Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – June 23, 2026: Remembering Bruce Murdoch (1947-2026)

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU, 93.1 FM, in Ottawa on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.

This episode of Stranger Songs was recorded and can be streamed on-demand, now or anytime, by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/75929.html

Theme: Remembering Bruce Murdoch (1947-2026).

Special thanks to Bill Garrett for his assistance in assembling several of the recordings heard on this show.

Mike Regenstreif & Bruce Murdoch (2007)

Bruce Murdoch, a great singer-songwriter and dear friend, passed away on June 11 at age 78. I kept in touch with Bruce – most recently just last month – and although I knew his time was short, it was still difficult to hear the news that he’d died.

I was still a teenager and Bruce was in his early 20s when we first met on the Montreal folk scene, circa 1970. I loved his songs and took every opportunity I could to see him perform at venues like the Back Door, the Yellow Door and Montreal Folk Workshop. By that time, Bruce was back in Montreal after five years or so of performing primarily in the U.S. where he was active in the Civil Rights and anti-war movements.

In the fall of 1972, when I started my first concert series at Dawson College in Montreal, I asked Bruce to headline the first concert. Then, in the spring of 1974 when I took over running The Golem, a Montreal folk club that had been founded in 1973 by Saul Markowicz, Bruce was the artist I booked for my opening weekend. Bruce played there often during my first stint at the Golem from 1974 to 1976.

Bruce’s first recordings were made in the U.S. In 1965, at age 17, Bruce was one of four performers whose first recordings were featured on an LP called the Singer Songwriter Project. The others were Richard Fariña, Patrick Sky and David Blue – who was then still known by his real name: David Cohen.

Bruce Murdoch- Farewell My Friend 

Singer Songwriter Project (Elektra)

Bill Staines- Rompin’ Rovin’ Days 

Journey Home (Red House)

Bruce Murdoch- Down in Mississippi

Singer Songwriter Project (Elektra)

Bruce Murdoch- Try an’ Ask

Singer Songwriter Project (Elektra)

Bruce’s first full-length album was 33 1/3 Revolutions per Minute released in 1970. Unfortunately, the LP suffered from poor sound quality and some questionable sound effects, which Bruce told me were imposed against his will. But, despite those issues, there were some great songs on the album – including the next six songs. 

The first two 33 1/3 RPM songs are from a 1968 concert tape that Bill Garrett has in his collection. The next two are from a recording of a 1969 interview on KPFA in Berkeley, California that Bruce gave me many years ago.

Bruce Murdoch- Spanish Songs of Spain (Letters to Lucille #2)

1968 live tape from New York City – courtesy of Bill Garrett

Bruce Murdoch- Justines Blues

1968 live tape from New York City – courtesy of Bill Garrett

Bruce Murdoch- September 4 – 4 East

From a 1969 radio show on KPFA in Berkeley

Bruce Murdoch- To Angela

From a 1969 radio show on KPFA in Berkeley

Penny Lang- (Can I) Come Across to You

Live at the Yellow Door (She-Wolf)

Bruce Murdoch- Let’s Lay Down Our Drums

33 1/3 Revolutions per Minute (Stormy Forest)

As mentioned earlier, Bruce Murdoch returned to Montreal around 1970 and quickly became one of the city’s best-loved folk artists. He performed regularly on the Montreal scene, including a couple of concerts at Dawson College and many gigs at the Golem that I presented.

However, by late in the 1970s, Bruce decided to stop performing and put his guitar away for about 25 years. He moved to Alberta, went back to school and got his teaching credentials and became a high school teacher and volunteer firefighter in Hinton, a small town about 280 km west of Edmonton.

However, before he moved to Alberta, he recorded a self-titled LP for the CBC with producers Bill Garrett and Paul Mills that included many of the songs he’d been singing in Montreal during the ‘70s.

Bruce Murdoch- Joshua (Rough Night in Jericho)

Bruce Murdoch (Radio Canada International)

Bruce Murdoch- Fool Like Me 

Bruce Murdoch (Radio Canada International)

Bruce Murdoch- (The Plains of) Jericho 

Bruce Murdoch (Radio Canada International)

Wings was another of Bruce Murdoch’s songs that was on the Bruce Murdoch LP. In 1971, years before Bruce’s own recording of Wings, it was done as single by Bill & Sharon – the duo of Bill Garrett & his then partner Sharon Ryan – and I’d like to thank Bill for digitizing it so that I could play it on this show.

Bill & Sharon- Wings

Wings – single (Much)

Bruce Murdoch- Snowdon

Bruce Murdoch (Radio Canada International)

As mentioned, Bruce Murdoch gave up performing in the late 1970s. For reasons that I fully understood, Bruce was done with the music scene. He needed to get away from it, to go somewhere where he had no history and start over. So he moved out west, went back to school, and became a high school teacher and volunteer firefighter in Hinton, Alberta. His guitar sat unplayed in its case for about 25 years.

When I spoke to him in 1994, after I started the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio show on CKUT, I told him there was a guest spot for him on the show as soon as he was ready to make music again. Ten or 11 years later, Bruce let me know that the guitar was starting to come out of the case again, that songs were starting to come again. Bruce promised that as soon as he was ready, mine would be the first radio show he’d play his songs on. As fate would have it, Bruce accepted Adrien Doucette’s invitation to perform at the 2007 Branches & Roots Festival in Ormstown, Quebec and made it to Montreal in time to be my final studio guest on CKUT before I left Montreal to move to Ottawa.

In 2008, Bruce released a CD of new songs called Matters of the Heart, and a year or so later, he left Alberta and settled in Ormstown, a small town about 45 minutes south of Montreal.

Bruce’s new songs were different than the ones he was writing in the 1960s and ‘70s. They were generally more personal and less obviously political, but they were every bit as compelling. 

Bruce Murdoch- Angels in My Heart

Matters of the Heart (Bruce Murdoch)

Bruce Murdoch- Daly’s Song 

Matters of the Heart (Bruce Murdoch)

Bruce Murdoch- I Sit and Count the Stars

Matters of the Heart (Bruce Murdoch)

Bruce Murdoch- I Keep You in My Heart

Matters of the Heart (Bruce Murdoch)

In 2011, Bruce released another CD of new songs called Sometimes I Wonder Why the World. 

Bruce Murdoch- The Rookie

Sometimes I Wonder Why the World (Bruce Murdoch)

Bruce Murdoch- I’m at the Mercy of Your Smile

Sometimes I Wonder Why the World (Bruce Murdoch)

Bruce Murdoch- I’d Walk a Thousand Miles 

Sometimes I Wonder Why the World (Bruce Murdoch)

I mentioned that Bruce’s newer songs were less political than the ones he was writing in the 1960s and ‘70s – which is not to say that he didn’t still write political songs. In 2015, Bill Garrett produced a recording of a new political song by Bruce.

Bruce Murdoch with Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop- Begone You Neocons

Begone You Neocons – single (Bruce Murdoch)

Mandy, Bruce’s partner, asked me to say that anyone with memories of Bruce that they’d like to share with the family can send them to… brucemurdochmusic@gmail.com

Bruce Murdoch- Amanda

Sometimes I Wonder Why the World (Bruce Murdoch)

Next week: A Tribute to Rosalie Sorrels.

--Mike Regenstreif

Get well, Ron Hynes!

My thoughts and best wishes are with good friend Ron Hynes as he battles cancer of the throat.

Ron has cancelled his concert schedule for the rest of 2012 while he undergoes treatment.

As I noted in my review of Sealing Genius, Ron’s most recent album, he is “without question, one of Canada’s greatest singer-songwriters – a writer whose genius can be found in decades worth of great songs.” I referred to Stealing Genius as the finest set of original songwriting released in Canada in 2010.

I’ve always enjoyed Ron’s company. The first time we worked together was in 2002 in a main stage workshop I hosted at the 2002 Ottawa Folk Festival called Short Stories That Rhyme which also included the late Bill Morrissey and Cliff Eberhardt. Five years later, Ron was one of my final studio guests on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio show in 2007.

Ron was in excellent form when we visited and I saw him perform at Irene’s Pub in Ottawa just five months ago. I know that I speak for all his friends and fans in wishing Ron a speedy recovery. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before he’s healthy and back on stage.

Pictured:

Ron Hynes performing; and Adrien Doucette, Ron Hynes and Mike Regenstreif at the 2007 Branches & Roots Festival in Ormstown, Quebec.

--Mike Regenstreif

Norman Doucette -- Some Mother's Son

NORMAN DOUCETTE
Some Mother’s Son
Norman Doucette
cdbaby.com/Artist/NormanDoucette

The dozen original songs – steeped as they are in both folk music and country – that Norman Doucette sings on his debut album, Some Mother’s Son, remind me of a time, about 40 years ago when there was an explosion of great singer-songwriters mining that musical vein. Among the artists I’m thinking of are Kris Kristofferson, Steve Young, Paul Siebel, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt and John Prine. In particular, Norman reminds me of early John Prine in his approach to melody and song construction.

These are gritty songs populated by seemingly true-to-life characters that you might encounter on the poor side of most urban downtowns. “The poor man walking by the soup kitchen door” in the lead-off track; the perpetual wanderer in “Teepees, Tents and Trailers”; and the hooker caught up in addiction and poverty in “Angel with a Broken Heel.”

There are also echoes of Stan Rogers in the title track, “Some Mother’s Son,” in which Norman’s first-person character, an East Coast fisherman whose livelihood is played out, is faced with the choice of heading to Alberta to work the tar sands or joining the army and carrying a gun in Afghanistan.

Norman is a veteran performer. I hope this CD opens some doors for him as his songs are well-deserving of an audience.

BTW, that I know of Norman Doucette and his fine songs is certainly thanks to his brother, Adrien Doucette. Adrien, founder of the Branches & Roots and Apple Hollow Folk Festivals, as well as a prime organizer of the weekly concerts at Café Namas Thé in Ormstown, is kind of the folk music godfather of the Chateauguay Valley south of Montreal. It was at Adrien’s festivals that I’ve enjoyed opportunities to hear Norman perform live and it was Adrien that sent me the CD.

--Mike Regenstreif