| Atlantic Crossroads Festival continued |
| I don�t know if anyone else sees the resemblance, but Martin Finn reminded me of my oldest son, Marcus. As he helped out with the finicky sound system at the Ship, I had this sudden revelation. Maybe it�s the tall thin build or the sense of humor, I don�t know. But I sure had a soft spot in my heart for him because of it. Marcus lives in Portland, Oregon and I�m lucky if I get to see him once a year. I really miss the boy. Martin fixed the problem with the speakers so both were working �It�s been a one-sided show up till now.�
Ron Hynes has wormed his way into my psyche. It started last August when I spent a weekend in a fog-bound Cape Race Lighthouse when one of the Ham Radio operators there explained about the song, �Sonny�s Dream.� I always did like that song, but now I had some background and I liked it even more. In March, I watched Ron make an effort to help establish a sense of community among the singers. My opinion went up a notch or two then. It would continue to rise with each performance and conversation I had with him this trip. Ron began his set with Man Of a Thousand Songs, one I really like. Ron truly IS the man of a thousand songs. I think the line I like best is �an old hotel where the desk clerk will sell you your soul back, reasonably cheap.� He then chatted about his nephew who lived with him for a while and they wrote Dark River together. I first heard that song on Michelle Doyle�s self-titled album and really liked it. Ron and Joel�s version is a tad different, very country, and a different verse. I�ve heard it 4 or 5 times since and it�s grown on me, but I still like Michelle�s version better, I think. Ron went right into The Boy From Old Perlican, �In Nashville singing Newfoundland songs like Tickle Cove Pond, Sonny�s Dream and Ise da B�y�. I like that one too. If you ask me, I�ll tell you I don�t like Country Western music but I will also reluctantly admit I have country leanings. Man, this is the first time I�ve said that in public! Waiting for the walls to close in, but they�re not. It got a little serious then, talking about taking it one day at a time, and being addicted...to nurses. Ron said he'd like a six-pack of nurses. We joked about that all week. LOL! The next song was My Name is Nobody - "I take it one day at a time...I'm still living with this fear that I'm still here, with these children of God..." Lightening the mood was Dirt Poor. It was an audience participation song, with us doing the echo, "We're dirt poor (dirt poor) dirt poor (dirt poor) dirt poor in tatters and rags. We're dirt poor but we're not dirt bags (dirt poor but we're not dirt bags)." And the hecklers even sang harmony! Amazing! Ron replied, "Well done, yourselves!" During The Mother Who Bore You in Pain, the phone rang in the bar and he didn't miss a beat, replying, "That'd be Mom!" Ron's last official song was Leaving on the Eventide "dedicated to our friends from that OTHER island." But the hecklers kept yelling something about Buchans, a town in central NFLD. There was an inside joke about it being Buccaneer Country. Some of the lyrics were, "three cheers for the Buchaneers, we'll get up on our chairs and sing "Sonny's Dream..." but he didn�t sing Sonny. Martin Finn went next, with his piano. He wasn�t scheduled, but Niall gave up some of his time for him to play. It was a treat, for sure. He opened with Flying Little Midget who �scares the sugar out of airline pilots.� Everybody who heard that song remembered it. They may not have remembered Martin�s name, but they knew the song. LOL! I am missing a song here, but the next one was a �song for Greville� (Mark, who played earlier) All I Want. What a Pigeon (????) was last and then a little ditty � �Who put the Fin in NewfinLAND? I did, Martin Finn!� This was particularly funny to us folk who have been trying to get the Irish musicians to pronounce Newfoundland properly since March. They insisted on saying NewFOUNDland until Jim finally gave them the Understand Newfoundland lesson. They were still concentrating on it each time they said it. Martin introduced Niall Connolly and kept up the Newfoundland pronunciation joke when he announced � �And up next will be Niall, we call him �Cannoli� not Connolly here in NewfoundLAND.� Niall giggled his way through the first song and apparently so did I, as I forgot to write down the title. The second song had something to do with his working as a telemarketer selling Blessed Virgin Mary statues and plaques, among other things. He described some of the inane phone calls he had to endure in this job. �Hello? I ordered a set of mugs and no instructions came with them�� He says he felt unchallenged and not at his �intellectual prime� so he quit. Past Living addressed this. When the Sun Is On Your Back is one of my favorite Niall songs. Apparently Niall often loses things, suitcases included on trips. His mom would tell him to pray to St. Anthony who would help him find it. He�d pray and keep looking, so he never knew if just looking would have done it, or St. Anthony led him to it. If You Find Me in Morocco was the song and I found the lines, �I�ll be singing for my supper in New York in the fall� to be prophetic. We�ve seen him in NYC in the Spring! I was really surprised when he dedicated the song Long Weekend to �Anne, volunteering at the door�, recalling our long weekend with the songwriters in Cork in March. Hugh was up next with hi booming voice. The man does not need a mic at all. He began with Between the Jigs and Reels, a song about a touring musician�s life. He surprised everyone then, when he began singing Sonny�s Dream. Ron had declined to sing it during his set � he must be awfully tired of singing it by now - but couldn�t resist jumping up on the stage with Hugh to sing. Made sure he didn�t mess up, I guess! All You Need was next with a line I know all too well, �All you need is a dollar but you can�t find a dime.� Hugh told us how he came to write the next song, as he was watching Land and Sea he thought about the families taking care of the homestead while the husbands/fathers were at sea. And then he regaled us with Bay That I Love. Theresa Maria followed along nicely after that. It�s a personal favorite for one of the lines in the song that has personal meaning � �Have faith in the Captain and me.� Boats led to other transportation, as he had written a song about the end of the line, literally, for the railroad in St. John�s, called Last Trains. Peter Easton, the pirate song came next and the audience really seemed to enjoy it a lot. It�s great! Hugh�s band used to be called the Jolly Rogers. I had seen them one time we came up to Erin�s last year. They called themselves that because they all worked for Rogers cable company. But some band in Philly apparently had the same name first and Hugh�s band had to change it. And then Hugh closed the evening with Bellevue Bonfire. I never knew about Bonfires, having grown up in the crowded city, where a bonfire would have been a disaster. Sounds like a cool idea, though. The song had a cool picking part at the beginning, which captured me right away. When I arrived back at Erin�s after Hugh�s set, I said �Hi� to Darrell. Darrell told Ken about my seeing him at the Folk Festival. We figured out that it was 2000. He also remembered Jane from Virginia. Has a good memory, that b�y! I got a kick out of his wardrobe, as he was wearing the red T-shirt with the white rectangle that had shown up at several GBS shows I attended before he retired from Great Big Sea. Bridie�s had put together some gift bags for the Irish musicians and they gave them out that night. Lillian and I had already begun to fill the gift bags that she and Jim were preparing for the group, but were going to give them out later. They got t-shirts, mugs, caps and a couple little bottles of Screech. It was like Christmas! I sat with Ger, Niall, Hugh and Clare for the evening. We stayed till 4 AM (of course!) and bought sausage dogs on the way home. When we got home, we retired to the backyard and ate them as the sun rose. Would you believe that Vic KNEW I was up and called on the radio! LOL! He was staying overnight at the SARDET in Delaware and was going to work some HF bands on the Ham Radio for Field Day. I went to bed after sunrise, and having talked to my honey, slept a wonderful sleep. Sunday, June 26th The day progressed from dawn to be cold and windy. Jim�s neighbor came over to visit for a bit and we found out that Gypsy�s been mooching dinners off the neighborhood. He comes home and acts like he hasn�t eaten for days! I dubbed him �Six-Dinner Sid� after the children�s book of the same name and circumstances. I can�t blame him for acting hungry here. I was very happy to be staying with Jim and Lillian. Between the two of them, they certainly cook up some delicious meals! Wanderlust and Signal Hill called, so I made a quick trip after bundling up a bit. At Signal Hill I turned my lens in the other direction this afternoon and caught The Rooms in the camera lens. Quite an imposing structure at the top of the hill there. Seems a little out of place, though I've heard it's supposed to be wonderful. It opens to the public on Wednesday with much Hoohah. Someone described it as the box the cathedral came in. That got quite a laugh, but it's bigger than the cathedral, so it's a telling statement about its size. There's a lot of discussion about what it adds to the skyline here or takes away, and the photo store in the Fairmount Hotel is offering two different panoramic views of St. John's - one with the Rooms and one without. I didn't ask the store manager which one was selling. But there's a lot of talk in the papers and on the radio about it. Maybe I should take a poll of my own! |