Canadian folk group woos the U.K.
with full throated abandon
"Awkward Donald ripped his trousers
chasing home the brindled cow. The pleasure of Jack The Green: it's
cracking skulls and beating brains. Wesley never bit the apple cause
his game was on the Bruce. And of course Paddy's finger will scarce
be missed."
If any of this makes sense to you, there
are only two possibilities: You've once again forgotten to refill your
prescription, or you've got a Tanglefoot fetish. (Note: If it's the
latter, the former is even more conceivable.)
At the end of April and through May, for the fifth time in three
years, Canada's hottest folk export since Gordon Lightfoot (Lightfoot,
Tanglefoot What's with Canadian folk music and the "foot"?)
will once again play and sing their way around the U.K.
And if the buzz from the band's previous visits is any indication,
folk fans in England and Wales can definitely count on two things from
the Borealis Recording artists: tight, energetic and sincere renditions
of their original, tradition-influenced songs and a lot of hair.
"Pour out the whiskey,
pour out the rum
Fifty cents to Davey Godfrey so the government
work gets done
It's a five dollar secret, the sailors
gladly pay
They've come to Pictou Harbour for another
pouring day."
In the early 80's, singer-songwriter,
fiddler and guitarist Joe Grant formed Tanglefoot with two fellow musicians.
Now, twenty years later, Grant's original partners have long
since moved on, or as current Tanglefoot lead guitarist and sometimes
lead singer Steve Ritchie likes to put it, "Joe used to play with
two of his best friends and now he plays with us."
The "us" also includes Steve's younger brother Rob,
the keyboardist and sometimes vocalist; Al Parrish who plays (some say
attacks) his stand-up bass along with handling the vocal duties on some
songs; and newcomer Terry Young who alternates between mandolin, banjo,
guitar and - you guessed it
- lead vocals.
Clearly versatility is one of the strengths
of the band as is the diversity of their songwriting. Tempos change as often as the lead vocal, and
the sophisticated mix of wit, wisdom, whimsy and poignancy in their
lyrics is at the heart of their success.
The fans, or "footheads" to those in the know, can
be found singing along to a lot of the band's repertoire such as 'Jack
The Green' (he of cracking skulls and beating brains fame - see above)
and 'Seven A Side' - a quintessential Canadian tale of a 1921 regional
hockey championship on the Bruce Peninsula (from where the band hails),
which can be found on the band's breakthrough record, Full Throated
Abandon, the first for The Borealis Recording Co., released in late
1999.
"The defensemen
were steady, the wings they played out wide.
They charged as one into the fray to
battle seven a side.
In desperation they pressed on for more,
They wanted to show them the boys from
the Bruce knew the score."
Now, any band that's been around for
close to 20 years has had to pay its dues and Tanglefoot is no exception.
The first gig the band ever did in England was at the Four Fools Folk
Club in Lancashire. It was the first date of a 35-day, 18-show tour.
Steve Ritchie explains: "We had just gotten off the plane the day
before, were still suffering from a bit of jet-lag and disorientation.
Most of us had never been to the UK before.
We knew a first tour in another country was going to be a struggle,
and we were all prepared for small turnouts, and we still weren't entirely
sure how we were going to be received.
A grand total of 10 people showed up, including the organizers
and the host (Derek Gifford). During the first intermission there was
an unspoken but extremely heavy sense that this could indeed be a very,
very long month."
Still, like all musical success stories,
the band pressed on with the tour, the small crowds enjoyed their shows,
word-of-mouth took over and by the time they did the last show of their
first sojourn to the U.K., they were playing to a packed hall. "In
my entire performing career I've never felt such satisfaction as the
way that first English tour went", says Ritchie.
One of the things they recognized when
they first started playing full time only four years ago was that you
have to make a commitment to the long haul. There's no use touring anywhere
only once because you can't build an audience that way. Before they'd
even finished the first UK tour, the second one was pretty much booked. As Grant points out, "We know other performers back home who
have played over here but then don't come back for three or four years.
You can't build an audience that way. It usually takes the third appearance
somewhere before you really reap the benefits."
"I hate folk music,
but you guys are good!"
-Anonymous fan during
Tanglefoot's U.K. Tour, September 2000
In between the U.K. tours,
the band made sure to keep in touch with folk festival organizers in
North America who began to invite them to play some of the more well-known
festivals and clubs a few years ago, and slowly but surely, they managed
to get their - if you'll pardon the pun - foot in the door.
Over the last four years, the band has become a mainstay at some
of the most popular acoustic music venues across the U.S. and Canada
and are receiving regular airplay on the select radio stations who cater
to the appetites of folk folks.
So, how do the songs of a
Canadian band, most of which deal with little snippets of Canadian history,
go over with audiences in the United States and the U.K.?
"People back home are always amazed when we tell them that
we can play in Ottawa, Ontario or Minneapolis, USA, or Bristol, England,
and get pretty much identical reactions," says keyboardist and
contributing songwriter, Rob Ritchie.
"To be honest, we're pretty amazed too."
The band believes that even though a number of their songs deal
with "fairly obscure Canadiana", the themes and emotions within
the music and lyrics are universal.
Take for example, the song Buxton, a composition (Rob) Ritchie
wrote for the Full Throated Abandon record after visiting the Civil
Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. He was struck by a single photo of a work-worn
old slave holding a rough-hewn, homemade fiddle. From there, Ritchie imagined the man had made
it to the final stop on the Underground Railroad in those days, a small
town in Southwestern Ontario, Canada called Buxton. The song tells the
tale of this particular slave being given a fiddle at a local tavern
and playing it with fire and fury as the horrific memories come flooding
back.
"Forgive me for
my fury.
I'd lose it if I could
But a fiddle string ain't the only thing
I've seen strung up on cherry wood"
The song always draws an emotional
reaction from audiences as does Joe Grant's 'Fire and Guns', from 1994's
'Saturday Night At Hardwood Lake', another song about Americans fleeing
to Canada, this time during the American Revolution. On stage, the piece is beautifully sung by the newest Tanglefooter,
Terry Young, with the band joining in on the poignant but catchy chorus.
It captures perfectly the spirit and emotion of that time period
in American history when many came North to Canada because they felt
they couldn't live in the new republic (perhaps not unlike how many
U.S. citizens feel today after November's election debacle). Some left
on their own accord but some were driven out.
"Fire and Guns;
confusion; New York this my last good-bye
Tonight I left it all behind for Upper
Canada
Tonight I left old friends behind
Didn't even say, "Good-bye"
Other Tanglefoot favorites
recall equally compelling historical moments: The Ritchie brothers'
'Vimy', which details The Battle of Vimy Ridge of April 9, 1917, the
first time in history that Canadian forces fought together under their
own command; 'Traighli Bay', bassist Al Parrish's tale of "successful"
pirates off the coast of Spain; and the band's signature song, 'Secord's
Warning', a tune which finds all five band members singing a cappella,
recounting the true story of Laura Secord, a Canadian hero who is credited
with saving the country "from Yankee domination" during the
U.S.-Canada War of 1812.
But lest you think Tanglefoot
is a Canadian history lesson masking as a folk group, think again. In between forays into their country's historical
past, there are plenty of lighter and lively numbers sure to inspire
some tapping toes, creative jigging and the downing of a pint or two.
Not that the more lively numbers don't recount little moments in history
as well but the tone is less earnest and more whimsical like 'McCurdy's
Boy', the tale of a Nova Scotia daredevil who was known for crashing
his car and thus became the perfect candidate to attempt (and complete)
the first flight in Canada; or the rollicking Foot favorite, 'Awkward
Donald' who, though he was one of the earliest settlers in Cape Breton,
was more well-known for his less than smooth romantic adventures.
"Awkward Donald's
at the altar, in his pocket there's a hole
Catherine searching for the ring pulls
off his boot and out it rolls
Catherine would you do it again, fall
in love with an awkward man?"
The phrase "I'm your
biggest fan" would certainly apply to Valerie, a long-time Foothead
who, according to Al Parrish, "traveled from Victoria, British
Columbia, Canada to East Lansing, Michigan for nothing more than a fourth
chance to see us do the same old show."
Now, she claims that when she heard that someone from Vancouver,
B.C. was at a Tanglefoot show in Maryland, she got right on the phone
to her travel agent to book a ticket to England.
Bands are known for praising
whatever place they happen to be in at the moment but with such dedicated
fans in their homeland, you'd think the band would prefer to stay in
Canada more often. Steve begs to differ: "As far as British
touring goes, there's a sense in which it's easy for us. The distances
are so much less compared to touring in western Canada. We had a Canadian tour in February this year
where we drove for three days before the first show. On the other hand, driving in the UK requires a higher level of
concentration. 3 hours on the M5 is like 8 hours on the Trans-Canada
Highway. But England has a pastoral
quality that we seem to thrive in, and we've been made to feel extremely
welcome wherever we go."
Visits to the band's website,
www.tanglefootmusic.com, confirms that many venues in the U.K. are among
their favorite places to play. You can also read about other band favorites
- Best Yorkshire Pudding (the Rose & Crown Pub on the A629 in Ingbirchworth,
West Yorkshire), "the best chocolate cake the world has ever known"
(Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, New York) and Best Hair Conditioner
(Helene Curtis Salon Selectives type M) - but at their site, as on stage,
the emphasis is where it should be - on the music.
The band is passionate about the history in their songs, the
sound and quality of venues they play, and of course the people they
meet and interact with during and after their performances. Perhaps
the spirit of Tanglefoot is best summed up in the lyrics of 'The Last
Breakdown', a fan favorite from their Saturday Night At Hardwood Lake
CD:
"Don't let the old songs slip
away
Remember how we danced when the old folks
used to play
Saturday Night in Hardwood Lake,
The fiddle and the old guitar would make
The floorboards bounce, the room go 'round,
One more couple for the Last Breakdown
Don't let that music slip away"
In the world of Tanglefoot,
there's certainly no danger of the music slipping away, nor the hair
for that matter.
Roger King