Barrett’s Privateers, June 2nd
Post #8: Stan Rogers, Barra-MacNeils, Jason Kenney, Samphire
Stan Rogers. Folk Musician. (2009, Ottawa.) Of 1970s Fredericton bars—Hilltop Pub, Riverview Arms, Rollin’ Keg, Brown Derby—the Chestnut Inn was best suited to acoustic acts. The former factory re-fitted as a nightclub had cozy booths and a warm sound. Maritime trad performers pursuing the Celtic revival played a ground floor space where workers once bent cedar strips for the world-famous canoes.
Forging his own distinct Atlantic Canadian tradition, Stan Rogers visited from Ontario regularly, billed as “Canada’s No. 1 Performer.” Hard to get a seat. Notwithstanding sentimental ballads, his were edgy concerts, engaged with a destiny far beyond the Chestnut’s steam-blasted walls.
“We didn’t drive a thousand miles to listen to your chatter,” he snapped, stopping mid-song.
Nearby, a table of inattentive idlers fell silent as the imposing singer stepped towards them from the cramped stage. His even-taller brother, Garnet, set down his violin, braced for fisticuffs.
There I heard “Barrett’s Privateers” for the first time, written by Stan in admiration of the Nova Scotian ‘shantyman’ who would lead the work song. Wanted one of those for himself, he said. The studio version can’t convey the searing a cappella broadside delivered by Stan’s trio at the Chestnut.
At the National Arts Centre he played the televised Christmas show in 1982. Rather than “Forty-five Years” or “The Northwest Passage” he tried out a new song not yet under his fingers, breaking off half-way through. From the wing I watched him, perspiring, forehead bulging, starting again.
Stan’s playing was more complex than it seemed, with diverse tunings, capo positions, and fingerpicking sequences. Highly-strung, pushing the limits of folk technique, his untimely death in Cincinnati on June 2nd, 1983, on a burning Air Canada jet, marks a signal national tragedy.
Barra-MacNeils. (1 July 2004, Ottawa.) Canada Day. Just hours before the evening performance a violent thunderstorm strikes Parliament Hill, bursting a stained-glass window, blowing Tom Cochrane’s gear off the stage, and uprooting the control tent. Two days of sound mixing lost. I’m watching the crew haul away the soaked consoles. As executive producer I must now simplify the show to its minimum.
That means walking over to the artists’ pavilion to tell the Barra-MacNeils their performance is cancelled, a disappointment they accept with dignity. I invite them back in February to play the new winter Snowbowl stage we’ll install behind the NAC on the Rideau Canal.
... (February 2005, Ottawa.) Frigid and clear. A thousand people are dancing on the decked-over Canal awaiting the Barras; the Peace Tower’s clockface glows high behind them. This experiment using the cold as an enhancer of live music really works. Everyone huddles and dances to keep warm, all senses heightened.
Looking out into the natural amphitheatre from the heated stage enclosure, musicians employ know-how to hold instruments in tune. Who but Canadian artists would be booked into such conditions, they grumble among themselves? Yet, almost invariably, what starts as grim fortitude blossoms into ecstatic performance as the magical crowd energy explodes in the striking scène nordique.
Amazingly, everyone in this rapt audience knows Barrett’s Privateers (they can’t all be displaced Maritimers). How Stan Rogers would relish this collective spirit inspired by the broken seaman’s shanty from a Halifax pier. In the songwriter’s absence who better than the Barras to lead us in the rousing chorus, projecting it far out into this frosty night?
Jason Kenney. Federal Minister. (May 2008, Ottawa.) In a briefing at the Prime Minister’s Office for the Canada Day Parliament Hill shows, I’m next to my counterpart, ‘N.’, an Assistant Deputy Minister, at the end of the PM’s long conference table, under a stricture not to speak unless spoken to. At the other extreme, two political staffers recline in the swivel chairs, absorbed in their Blackberries, withholding eye contact.
Why so hostile? It takes one attack dog to know another. N., until recently a Liberal Minister’s comms director, was parachuted into this ADM position just before the Conservatives took over. We are waiting for Minister Kenney. I amble down to the end of the table to break the ice.
The more obviously menacing of the two, D., shakes my hand limply. The other, C., effete quasi-academic, I already know. He has cribbed my writing on a Canadian wartime painter in a journal article, granting me but an oblique footnote mention. But this isn’t the moment for that.
“Let’s get started,” he waves me off, archly, raising his Berry. “My Minister’s on the way up.”
The ADM launches into her deck, nervously running down the Noon Protocol Show program, word-for-word. D. interrupts every thirty seconds with a sarcastic question; now he’s pointing at her.
“I don’t see her writing this down,” he leers, nudging his companion.
“Do you see her writing down what I say? Is she even listening?”
In essence, umped-up heraldry, pageantry, and founding-father-iconography is what he wants. At that moment Jason Kenney sweeps in, apologizing for his lateness.
The trembling N., never timorous like this, mumbles on. We’ve drifted on to the reef. Kenney looks concerned.
“May I say a few words about the Evening Show?” I interject, laying out the main theme and naming the French and English headliners. The Minister listens closely.
“Okay. But you say there’s a sub-theme?”
“Stan Rogers,” I reply. “I’d like to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death.”
“Really?” Kenney raises his eyebrows.
“You’ll actually feature Stan Rogers? Terrific. Barrett’s Privateers. Can we have that on the Noon Show, too?”
The ADM winces; earlier she’d shrugged off this idea. The Minister rises and heads for the door.
“Look, guys,” he nods. “This all seems under control. I’ll leave it to you.”
Samphire. 1957 mahogany dinghy. (Samphire’s Log, 2 August 2009, Shediac.) Fine sailing day on the Northumberland Strait. Rising winds expected. Early start. Circumnavigated Shediac Island clockwise. Skull Island and Grand Digue further eroded by winter storms. Briefly becalmed. Lunch ashore on leeward beach, starfish everywhere, wild blueberries. Hearty rendition of “Barrett’s Privateers” during reach to Bourgeois. Shanty-girl Kyrie in perfect recall of all nine verses. Winds SW 15 knots on homeward leg.
... I still remember all nine verses!
Loved this behind-the-curtain look - captivating and cinematic with imagery