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My life has been like trying to get across a stream without getting your feet wet.
You see a flat rock and you step out. You see the next flat rock and you . . . jump. Flat rock . . . jump, oh that's a slippery one and there's another and before you know it, you're running over these slippery stones trying to get to the other side and ... thank God! I made it ! No, wait. I'm in the middle of the river. Can't stop here, but... where'd I start?
I was raised in North End Halifax. |
 Born in Halifax |
Back then tinkers - gypsies - used to camp in the fields near our place. My mother used to let them get water from our well. Hold it. Don't get me wrong I'm not talking about an idyllic little farmhouse on the outskirts of town. Au contraire. North End Halifax: Rockhead Prison, the infectious disease hospital, Randy Hubley's slaughter house, the city dump, Africville, the gypsies and us. Anyway, true story, one day a gypsy woman read my mother's tea leaves and said: "You're going to have two sons. Tell your second son to build his house on wheels," and that was me. The only one that ever left home. |
 Rockhead Prison |
My mother, God bless her, would tearfully wave me goodbye, but my father... See, he was a musician - he had a little dance band and was in a marching band - The Princess Louise Fusiliers. But he couldn't make enough money to support his family, so he became a plumber and a marine pipe-fitter. And, like my brother, I was supposed to follow him into Her Majesty's Canadian Dockyards: "Singin'! You get yourself a goddamn trade, son. Something you can put in your arse pocket and rely on." |
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No thanks. It was 1960 and I had visions of myself behind the wheel of a fire engine red Cadillac convertible, with a white interior. Look out ! I left home crammed into an MG with two other guys with all our gear and a guitar. Next Stop: Montreal. We were "The Colonials" - a folk group. |
What did you need to be a folk group? . . . | |