out. So I’ve worked with her quite a bit, but there have been big chunks of not seeing each other. She’s a phenomenal singer, but in particular, an interpreter of songs; she doesn’t stick to one style, necessarily. She doesn’t do a straight-up soul thing or a straight-up gospel thing or a straight-up rock thing; she mixes everything together and just like delivers things in her own way.
Allan: And John Boutté, what's your history there?
Steve: I don’t know John that well, but I’ve met him at various festivals around Canada, mostly. He’s from New Orleans, he’s a bit of a figurehead in New Orleans, everybody knows John; he’s sort of a mascot of the local scene during Mardi Gras. I don’t know if you ever saw Treme; the theme song to Treme, John was the singer of that, and he was in the show a little bit, as well. He’s just a real character, he’s fun to be around, and he’s known to pull out a few Dylan songs now and then, and Fiona’s had him in Vancouver a few times, so he knows Fiona and loves coming to Vancouver. So that just sort of worked out, that we asked him and he was into to coming up. He hadn’t been to Vancouver since before COVID, but he joined us for the Kay Meek show. He’s phenomenal.
Allan: Last question: is there anyone YOU are particularly keen to see?
Steve: I love the Wood Brothers – I know them a bit and I’ve toured with them a few times. And I know Oliver Wood a bit from around Nashville, and Chris his brother used to live here. There’s a guy I’m playing with that I’ve never met before, named Chris Pierce; he’s really great. He’s from somewhere in California, but we’re not going to have a chance to rehearse or anything, he just asked me to back him up, so I’m doing a set with him. He’s going to be really cool. He’s on the gospel show, as well – that’s another thing we’re doing, I’m sort of the house band for the gospel thing, so there’s a bunch of artists and we back up everybody so it’s a more rockin’ affair. Aside from that I haven’t looked closely at the schedule – I wait til I’m there and I pick up the book and go through it. I have so little time, too – we have a rehearsal right after I get there, then I have gigs. I don’t have a lot of time to wander around and see stuff, unfortunately! That’s the one drawback to being busy that weekend.
For more information, see the Vancouver Folk Music Festival website!
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