Man of a Thousand Faces - Part 1- Pass the Jam

This week on #forwhatit'sworthwithBlakeMelnick. is the next instalment in our #PasstheJam series, called #ManofaThousandFaces. #PasstheJam, highlights the work of both experienced and emerging musicians. For the past month or so. We've been featuring the music of our current artist in residence, #HeatherGemmell for all the intros and outros to the show.

It's now time for Heather to join me in passing the jam to an exciting new artist. Our next artist in residence is a two time Juno nominee. He has been composing and performing in Canada for over five decades. He is a prolific songwriter and composer. In 1986, he was nominated for a #JunoAward for his song #MonawiththeChildren on #TrueNorthRecords. He was nominated for a second Juno in 2004 for the Best Children's record for #AntsinYourPants.

He leads #TheLouisianaSnowblowers, a local roots blues, jazz combo, and plays drums in #ThreeCordJohnny, one of Toronto's premier, R and B collectives. He is the guitarist in the touring show. #WhiskeyJackPresentsStoriesandSongsofStompingTom. A multi-instrumentalist, he co-founded and led the monthly #RoosterUkeJam in Toronto and co-produced #CanadaUke's ...and he was a guest on our premier episode of our new series, #IntheCompanyofReadersandWriters ...For What it's Worth

And if you like the show, please share it out , and consider making a small donation to the cause by buying us a coffee, using the Support the Show link or by entering the following url in your browser: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/forwhatitsworth

The music for this episode is written and performed by our new artist in residence, #DouglasCameron. You can find out more about Douglas by visiting our show blog and by listening to our episode, #TheOldGuitar

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Transcript

Part 1 - Man of a Thousand Faces

[00:00:00] Blake Melnick: well, welcome to this week's episode of, for what it's worth Called man of a thousand faces. I'm your host Blake Melnick. And this is another episode in our past the jams series, where we highlight the work of both experienced and emerging musicians. For the past month or so. We've been featuring the music of our current artist in residence, Heather Gemmell for all the intros and outros to the show.

[00:00:39] And now it's time for Heather to join me in passing the jam to an exciting new artist. Our next artist in residence is a two-time Juno nominee. He has been composing and performing in Canada for over five decades in 1985. His song Mona with the children on true north records went top 20 [00:01:00] and he was nominated for a Juno for this song in 1986.

[00:01:04] He is a prolific songwriter and composer and his television credits include designer guys homes on homes, the heart of a poet and dear America. In 1997, he composed songs for and appeared and ants in your pants, a tree house, television production. It was the first children's television program known to feature music videos.

[00:01:26] Its soundtrack was a Juno nominee in 2004 for the best children's album. He is a partner in Tick-a -Boo Entertainment and has produced and toured a number of family entertainment shows across. Including Big and Small, Happy Together, The Family Fun Extravaganza and Banana Hats.

[00:01:46] He leads the Louisiana Snowblowers, a local roots blues, jazz combo, and plays drums in Three Cord. Johnny, one of Toronto's premier, R and B collectives. He is the guitarist in the touring show. [00:02:00] Whiskey, Jack presents stories and songs of stomping. A multi-instrumentalist, he co-founded and led the monthly rooster Uke Jam in Toronto and co-produced Canada.

[00:02:11] Uke's Ontario's first ukulele festival in collaboration with David McFarland. He coauthored and performed in the door. You came in songs and stories for the danger tree. I collaboration of song and spoken word based on McFarland's memoir, the danger. And he was a recent guest on our new series in the company of readers and writers, where he submitted our very first story, the old guitar, introducing the multitalented Douglas Cameron.

[00:02:41] I Douglas so nice to have you back on the show. 

[00:02:44] Douglas Cameron: Hello. Wow. That was quite an intro. I'm not sure I can live up to half of that.

[00:02:51] That's amazing. 

[00:02:52] Blake Melnick: Well, you've had an amazing career and just to bring our audience up to speed a little bit. Douglas was a guest in our premier episode of, [00:03:00] in the company of readers and writers with a submission of his, a story he wrote called old guitar. That story continues on that particular series, but after hearing your music Douglas, I realized I should have you as an artist in residence on the show and part of our past the jam series.

[00:03:17] I really loved the songs you submitted for that particular episode. And we're going to talk about those songs specifically, as well as some other ones that you've submitted.

[00:03:28] You've been playing music, writing music, for a long time, five decades, that's a long time to be doing this. So let's talk a bit about how it all started. How did you get inspired to, to get into music, to want to be a musician?

[00:03:44] Douglas Cameron: There were sort of two things that happened. One was that at the age of four, my parents had me take piano lessons. I didn't really have a choice. This was simply something that was going to happen. And so almost from the moment I was conscious, I was [00:04:00] somehow involved in music, both, being trained with lessons and also performing and playing. When I was a kid, there was a lot of music in the school. There was a lot of singing in school. We had singing classes, you know, you got to sing solos. So by the time I was, seven or eight, I I'd been performing in front of people. I've been taking lessons.

[00:04:22] When I was six, my dad who had a slightly different version of things in my mother, my dad brought home a ukulele and gave it to me and my brother. And there was this little book called learn to play ukulele in five minutes. And we learned to play the ukulele in five minutes, my brother and I, and when I was nine, I got a guitar and, somewhere in there and I don't remember exactly what.

[00:04:49] So music was a constant in my life from a very young child. And I think the other thing that happened was it in the midst of all of that, I realized that I liked it [00:05:00] and I was good enough at it that, it seemed like something that I could keep doing. When I got the ukulele and then the guitar, I fixed on the idea that I wanted to be like, the people that I saw in tele.

[00:05:13] And I would see people playing guitars and singing on TV. And that sort of was my inkling to think that this was something I wanted to do. I tried to write my first song when I was nine, at summer camp. Cause I had taken my guitar with me. And the first song I tried to wrote was about an airplane called the stiletto and it was, one of those really fast supersonic planes and then I don't remember much, I was learning songs on the guitar and my dad had a record collection and listened to a lot of country music and he listened to a lot of, the jazz singers’ kind of music.

[00:05:51] Like today the culture of music was ever present. And I think in some ways it was even more present because the radio was always on and the [00:06:00] radio played every kind of music imaginable., as I say, there were music in the schools. We had music classes two or three times a week.

[00:06:08] We sang in choirs, we sang at a church. So by the time I was a teenager and the whole folk music thing and rock and roll entered my life. I was well on my. To something. And I thought of myself as a musician. Although I wasn't sure that I could make a living, but it was something that I've been doing, basically all my life.

[00:06:29] Blake Melnick: Did you have any trepidation with getting up in front of people and playing? You talked about your experience at camp. Were you one of those kids that got up in front of the campfire and played to everybody? 

[00:06:39] Douglas Cameron: Well, yes. And did I have trepidation? I suspect that I did, but again, at the age of.

[00:06:47] Five or six, I had to go and perform in these things they're like the music festival. And I didn't have a choice. I was stuck up in front of people to you to play piano or to sing. So I did. And also, I sang [00:07:00] in church and, again, I wasn't given a choice. It was like, you're going to sing.

[00:07:05] Right. Later, when I was, in my late teens and I was starting to try to be serious. What happened was interesting because I encountered some really great musicians. People who were really, really good and, they were folk musicians.

[00:07:21] Amongst them Valdy, the guy named David Essig, Sylvia Tyson. I was at a folk festival that they were all performing at in the Yukon, and I was also performing, and, it struck me how great they were and what great performers they were. And that I was not really that good. Right. And, well, you know, it was a really good thing to have having, she was a good musician, and I'd been performing, but these were people who could, carry a whole concert and really, reach and connect with an audience.

[00:07:52] And so in my late teens and into my twenties, I started to really think about, how can I get to be like that? And I ended up [00:08:00] playing in bands in almost every kind of circumstance that you can imagine playing in bars, playing country music, playing rock and roll music, punk music, that is like a training ground. And that led me into a kind of pop music so-called career. And, I had to realize that there was also a lot of work involved and the talent was not just to create the music. The talent was also to, present the music and get people that were listening to you to be on your side, to really, bolster you and to reach them essentially to reach them.

[00:08:35] And I think that the performer that I most admired in that regard was Valdi I actually opened for Valdy at a mining camp north of Dawson city in the Yukon. Wow. In the cook shack. And we did two shows for the two shifts of miners.

[00:08:53] And he was exactly the same in that cook shack, performing as he was, when I saw [00:09:00] him at Massey. And I'd seen him at Massey hall. And now I was seeing him in a cook shack. And, there were maybe 30 people in the audience and he was exactly the same. In fact, he might've been even more entertaining in the Cookshop than he was in Massey hall.

[00:09:14] And it was like, wow, this guy gives it, 300%, no matter what. And it was very, instrumental in me then thinking, how can I become that kind of performer? Right. 

[00:09:27] Blake Melnick: So do you remember the first gig you ever played? 

[00:09:29] Douglas Cameron: The first gate for money. Yeah. First live. 

[00:09:31] Blake Melnick: Yeah, I guess for money or at least in front of a paying audience.

[00:09:36] Douglas Cameron: When I was in high school, we used to have these, coffee houses. Right, they would often take place in the basement of a church or in the gymnasium at the school. Those were really the first gigs I played as a solo performer singer, songwriter, kind of person.

[00:09:51] We weren't paid, but money would often be raised for, some thing. And I got a chance to be in front of people and sing my little songs [00:10:00] and play my little guitar and, be in that world. And I got a bit of a reputation in the town. Where I was growing up, I do remember the first paying gig that I had.

[00:10:09] Certainly the most steady paying gig I had. I was out of high school and I was still living in Midland and my mum, worked in the bank right beside the music store. And she knew the guy at the music store really well, his same was Guy Johnson, Johnson's Music in Midland, Ontario.

[00:10:25] And there were these other guys in Midland who had a band. They were a trio, the Bob Logan trio, and they needed a keyboard player. And, they were older guys. They were in their thirties and were married and, had been playing for years. So my mom got me this gig playing keyboard in the Bob Logan Trio

[00:10:44] I was making 50 bucks a night. And I was on Friday and Saturday night, I was making a hundred bucks a week. Which I couldn't have made if I had a job.

[00:10:56] I was making more money than I could believe. I found out later, of [00:11:00] course, that the other two guys were making far more than I was that they were paying me like half or even worse.  I played at the Legion in Penetang and Midland and Port McNichol that we played in middle bars all around and they would just call it, tune in play, and I would play, and I was also responsible for the bass because there was no bass player.

[00:11:22] So I had this little organ that had, the bass. notes on one side and the normal dots on the other side. And I didn't have to sing. I just had to play cause the drummer sang. learned that. Okay, go. Like it's an, a 1, 2, 3 bang. And that became the world that I worked in, even after leaving the Buffalo country, when I went on to play in bands, they were pickup bands.

[00:11:48] It was like, no rehearsals, you were lucky if they told you the key and they would count in the tunes and off you go. 

[00:11:55] Blake Melnick: Can you read music

[00:11:56] Douglas Cameron: oh, yes. I started reading music when I was a kid [00:12:00] with my piano lessons and I did piano from the age of four to the age of 17.

[00:12:04] And, I read notes, later I learned to read charts. Right. Of course, because, some bands you would show up and there'd be a book of charts to play in. And so you had to learn, but, that was mostly circumstantial. I was fortunate enough that people would ask me to play and I would get to play in all different kinds of bands and in different circumstance for a long time, I sang at weddings and funerals.

[00:12:29] In Midland, I got to be known as the guy who could sing at your wedding. Right. 

[00:12:34] Blake Melnick: I'm more interested in the funeral part. What would you sing at funerals? 

[00:12:40] Douglas Cameron: I liked weddings better than funeral. But what was interesting to me was that I learned at weddings funerals were a bit different, but I learned at wedding.

[00:12:49] My job was to make the people cry. Typically they would ask you to sing when the bride and groom were signing the register. And, everybody's just sitting there while the bride and [00:13:00] groom signed the register, and they might even be off in another room or something.

[00:13:02] And so you'd stand up. And in the seventies, it was that song by the guy from Peter Paul and Mary, the wedding song. “And everybody wanted you to think he is now to be among you”. And I'd realized, that my job was to get them all to cry. I would say to myself, if they cried, I was successful.

[00:13:22] Funerals, of course, you were often asked to sing a specific piece of music or song 

[00:13:27] Blake Melnick: Amazing Grace 

[00:13:28] Douglas Cameron: people were crying anyway at the funeral. I mean, And, as silly as that sounds. I think I learned two things playing live as a kid.

[00:13:37] One is that you got to work hard to reach the people. Your job is to connect with them somehow, emotionally make them cry, make them laugh, whatever, make them sing along. And the other thing is that you have to show them that you love and respect the music that they love and respect. So, I would go to play in a country band, say like the Havelock [00:14:00] hotel near Peterborough, Ontario.

[00:14:01] And I didn't look like a country singer. I looked like a hippie. Right. And the people in the bar would say, oh, we don't want to listen to you. And I would figure my job was, by the end of the first set, they were all turned, looking at us, not at the TV, they were singing along to every song and they would come up at the end and say, you're the best band that ever played here.

[00:14:20] And I figured that was a job like that was my. Kind of obligation in a way. And in the country bars of the late seventies, all you had to do was sing the green, green grass. If you're slaying the green, green grass of home, everyone would love you. And it was not a song that I particularly liked, but it, if you sang that song, they would love you.

[00:14:42] For me that became a kind of touchstone, because if you are somehow not giving the people what they want you're going to lose them. And if you're not reaching out to them and touching them, somehow, you're going to lose them. And I think of all the great performers I've seen Jann Arden, [00:15:00] for instance.

[00:15:00] Right. She's great. Jann Arden will tell stories in between her songs that will make you laugh so hard that you'll fall out of your chair. Then she'll sing you a song that will make you weep because it's so poignant and so heartbreaking. And you come out of that concert, exhausted, but completely, drawn into the to the experience.

[00:15:22] And I admire performers like that so much. 

[00:15:25] Blake Melnick: You really cut your teeth playing a lot and getting out there and playing live. And I think that's really important for young musicians or aspiring musicians is to get it in play as much as they can.

[00:15:33] And I love your point about connecting with the audience, because I do think that's really important. There's nothing. I find more dissatisfying than going to a show and feeling absolutely no connection with the artist on the stage. And I've had it happen a couple of times with some pretty big names.

[00:15:49] Van Morrison comes to mind where I felt that there was no connection with the audience and there was no attempt to do so. On the other hand, I've seen performers [00:16:00] that are less well-known that have this innate ability to connect with the audience, to share a laugh, to share a story.

[00:16:07] I think, as a musician, that's your fuel, that's what you feed upon. And I agree. It's really important.

[00:16:14] You play a lot of instruments. You talked about beginning with the piano and then the ukulele. What else do you play? 

[00:16:21] Douglas Cameron: I mostly play stringed instruments and it's because of. Started playing ukulele and I played guitar for a really long time and still do. I played electric bass guitar for a number of years.

[00:16:33] When I played in bands subsequently I've been learning to play upright bass. This has been my COVID project which I've always wanted to do. I learned to play a bit of banjo and a bit of mandolin and. Instruments like that. And, a good friend of mine who lives in Colorado, is an instrument maker and he's made me several guitars, but he also builds an instrument called a band Jolla, which is essentially a five-string banjo with a Mandela [00:17:00] body, a wooden bent all the body.

[00:17:02] And he built one for me that has an extra lower string. So it's a little more guitar like, and I've been playing that instrument a lot in the last 10, 15 years and have made bunch of recordings using it, that's essentially it. I do play a bit of drums. I played in a pipe band when I was a kid.

[00:17:21] I played a snare drum. So I learned drum rudiments. Right. And I liked to play drums. I was very often not allowed to play drums by the people I would be around. And finally my good friend who was in a band called three court, Johnny their drummer went off to school and he was talking to me about it.

[00:17:42] And I very gingerly said, you know, I could play drums in your band and he. Pregnant pause. And then he said you could. And so I became the drummer. The only good thing about me as a drummer is that I can keep time. I'm not very flashy. I think of myself as a great [00:18:00] student of Charlie Watts, you know, keep the time, have a few little fills up your sleeve that are kind of interesting and good, but don't think of yourself as gene Krupa.

[00:18:13] Blake Melnick: Well, I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about your musical influences. I know in the old guitar interview, you mentioned Bruce Cockburn as being a huge influence on you. And I can certainly hear that influence in your music, but who else influenced you?

[00:18:28] Douglas Cameron: Well, guess the real important influences in my musical world, apart from all the classical music that I played on the piano it was the folk music thing that happened which sort of happened in the early sixties into the seventies. And that was the world that I, but I grew up in, so Joan Baez, I had a Joan Baez guitar book and I initially learned to finger pick.

[00:18:51] And subsequently, Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills, and Nash. I was never a big Bob Dylan fan oddly [00:19:00] but, that whole California ethos, the blonde creatures playing guitars and singing the harmonies. And I would say the most important moment of my musical life was when I was 15.

[00:19:14] And I was part of a group called summer sound 71, which was a touring group in Ontario that summer. And one of the other people a woman named Julia Rowen who actually no lives out west showed me how to play freight trained by Elizabeth Cotton. And she knew how to play freight train.

[00:19:33] And I had been hearing this alternate, some style of guitar playing for years and not really understanding what it was. Chet Atkins played that way. You know, all the folk players played that way. Gordon Lightfoot had a particular way of doing it. And I just, for the life of me, I couldn't imagine what it was.

[00:19:52] I couldn't figure it out. And Julia showed me to play freight train, and I sat the entire day, [00:20:00] for about six to eight hours on a rock at this camp that we ran and I played free training over and over until I could play it. And I would say that became the foundation of my Musical career as a guitar player that then opened up my years to Bruce Cockburn, to all the great, folk, rock folk, guitarists. I still play that way and still study playing that way. All the old blues players from whence that came was with cotton, Mississippi, John hurt. Right? I would say those have been the biggest influences on my guitar playing and the biggest influences on my musical sensibilities as a, pop musician or whatever kind of musician would be the Joni Mitchell, Crosby stills, and Nash, that whole kind of world and then I would say there was a period of time in the late seventies, early eighties when the police and talking heads in groups like that came along and by then I was playing [00:21:00] in bands. . And so all of that era kind of became a bit of an influence in the way that I played. But yeah, I would say the folk thing was the most important thing for me.

[00:21:11] Blake Melnick: And what about now? Who do you listen to now on a regular basis? 

[00:21:15] Douglas Cameron: Well, now, interestingly, what I listened to now is a lot of music with upright bass. There's a particular singer in the states although I think she also lived in France.

[00:21:26] Her name was Madeline Peru, and I love listening to her records the rhythm section, I happened to know the bass player in her rhythm section. Well, I knew him years ago, a guy named Dave Piltch from Toronto who now lives in California and does a lot of work recording. He recorded a lot with Katie Lang and a bunch of other people.

[00:21:44] I've become a great student of upright bass players. Nora Jones, always very interesting and also songwriters Norah Jones again is a great songwriter. Oh, and I love country music. I mean, I love old country music. I will listen to old [00:22:00] country music, at the drop of a hat.

[00:22:02] And recently oddly, and it's because of a family connection. I've been listening to a lot of Sarah Harmer

[00:22:09] Blake Melnick: early enough. 

[00:22:11] Douglas Cameron: Well, oddly enough I happened to be married to Sarah's older Sister Lily, and I have to admit before I met Lily, I hadn't really listened much to Sarah. And I think because she was a little.

[00:22:24] After me in a way, right. And the nineties and in the nineties, I wasn't really as tuned into pop music. As I had been in the eighties lately I haven't listened to a lot of her songs and I've seen her now in concert a few times and just been blown away. She's

[00:22:40] Blake Melnick: a real talent 

[00:22:41] Douglas Cameron: Plus, you know, I get to see her at Christmas.

[00:22:45] Blake Melnick: So do you sit around the Christmas table and to play music after dinner or? 

[00:22:50] Douglas Cameron: Well, the harm or family have for years, how to Carol sing just before Christmas. And there are five Harmer sisters [00:23:00] and a brother and they harmonized beautifully. And so it's been a lovely musical experience to be part of that family.

[00:23:09] My own family to our musical. I have nieces and a nephew who all played the violin. One of my nieces is a music teacher in Quebec and is also a bass player. She plays with Michelle Pagliaro and she's great. Her name's Carolyn Cole in 

[00:23:28] We recently had an opportunity to hear Sarah perform at Massey hall just last week.

[00:23:36] I was floored hearing her in Massey hall. The funny thing was there were a bunch of younger people that were there that came back to our house afterwards to have a bit of an after-party.

[00:23:46] And they were all talking about their favorite moments at Massey hall. And someone turned to me and say, so, Doug, what was your favorite moment at Massey hall? I said, well, it was the winter of 1972. I was [00:24:00] 16. And I got to see Joni Mitchell doing her blue album tour. And it was the first time I'd ever been at Massey hall.

[00:24:08] And everybody kind of went into stunned silence, because first of all, how could anybody be that old? And second, what a thing to. And that 

[00:24:20] Blake Melnick: was the same time in 72 was when Neil Young recorded at Massey hall as a not 

[00:24:25] It's such a great venue. I've always loved Massey hall having a chance to see it since the renovation. 

[00:24:30] If you could name a new band that you think might be a future hall of Famer, music hall of Famer, who would that be and why?

[00:24:39] Douglas Cameron: That's an interesting question yeah, I don't know if I can answer that in part because there are so many new bands that I don't listen to and, I don't say that with any sort of malice. Again, I listened to sort of music, old music. Well I will say something.

[00:24:55] There's a singer named Charlotte, Day Wilson, who [00:25:00] is from Toronto and she's the daughter of a good friend of mine from high school and still today, who I played a lot of music with her dad. I've had an opportunity to see her perform and I've listened to her music and she is quite remarkable.

[00:25:13] And oddly, Sarah Harmer’s, niece, Georgia Harmer has just come out with an album and, there's some great songs on that record and she's a really wonderful singer and performer. So I would vote for those two what has impressed me? I will say this, I may not be that familiar with many bands, but I've had an opportunity to hear some young musicians. In Sarah Harbor's band. She hired a number of young musicians to play with her and I, and they came and stayed at our cottage when they played in Perry sound and they sang around the campfire and I've never heard such amazing campfire singers as these people, inner band, but also the people who play with Charlotte Day Wilson are amazing musicians.

[00:25:59] And [00:26:00] when I think of, what I was able to do at that age, I wasn't even in the ballpark. Right and I encounter this all the time in my teaching. You meet these young kids who can play circles around you and it's in part because they've had access to so much more stuff, right.

[00:26:18] You know, learning to play guitar because it's all on YouTube or there were schools you can go to, to learn. When I was learning to play guitar, I had to begs and scratch I'd see something on TV and think, well, how do I do that? And listen to a record and think, I don't know how to do that.

[00:26:33] I remember a particular friend of mine who learned the famous Chuck Berry guitar lick from Johnny B Goode, and I desperately wanted to learn it and he wouldn't show it to me. And he was the only person I knew who could play so I think, there are remarkable musicians today.

[00:26:50] I think it's only my age that I'm not as familiar with many of them as I should be, 

[00:26:58] Blake Melnick: You make a great point. There's just so much out [00:27:00] there. It's hard to, listen to it all. Technology has kind of changed everything, empowering the individual musician to create their own records to produce their own stuff, to collaborate online remotely almost as if we're doing right now for the show, but I also think, it's got to be a struggle for young musicians, as you say, there's so much out there there's so much talent out there. How do you, as a young aspiring musician differentiate yourself from all of those other people and all that other music out there, it's got to be a real challenge on the other.

[00:27:31] Douglas Cameron: Well, the thing I will say, having observed someone like Charlotte Day Wilson and now Georgia Harmer is that if a person is really focused and really believes in themselves and are driven, and if they also protect themselves, they potentially can go further.

[00:27:52] I think. And if a person has the talent and the drive and luck, I suppose the thing I don't really understand [00:28:00] is how a younger musician today, a singer songwriter is actually going through. Get ahead and have a career because in the world that I came from, it was all radio.

[00:28:11] If you got a song on the radio, if it became a hit that was your ticket. And I don't think it's that way anymore. It's the internet, it's streaming, it's all of these things. So I'm a bit mystified and I'm not sure that I would be able to in any way give somebody pointers how to find their way through all of that.

[00:28:28] And I suspect the younger people already know more about that than I do and can find their way through it and are hip to it. But I do know that the thing that would be common is this sort of rock, solid belief in yourself and desire to do it. I remember hearing a podcast with Jerry Seinfeld and they asked Jerry Seinfeld, what is it that you need to be successful in the entertainment business?

[00:28:55] And he says, you need to want it more than anything else. And he said, [00:29:00] you wanted so badly that you go and get it. And then when you get there, you find out if you have anything to offer. Right. I don't know if that's entirely true, but when I think back to going to see Joni Mitchell at Massey hall, well, there were three or four singer songwriters in the world.

[00:29:15] There are now, Gazillion singer songwriters in the world. How are you going to separate yourself? Joni Mitchell separated herself, as she said, by inventing the genre. Right. I don't know that you can invent a genre anymore. I think in now you have to sort of figure out some way to reach through.

[00:29:33] Blake Melnick: Yeah, it's a real challenge. As we move through this episode, we're going to have our current artists and residents. Heather Gemmell come on and have a conversation with you, but I've watched Heather over a number of years with her career and she really works hard at it and she really wants it.

[00:29:47] And she's self-promoting all the time and trying to get other people to promote. I mean, it's a lot of work beyond just being a great player, a good songwriter, having a great voice it's that [00:30:00] work ethic that you really have to push your material out to people again, to differentiate you from the rest of the people that are wanting to do this as well.

[00:30:09] So it's a real challenge and I'll be interested to hear what you and Heather have to talk about shortly. I want to move on and talk about the songs that you submitted for the show. You submitted a lot of them. I'm just going to go through a couple of them 

[00:30:19] so the first couple were ones that you submitted when we were doing the interview for the old guitar. And these were songs that you actually recorded on that old guitar. And the first one is doctor. And now tell me a little bit about that song.

[00:30:36] Douglas Cameron: Well, okay. This will be true confession I suppose that, I guess if you don't want to be a true confessor, don't write a song. Right? This is quite a few years ago now, probably 10 years, a bit more. I had quite a up upheaval in my life in that the relationship that I was in broke up and I was responsible for breaking it up.

[00:30:57] It was not a very pretty thing. [00:31:00] I'm not sure I behaved well but one of the things that I did around that time, because I figured I better do something about getting my life in order. I went to see a psychiatrist and a friend of mine said Doug, you should go see somebody about this.

[00:31:16] And I found this psychiatrist who shall remain nameless. And, I went for about five years not every week, but pretty regularly. And I remember I walked in the first day and I said, here's what I've been doing. Here's why I think I've been doing it. And here's what I think I need. And he didn't say a word and he didn't say a word for months.

[00:31:40] I just sat there and babbled on and on and on. And he would nod and, you know, every once in a while, he'd kind of And I think part of the process was that I was figuring out what it was that I needed to do to not necessarily fix my life, but to be able to get through my life in a better way.

[00:31:57] And one of the things that [00:32:00] happened in that period of time was that I reconnected with an old friend in Peterborough Curtis Streger, who I'd played in a band. And every Sunday morning he had this little mandolin orchestra that he got together with an led in Peterborough. And so I started driving up on Sunday mornings to Peterborough, to play in the mandolin orchestra.

[00:32:18] And I was driving to Peterborough and, I got. Idea for this song, doctor, doctor, and not long afterwards or around the same time I heard a slide guitar piece on a video game soundtrack. I can't remember which game it was and I don't remember the piece. And I said, that's the sound for this song doctor.

[00:32:41] So I kind of stole a bit of that slide guitar, and I put it with this idea of the doctor and the thing about the doctor and the thing about my psychiatrist was that he only ever said a few things to me, but they were so pertinent. It was as though he sort of took an old. Knowledge, all [00:33:00] this stuff about me.

[00:33:01] And he gave it back to me with exactly what I needed to hear. One of the things that he said to me, I remember after several months of me talking and talking to, he said, you know, he said, and it was one of the first times he'd ever even spoken. He said, you know, there's some serious stuff going on here.

[00:33:18] You've had some issues he said, but I think the solution won't be that difficult. What's wrong. He said he said, yeah, I think you need to be more aware and make better choices. And I, wow. Yeah. Okay and then the other time when I really remember him saying something that really helped me was that I by then had begun another relationship with Lily, in fact who I'm with now and Lily was going away somewhere on business and I was going to be home for awhile on my own. And she said something to me. I don't know what we were talking about. She said, oh, I have [00:34:00] faith in you. And I told this to my therapist, my Dr.

[00:34:04] Guy, and he looked at me and he said, and I have faith in YouTube. And I realized that what it was not so much that someone else have faith in me. It was that I had faith in myself. Right. And in the song, what I tried to convey was the fact that I'd gone to this doctor, looking for help looking for answers.

[00:34:25] Tell me what is true. You know, tell me what to do and what the doctor did was he sat there. And I think in the song, I say the voice would always listen. The heart that never tells it was the idea that I could be myself in front of this person. I could spill all the beans. I had no fear that this was going to go beyond this and that this would, in some way harm me and that being listened to and being acknowledged was the path to living my life better basically.

[00:34:54] And that feeling inside, and I tried in that song to convey that, plus the sound of [00:35:00] the slide, it's a really bluesy kind of feel and it suggests that, this sort of power underneath all of that. Yeah. So that's that one? 

[00:35:51] Blake Melnick: What a great tune and it fit perfectly with the story of the old guitar. I want to move on now to the next song called how come I [00:36:00] got to, again, the slide features prominently, and I have to say, I think he played it absolutely beautifully.

[00:36:05] Douglas Cameron: About the movies. Yes. I 

[00:36:08] Blake Melnick: love it. 

[00:36:08] Douglas Cameron: So I was at my Wednesday night, Three Chord, Johnny rehearsals and my friend David Wilson.

[00:36:15] Plays piano who I've played music with since I was in high school, sat down at the piano and started playing this chord progression. And I think it was actually from a different song. But he was just playing the chords and I thought, wow, what a great chord progression. So I just started to sing and I don't know I made up some stuff.

[00:36:33] I don't know even what it was. And I recorded it on my phone because we were just fooling around and it was sort of an idea and I took it home. I was living in a little apartment. Top floor of a big old house. And I have my little studio set up and I started to play around with it.

[00:36:50] And I came up with this song about the movies, which I love blues and I loved playing slide on that song. I can hear it in my head [00:37:00] now and that guitar sounded so good, but sure, dead slide on. When I was a kid you used to go to the movies.

[00:37:06] The theater in Midland was called the Roxy and later the Odeon and you paid 25 cents and there were these posters outside with, you know, the lyric movie, whatever they were in, there were movies you weren't allowed to go to because they were, X-rated and I thought of, People becoming famous, but what happens when a person becomes famous and, in the story, in the song, obviously the love interest is become a famous movie star, and the only way you can get to see the movies. 

[00:37:38] it became a song and what I find interesting is that it's not really about anything, true, anything specific, but it has that great feel to it. And those changes, which are, not entirely standard blues changes, but they exist in other songs. Those are the kind of chord progressions that I really

[00:37:57] Love to get sunk into and then making up all [00:38:00] the funny lyrics about the different movie stars. 

[00:38:02] Blake Melnick: Like you, I have vivid memories of the little movie theater up in Halliburton where we at our cottage and it was called the MouLou.

[00:38:10] And I can visualize everything. So maybe that's what appealed to me so much. It busts the fact that I love that old style of blues, I had visions of John Prine and Randy Newman and even old Tom Waits and in your chord progressions 

[00:38:23] it was an absolutely fantastic song. And I know you and Heather we'll get into this more deeply. Part of what makes a good song is that you can create something that people can connect to, a visual image in their head and experience in their past a common experience.

[00:38:37] And I think you did that perfectly in that song [00:39:00] 

[00:39:51] now the next song nightfall. You also submitted for the old guitar episode. Now, to me, this is quite a different song. It seems pretty contemplated [00:40:00] and reflective. Tell me about this one.

[00:40:02] Douglas Cameron: Well, it was from that same period and I was going through a lot of stuff.

[00:40:06] I had created heartbreak in the world. I was experiencing heartbreak. I was trying to, make amends. I was trying to sort of fix my own life and I lived alone. I lived in this little Garret the streets were empty at night time. And I found this little hypnotic guitar progression G major B minor, kind of back and forth and mixed it in with a little minor.

[00:40:32] And it was very evocative. And one of the things that I tried to do in those recordings, and it was also true in the movie song. I tried to play as little as possible. Although in, in night falls there's a little bit more going on, you know, there's, I think there's harmonica, slide guitar, a couple of different guitar, parts brushes.

[00:40:51] The recordings that I really admire it's almost like they're distilled down to just the minimum of what you need to convey [00:41:00] the feeling as opposed to a really flashy guitar solo, you know, something very simple and on that song, there's slide guitar, but it's much more of an accompaniment than a solo kind of thing. Although I guess it plays a bit of soloish stuff. And wasn't the beginning of me recording stuff and playing all the instruments, but I said when I made that album. I definitely specifically said, I'm playing all the instruments on this album.

[00:41:25] I'm not going to get anybody else in part because I didn't have any money. Right. So I couldn't hire anybody else. So I did everything. I recorded it. I played everything. I did all the arrangements. I had a little input from my friend, Danny green spoon to help me in the mixing and stuff cause he's approach.

[00:41:42] But I mixed it. And that was very satisfying, but what was really satisfying musically was that I could sit there and play it over and over and over. And that song is very hypnotic. Yes, it is. Plus I was trying to convey the feeling of being alone. 

[00:41:58] Blake Melnick: That certainly came [00:42:00] across. 

[00:42:01] Douglas Cameron: Yeah.

[00:42:02] And I don't know what that might mean, but I, yeah, I think it's nice. You like that song? 

[00:42:07] Blake Melnick: Yeah. It seemed metaphorical to me. I guess in my head, I was thinking, was this sort of about getting older? Is this about, you know, nght being the metaphor of aging and, twilight years and all that kind of thing.

[00:42:18] And when you said you really wanted to strip it down and not overplay, I'm reminded of that famous expression from BB king I think that, it doesn't matter how many notes you play. It's how you play the notes.

[00:42:29] Supporting that whole notion.  I could play a million notes if I want, but that's not, what's really important in my music and it conveying an emotion and expression. 

[00:42:37] [00:43:00] Now I want to jump to the song Queen of Queens, which I think was a Louisiana Snowblower song. Is that correct?

[00:43:46] Douglas Cameron: Originally it was just a song I wrote, but yeah, it was a song that we played in the Snowblowers and I recorded with them.  I got 

[00:43:54] Blake Melnick: to ask you how you came up with that name. 

[00:43:57] Douglas Cameron: So the Louisiana Snowblowers came about because [00:44:00] I had a little Irish band with my friend, Sean O'Connor is actually, Shawn's been called Joyce's folly.

[00:44:06] And we played traditional Irish music. This is back in the late eighties, early nineties, I guess. And Sean got us, these corporate gigs. We would go and play at some companies retreat or something. And we were up in Huntsville in the winter time playing at some corporate thing and we'd been hired for the weekend.

[00:44:26] And we played on the Friday night with the Irish fan. And then Sean said to me oh, by the way, that, we're playing again on Saturday night, but they don't want an Irish band. They want a Louisiana, a New Orleans band on, I looked at him, I said, what are you talking about? I said, we're not. We're not a New Orleans band.

[00:44:45] He says, yeah, you know, I'll play my accordion. I said, Sean, you've never played accordion before. And I said, you're playing guitar and sing some songs. And I said, okay. And it happened that the next day before the gig, we were able to go out and do some [00:45:00] cross-country skiing at this resort.

[00:45:02] And he said, Sean said to me, he said, oh, by the way, we have to have a name. I said, what we need, isn't it bad enough that we have to have this band that we don't have. And then he said, yeah, we need a name. And he said, what about the Louisiana snowshoes? And I said, no, what about the Louisiana Snowblowers?

[00:45:19] And he said, okay, the Snowblower scheme, 

[00:45:24] Blake Melnick: I just had Jasper, 

[00:45:26] Douglas Cameron: but it's entirely silly. And then the Snowblowers became a bit of a band and that was fun because we had a great rhythm section, Russ Boswell and Mike Churchill, and we'd played gigs all over Toronto. We played a lot at the Cadillac lounge.

[00:45:41] We played it all these funky little places. Great band. Yeah, really great pen. 

[00:45:47] Blake Melnick: Well, it's an interesting song, you mentioned the queen hotel. So, so does every town have a Queen's hotel? 

[00:45:55] Douglas Cameron: Well, in Canada pretty much, although to be honest, the [00:46:00] actual person that song was modeled after was not at the Queens hotel.

[00:46:03] She was at the Empress hotel in Peterborough. I used to go, friends of mine would play, or I would play different times, matinees on Saturdays at the hotels in Peterborough when I lived there. And if you weren't playing, you would go. And we would hang out for the Saturday afternoon.

[00:46:20] And this was a particular woman who sat at a table all by herself and would listen to the band and sing along and drink beer. And you would imagine she'd had something of a tragic life. So I wrote, I wrote that song in Peterborough and, later the Snowblowers recorded it.

[00:46:38] Yeah. 

[00:46:39] Blake Melnick: When I heard that? I don't know if you remember this woman and I'm not sure I can remember her name, but she was a regular performer in the Brunswick House. The downstairs part of the Brunswick has I don't know why, but that song immediately, my mind went there to that woman in the Brunswick as well.

[00:46:58] I saw often, you know, when you come [00:47:00] into the crowds of people and she'd be on stage and entertaining us, all of was almost like a vaudeville act. But that's what it made me think of. 

[00:47:06] Okay, so the final song, and by the way, I, this song, I absolutely loved the Bible Thumping Sundays. So many instruments in this tune, the accordion, the sax, I think your voice is perfectly matched to the song. I mean, I really, really enjoyed the song. I liked that kind of old timey ragtime, jazzy bluesy type music, but I just loved that song.

[00:48:43] Tell me about. 

[00:48:44] Douglas Cameron: Well in my family growing up my mom would make us go to church on Sundays. My mom was desperately trying to lift her family out of the muck into something better. And one way was [00:49:00] through music, music instruction for her sons. But the other was that we would go to church.

[00:49:04] Now, my father was not particularly interested in going to church. And for many years he would, he would come along to treat. And we always sat up in the balcony. We went to a Presbyterian church and we'd always sit in the balcony. My father would always go to sleep. And so when I wrote the song, I kind of wrote about that tension.

[00:49:25] You know, that my mum wanting us to go to church and be respectable. We did get dressed up and my dad had lent much more to going out and having a good time that kind of thing. And, so I kind of wrote that song and it was around the time when the Snowblowers had formed as a band.

[00:49:45] I've often found that it's great to have a reason to write songs like a band that needs songs or something. And I basically. You know, kind of called together a bunch of songs and then wrote a bunch of songs. And now it really was a [00:50:00] wonderful one to present that.

[00:50:03] Those two different streams, you know, the stream of being respectable and going to church and then the stream of going out at night and, and somehow, they're connected. And somehow, they're the same thing because the world that I grew up in, you know, you knew that half the people sitting in church had been drunk the night 

[00:50:20] Blake Melnick: before.

[00:50:20] Right. That comes across in the song. To me, the tempo changes, they reflect the change in mood. I thought this was an absolutely fantastic song. I really, really enjoyed it. I can't wait to play it on the show. And 

[00:50:31] Douglas Cameron: I have to point out that, the arrangements were largely made by the band.

[00:50:37] The recordings were done live. There were some overdubs, but they were mostly just we would sit in a room, they were recorded at my house. You know it was a great band, Russ would always know the songs better than I did. The drummer Mike was so wonderfully musical. And inventive and Sean, who, who, my dear friend, Sean, who played the sax and the accordion was just a wonderful musician, great [00:51:00] person to play with.

[00:51:01] Blake Melnick: And clearly, he must have improved as accordion player Because he sounds pretty good that song. 

[00:51:07] Douglas Cameron: Yeah. Well, you know, all the old accordion jokes.

[00:51:13] 

[00:51:13] Blake Melnick: [00:52:00] Love that song. And I love the whole collection of tunes you've submitted for the show. Douglas, thank you. We'll be playing these on intros and outros to shows in the near future, but we're reaching this stage in our interview where it's time to pass the jam. 

[00:52:50] this concludes part one of a man of a thousand faces part of our past the jams series. We'll be back next week with [00:53:00] part two, where I'll be joined by my cohost, had their gamble to help pass the jam to our new artist in residence, Douglas, Cameron, Heather and Douglas will engage in a deep dive discussion about the art and craft of song writing about musicality and how to make it in the music business for what it's worth.

[00:53:21] My shutter this week goes to our current artists and residents. Heather Gemmell one of my greatest pleasures in hosting this show is when I can help my guests realize their ambition. That's why I'm excited to announce that Heather made the top three voters’ choice for the CBC search light talent contest for her song.

[00:53:41] NorthStar’s burning way to go. Heather, if you want to check out the award-winning song along with Heather's other tunes, some of which will soon be released on Spotify. Make sure you check out last week's episode, long haired country, girl. The second. And tune in for next week's episode, where Heather will be joining me as my [00:54:00] co-host to help pass the jam to a new artist in residence, Douglas Cameron, for what it's worth.