My friend gave me a Tarot card reading over the phone one night as I was watching
TV with a guitar in my lap. "I've drawn a mountain," she said. "I'm
a mountain," I said. So began a song that became the title track of my new
record. Most of these songs have been milling about in my mind for a while now,
some I started writing back when I put down the electric guitar and ding-digga-dinged
my way through summer on the back porch. All of them live in the same wide frame
and seem to belong together.
I am Aglow, the Ring, I'm a Mountain, these are tunes inspired by country music
and bluegrass bands, singing for the joy of it, and telling new versions of
old stories in song. The Phoenix builds on the themes of courage and regeneration
and the inspirational How Deep in the Valley came from somewhere deep in the
hymnbook of my memory. Down low in the picture frame (under a log) is Salamandre,
a children's song written by my friends Kate Fenner and Chris Brown. I am thrilled
that this modern classic can be part of this collection as it expresses my own
love for the magical and precious amphibian and the time-honoured relationship
between nature and imagination.
Luther's got the Blues is my old pal Luther Wright's enduring scruffy sidewalk
lament, and Dolly Parton's Will He Be Waiting For Me lives in the world of lost
love and yearning that I, too, know something about. I wrote Goin' Out for an
AIDS vigil and I am so happy to have my dad singing it with me. He also lends
his warm and wise timber to Oleander.
And finally, casting its glow over the entire record is the new folk song Escarpment
Blues. Escarpment Blues tells the story of a current land-use conflict in Southern
Ontario on the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. I grew
up on the escarpment on the farm where my family still lives, within a long
green corridor that is prized for its fresh water resources, its endangered
species habitats, its prime agricultural soils and its wetlands and forests.
These lands are under serious threat from the aggregate (sand, gravel, shale)
industry. The problem is that large multinationals companies want to open new
quarries on top of the escarpment and extract the rock below these ecosystems,
thereby removing and destroying them. So, after writing the song, I got the
idea for the "I Love the Escarpment" Tour and set out in June 2005
with some of my best musical mates to hike the escarpment and make music along
the way.
Julie Fader (vocals, keys), Jason Euringer (vocals, stand-up bass), Spencer
Evans (clarinet, accordion), Joey Wright (mandolin, guitar) and I hit the Bruce
Trail (the continuous hiking trail that goes from one end of the escarpment
to the other) and spent two weeks rock climbing, caving, hiking, and performing
in theatres and community halls along Southern Ontario's spine. All proceeds
of the tour went to help finance the research and advocacy work of Protecting
Escarpment Rural Land (PERL), a volunteer organization that I helped form last
winter when the new quarry proposal came to light in my old stomping grounds
of North Burlington. After a wonderful tour we put away our hiking boots and
we went into reaction studio in Toronto to capture these songs, all wrapped
in up our camaraderie.
This record was made for everyone, everywhere. Like the smiles we had on our
faces when we made it, we hope it spreads far-and-wide.
