IAN TAMBLYN
Superior: Spirit and LightCD RELEASE
HUGH'S ROOM Thursday November 22
$16 advance $18 at the dooropen for dinner from 6pm
show starts at 8:30pm
Hugh's Room
2261 Dundas St W
416 531 6604
Ian Tamblyn
Fred Guignion
Anne Lindsay
Rebecca Campbell
On November 22, I'll be singing with my old friend and colleague Ian Tamblyn, to celebrate the release of his most recent recording, Superior: Spirit and Light.
I'll be racing back from Kitchener/Waterloo, where I've got a rehearsal with the University of Waterloo Orchestra, so I'll be a little late, but don't let that slow you down.
Ian is one of the most eloquent evocateurs of the Canadian spirit, with an uncanny ability to describe our external landscape. He expresses "Canada" from its most ephemeral and elusive, to its most craggy, vast, and windswept. If you don't know his work, or have never been to a show, I guarantee you'll enjoy his well-travelled perspective, his humour, his poetic imagery, his storytelling, and his musical breadth. Fred Guignion and I played together for a decade with our band Fat Man Waving - he is one of my favourite guitar players. He and I have performed extensively with Ian, over many miles and many years. And Anne Lindsay is a great, much celebrated player. The four of us were most recently together a year ago August, in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, where we conducted our second music workshop for kids there.
News from Ian's website: www.tamblyn.com July 2007
I am pleased to announce the release of Superior: Spirit and Light, the first of four CDs called the Four Coast project. Lake Superior and Northwestern Ontario is the focus of this first CD in the series. In the next two years, I will look at the Pacific Northwest coast, The Arctic, and the Labrador/Newfoundland coast.
I chose to begin with Superior because that is, in many ways, where my creative and musical journey began, and the reference point for all subsequent journeys. I grew up in Fort William and camped on the shores of Thunder Bay, and had a relationship with the lake, but I rediscovered its power, its vastness, beauty, and spirit when I began canoeing the north shore in the early 1970¹s. This was also the time when my musical journey began.
Now, some thirtyfive years later, I am going back. I think it is time to present a body of work that has emerged regarding the big lake and its surrounding environs. Though I will continue to present other journeys - both inner and outer - I feel a compulsion now to gather together this collection of songs that have dotted various albums and CDs, but never together. As I wrote these songs over the years, they were always part of an ongoing story, connected chords, and plotlines. It was also a chance to re- record some tunes that have grown or morphed over the years, present some of my favourite work on the topic by others, and also bring several new songs to the studio.
The second reason for presenting Superior: Spirit and Light, at this time, is to focus attention on the lake and its surrounding communities .These communities are suffering from the depletion of natural resources, fluctuating lake levels, a continued neglect of First Nation reserves, in fact, a general neglect of Northwestern Ontario. At times, I feel this stunning part of Canada seems far more remote and removed than anywhere else in the country. It seems to me many of the towns along Superior¹s north shore will soon be ghost towns. It makes me sad and angry to bear witness to these events.
When I grew up in Fort William (Thunder Bay), I came to believe it was one of the most dramatic and dynamic towns in the world . There were all kinds of comings and goings, it was in the centre of North America, it was at the head of the Great Lakes, and it was an international port; ships from all over the world visited its waters. It had a dynamic history, and it was at the centre of Northwestern Ontario¹s seemingly endless natural resources. It hummed with a rough industrial energy. It was also in the middle of nowhere - long stretches of highway and rail - days from other towns of any size. This isolation also contributed to the creative dynamic I felt existed there. It still does, though the dynamic now threatens to be more entropic as Fort William fades and withers.
And then there was the lake - at first threatening, dark, and dangerous - but as I came to know its shoreline - powerful, awe inspiring, inspirational, and spiritual. As I explored further, I came to realise that others had also found power and inspiration in what Glenn Gould came to note as this "Idea of North" reverence of the lake by First Nations, the voyageurs, the Group of Seven, Bill Mason, Wayland Drew, Norval Morrisseau... What was the haunted quality of Superior¹s north shore, and why was it so compelling? Was there some spirit of north that simply existed in the rock and trees, lakes and vistas of the north shore? In the midseventies I started playing folk festivals, and discovered kindred spirits in Northern Ontario in the likes of Andre Paiement, Marcel Aymar, Robert Pacquette, Robert Dixon, Daisy DeBolt, and CANO. They were writing about the same spirit, the same energy. All these things lead me on a long journey, seeking out the places where the spirits of the north and their attendant stories seemed to burst from the rocks, lakes, and trees.
From Lake Superior, the journey continues to the Northwest coast of British Columbia, Haida Gwaii, the Gulf of Alaska, the Bering and Chukchi Seas, the Northwest Passage, Ellesmere, Baffin, Hudson Bay, Greenland, Swalbord, Spitsbergen, Franz Josef Land, Torngats, and the Labrador coast. Chasing the north is what this four coast project is all about. I hope you will enjoy the journey.
Ian Tamblyn
Chelsea, Quebec - 2007
Songs
The Gift Left on the Shore
Woodsmoke and Oranges
Black Spruce
Northern Journey
Slate Island Song
Higher Plane
That Boxcar in Algoma
Northlands of Ontario -David Altic
Northern Town
Fly with your Heart
All That Remains -Rodney Brown
Hometown
The Birch Canoe
Campfire Light
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