Hay’s acoustic guitar and mandola playing was folk-based, supple, powerful when it needed to be and often harmonically rich, courtesy of his use of alternate tunings. His singing was strong and precise, making use of what has been called the ‘pharyngeal’ voice, the super-high non-falsetto register above the normal male ‘chest’ voice. Like Sting when he sings with The Police, Hay often finishes the notes with a jazz-influenced vibrato.

I’ve got a few Colin Hay albums. Sometimes you can find 2 or 3 contrasting versions of the same song on different records. I’m sure he has got masses of material but he seems to know his stand-out pieces and is aware that his audience wants to hear them. Fortunately ‘Send Somebody’, from Hay’s latest CD ‘Gathering Mercury’, is one of these pieces, so it’s not all about recreating the past.

I suppose that the public are interested in success and all that comes with it, so Hay’s patter (which must have taken up more of the show than the music) contained a lot of stuff about the people he’s met, the songs that have made it with the mainstream media (or not) and how it felt to start again after having worldwide hits with Men at Work, giving up the booze and going acoustic. But despite the globetrotting and hobnobbing, he still comes across as a cheeky teenager from small-town Scotland finding out about the world.

Despite the verbal brashness, Hay played an understated and moving set, never playing to the gallery and often abruptly ending a song once it had run its course. The climax to the evening was a simple piece of up-the-octave singing on the last verse of ‘Overkill’ and the repetition of the song’s quiet ending – ‘Ghosts appear and fade away’. ‘Waiting For My Real Life to Begin’ was Hay’s encore, and he exited to the recorded version of his most famous co-composition, ‘Down Under’. Well, maybe there ARE some songs he’s sick of playing…

Deke Leonard is a guitarist, singer and songwriter who was a member of the group ‘Man’, with a couple of breaks, from its formation in 1968 until it disbanded in 1976. He was then part of the band’s reunion in 1983 and stayed with them until 2004, when he left to concentrate on promoting his fourth solo album, ‘Freedom and Chains’, and writing this, his third book.

‘The Twang Dynasty’ was originally the title of a Man album released in 1992. Now the phrase has been appropriately recycled to represent this informative, entertaining work, part-memoir, part-musical history lesson, a 371-page tribute to a selection of blues, rock and country pioneers by a fellow traveller, a guitarist’s guitarists.

Leonard is not a musician who struggles to express himself verbally. Whilst a member of Man he usually contributed a sleeve note when a new album came out, had a column, ‘Deke Speaks’, in the Man fanzine ‘The Welsh Connection’ and has written reviews and articles for Vox and Hi-Fi Sound magazines. His lyrics aren’t particularly funny but his prose style is; The Twang Dynasty is full of well-told anecdotes and witty accounts of episodes in the lives of music legends.

Occasionally Leonard’s own experience as a fairly successful musician brought him into contact with extremely successful musicians, which makes for some amusing reading, particularly where Eric Clapton is concerned. Leonard has an ambivalent view on E.C., which is refreshing.

Four of the book’s fourteen chapters are dedicated to the blues, which, along with country music, created the vocabulary of rock and roll, which broadened out into the term ‘rock’. This book is specifically about the originators and exponents of rock guitar, and the fact that Leonard is a rock guitarist himself, with specific likes and dislikes, makes the blues history section breathe, even if you don’t share the author’s preferences.

An encounter with the guitarist in Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, Mick Green, (and his Fender Telecaster) while playing with Lucifer & The Corncrackers at The Ritz Ballroom, Llanelli, in the mid-60s seems to have been a formative experience in the author’s life. He went on to make a career out of playing (amongst other guitars) the Telecaster in Man, while Micky Jones favoured the Stratocaster.

Leo Fender, Orville Gibson and Les Paul (the inventor of the sold body electric guitar) are discussed in a short segment following the blues chapters. This potted history of the development of the electric guitar acts as a nice buffer between the blues era and the psychedelic era, which gave rise to the Manband and their contemporaries.

There are not many technical terms employed to describe guitar playing itself. (Though it was great to have a Chet Atkins fingerpicking pattern spelt out at one point.) Leonard is more interested in the social history and prevailing fashions which surround each musical movement.

The author’s social conscience is evident, although he rightly distinguishes between an artist’s personality or politics and their musical output (except in one or two cases – Clapton fans beware!) Both Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa come across as dislikeable characters, yet their music was much admired by the fledgling Manband.

The Twang Dynasty finishes strongly. Its penultimate chapter covers some of the same ground as Keith Richards’ recent autobiography, the British blues boom of the early 1960s. This period not only made it possible for the success of The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Kinks and all that came after, it also revived interest in the American blues musicians they originally copied.

The facts and figures included in the many mini-biographies contained in the book are all welcome, necessary and commendable. Leonard is, however, at his best as a writer when in ‘ripping yarn’ mode, drawing from personal experience. So the closing section on guitarists (and one drummer!) from his native Wales is most entertaining. Leonard describes the reformation of his ‘Iceberg’ band following his final departure from Man, and caps it all off with a moving tribute to the late. great Micky Jones, with whom Leonard played (in Man) for almost thirty-five years.

Jones was a brilliant but lamentably little-known musician and singer who died in 2010. He is hardly mentioned in the previous 350 pages but his influence over the author must have been huge. They weren’t bosom buddies but they complimented each other as singer-guitarists better than anyone. And, believe it or not, the Manband goes on without them…

Fellow singer-songwriter Gare Black and I have done some gigs as Ben and Gary’s Ice Cream Band, playing half his stuff and half mine. He plays guitar and I play keyboard and mandolin. We both sing. The people who have heard us so far have been appreciative, as I hoped they would be. Piano was my first instrument and I’ve enjoyed getting back into it.

In August I jammed in Hoboken, New Jersey with the excellent, feelgood, reggae-influenced singer-songwriter Bobby Syvarth. We hadn’t seen each other for 19 years but reconnected through facebook. During that time he’s become a great guitarist too. Later on in the year the literate folk of Toronto were supportive of my guitar/voice sets at The Boat and St Clair/Silverthorn Library.

Not being a natural member of any one musical community, I’ve been moving away from folk jams and towards DIY punk gigs. There’s more scope for original music at the latter, if your eardrums can hold out. Both scenes are about community and are non-exclusive, though, so amen to that.

It was a delight, in 2011, to meet performer, jazz singer, poet and sculptor Hugh Oliver. His new CD, sympathetically produced by Mike Rosenthal (who plays all the instruments, including banjo and drums) is called ‘Grandpa and the Alleycats’ and consists of 11 songs by Hugh and Mike sung by Hugh and his grandkids.

Hugh writes charming, witty, well-crafted verse which is free of sentimentality and explores universal themes, both vital and trivial, with a light-heartedness which is enviable. Do he and the kids always sing in tune? Nope. Is everything in time? Uh-uh. Is the musical genre a classifiable or lucrative one? Not really. But the album brings something genuine and noble to my ears, which is more than I can say for Michael Bublé.

Here’s hoping that 2012 will be a year in which independent people support independent music.

Links:
Links:
www.bobbysyvarth.com
www.punksandrockers.com
www.hugholiver.com

In the UK people think of doughnuts as large, sticky confectionary items, either with a hole in the middle or closed-up and filled with jam. They’re bought in a bakery instead of a newsagent (where you might buy chocolate), generally for or by children – the only age group who can take that much sugar in one go – and handed over in a white paper bag. I used to enjoy these now and again.

Then as a teenager I progressed to the ‘iced finger’, an elongated bread roll with a layer of vanilla or strawberry icing on top. You could pick these up without getting sticky fingers. It somehow felt more wholesome to get food from a bakery, where they had some ‘good’ food, than pillaging the chocolate display at the corner shop. I thought this was how it was going to be forever. Then I discovered the donut shop.

When I was an exchange student in New Jersey in 1992, I would go and sit in ‘Dunkin’ Donuts’ at the top of Haledon Avenue, about a mile from the city of Paterson. In England you couldn’t go and sit anywhere in the evening except the pub. In the US, you could go to Dunkin’ Donuts and drink coffee instead of going to the pub and feeling conspicuous. The donuts weren’t coated with sugar and came in a variety of flavours. My friend would drive me down there and wait in the car while I went in.

Arriving in Toronto in 1993 I found a huge proliferation of donut shops. Relatives from outside the city talked about a chain called ‘Tim Hortons’ but I only came across one or two outlets. Instead I frequented franchises like ‘Country Style’ and ‘Coffee Time’ as well as independents like ‘Fifty Plus’ on Queen Street, ‘Donut World’ near the library and one in the Beaches that I think was called ‘The Donut Cave’.

In mid-2011 I was back in a Dunkin’ Donuts in New Jersey. There was a huge widescreen TV showing local news, some overweight people, some kids kicking around and a bloke on his laptop. Up in Toronto, Tim Hortons has become the McDonalds of the donut industry, virtually wiping out Country Style and the independents and selling a wide range of light meals as well as snacks. There are still quite a few Coffee Times. The middle-of-the-road radio station still plays. Conversations still go on. Poor folks can afford it.

It was a forlorn desire, however. The song was from 2003 and, according to Scottie, Fleetwood Mac never did anything worthwhile since Peter Green’s departure in 1970. He said their subsequent output was akin to John and George leaving The Beatles and Paul and Ringo recruiting a couple of session musicians.

I remember seeing the cover of ‘Rumours’ in the late 70s, along with LPs like Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Darkness at the Edge of Town’ and Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ round my friend’s house in East Putney, south-west London. His stepdad was into adult-oriented rock. I was more into disco and child-oriented rock but the image stayed with me. However, I only became a Mac Man during the last few days.

There was a BBC documentary that was screened last year which focused on the break-ups of the 2 couples within Fleetwood Mac and the songs which 3 of the 4 people involved wrote about them. At the time I was more interested in the break-ups than the songs but later came to appreciate the complementary songwriting styles of Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie.

The rhythm section of John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, despite representing a link with the band’s origins in late 60s London and providing the inspiration for the name of the group, seem to supply a somewhat bland backing to the songs, particularly in the 80s and 90s.

Checking out the experimental follow-up to ‘Rumours’, 1979’s ‘Tusk’, I found a sprawling masterpiece with some more great songs. Buckingham adds grit and virtuosity to the sound and is the leader in the studio; Nicks has a way of conjuring up deep feminine imagery in her lyrics; Christine McVie has the most commercial songs and sings them in an appealing folk/pop style.

Like a lot of acts who were soulful and organic in the 70s, Fleetwood Mac became a watered-down and dumbed-down (though hugely successful) version of themselves in the 80s, particularly on the album ‘Tango in the Night’. Then the industry moved on, like it always seems to, and started promoting younger, more infantile product.

Reuniting to make a greatest hits CD and DVD, ‘The Dance’ in 1997 seemed to be a worthwhile venture. The fans enjoyed it and it gave Christine the chance to wrap up her time as a pop star and move back to England from LA. Now she seems like a nice liberal who goes to the village pub occasionally and supports good causes.

I watched another documentary, this one highlighting not the romantic but the creative tensions within the band (minus Christine) during the making of its latest album. What was obvious was that they still cared (with the possible exception of bass player John), they still had the desire to create and they were still debating, pretty passionately, about the best way of exploring all the creative possibilities available while still appealing to a record-buying public ‘between the ages of 10 and 27’.

The production and arrangement on 2003’s ‘Say You Will’ is pretty contemporary, with drum loops to the fore and not many rough edges. But there’s some crazy stuff too, like ‘Murrow Turning Over in his Grave’, and some moving lyrics and vocals from Stevie Nicks. If you don’t believe me, give me a call. I’ll leave the answerphone on.

Full of Beans, 1348 Dundas St West Sunday July 3rd 1-4pm

The Port, 1179 Dundas St West Wednesday July 13th 8.30-11.30pm

Any Torontonians in need of some uplifting music in a cool (in both senses of the word) setting this Sunday June 12th should come and hear Gare Black (vox/gtr) and Ben Walker (vox/keys/mando) alone and together at Full of Beans Coffee House and Roastery, 1348 Dundas St West, 3 blocks east of Dufferin St between 1 and 4pm.

There’ll be some folk, some rock and some cabaret jazz. Actually, the music won’t be in any one style but it will be all-original and all-acoustic. Why not pop down for a coffee if you’re about…

Before I joined, Machari made a (self-titled) CD and this concert, which is in ‘a delightful and unpretentious little oasis’ (former church, now ‘Heliconian Hall’, built in 1876) is the launch party. The programme lasts about an hour, split into 2 sets. Admission is $15 and start time is 7.30pm. Should be a great night!

The song features some great London jazz musos. Guitarist Patrick Naylor and bassist Alex Keen play in an amazing band called Viper’s Dream; sax player Derek Nash is in Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra; drummer Milo Fell had to leave the recording session early to play with one of my favourite singers, Mark Murphy, at Ronnie Scott’s.

The visual quality isn’t great but I hope that it is atmospheric. The song is available to download from amazon, itunes, cdbaby and elsewhere.

March on, BW