Canadian Spaces – CKCU – Saturday October 22, 2022

Canadian Spaces on CKCU in Ottawa is Canada’s longest-running folk music radio program. It is heard Saturday mornings from 10:00 am until noon (Eastern time). 

It was hosted for more than 33 years by the late Chopper McKinnon and is now hosted by Chris White and a rotating cast of co-hosts. 

This week’s show was hosted by Mike Regenstreif.

CKCU can be heard at 93.1 FM in Ottawa and http://www.ckcufm.com/ on the web. 

This particular show was recorded and is already available for on-demand listening. https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/129/58008.html

Hour 1

Humphrey & The Dumptrucks- Merry Mansion Quadrology: Merry Mansion; Magician; Front Door; Red White & Blue

Six Days of Paper Ladies (Boot)

Mike Regenstreif & Bruce Cockburn (2017)

Bruce Cockburn- Going Down the Road

Rarities (True North)

Russ Kelley- Somewhere Later Down the Road

Crazy Shades of Blue (Ark Road Music Productions)

Hannah Shira Naiman- Caroline Collins

The Wheels Won’t Go (Hannah Shira Naiman)

Mike Regenstreif & Garnet Rogers (2006)

Garnet Rogers- The King of Rome

Small Victories (Snow Goose Songs)

Onna Lou- Saber

Diamante (Onna Lou)

Terra Spencer & Ben Caplan- Maybe

Old News (Terra Spencer & Ben Caplan)

Mike Regenstreif & Lynn Miles (2013)

Lynn Miles- Main St.

We’ll Look for Stars (Must Have Music)

Missy Burgess- Picture in a Frame

Missy Burgess with The Blue Train Live (Missy Burgess)

Old Man Luedecke- I Skipped a Stone

Easy Money (True North)

The Once- Anthem

The Once (Borealis)

Ball and Chain & The Wreckers- Daydreamin’

Surrender (Ball and Chain)

Hour 2 – The Great Canadian Tour

Ian Tyson- Great Canadian Tour

Ol’ Eon (Stony Plain)

Deborah Holland- Vancouver

Vancouver (RageOn)

Chris Rawlings- Lillooet

Pearl Soup (Cooking Fat Music)

Hank Snow- The Spell of the Yukon

Tales of the Yukon (RCA)

James Keelaghan- Alberta

Second-Hand (Borealis)

Michael Earnie Taylor Orchestra- Calgary Song

$3 Pants (Laughing Cactus Music)

Johnny Cash- Girl in Saskatoon

Change of Address: The Singles As and Bs, 1958-1962 (Jasmine)

Tom Russell & Mike Regenstreif (2018)

Tom Russell- Winnipeg

Hurricane Season (Stony Plain)

Shelley Posen- Ontario Moon

Ontario Moon (Well Done Music)

Oscar Peterson- Hogtown Blues

Canadiana Suite (Limelight)

Paul Weber- Ottawa Lament

Ode to Gerry Barber (Paul Weber)

Allison Russell- Montreal

Outside Child (Fantasy)

Mike Regenstreif & Bill Staines (1993)

Bill Staines- The Streets of Old Quebec

Tracks and Trails (Philo)

Steel Rail- Argyle Street

Coming Home (Crossties)

Kevin Head- Digby Lament

Hear Them Callin’ (Kevin Head)

Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop- St. John’s Waltz

Red Shoes (Borealis)

I’ll be hosting Canadian Spaces next on November 19. I also host Stranger Songs every Tuesday from 3:30 to 5 pm; and the Saturday Morning show from 7 to 10 am, once every 4 weeks with my next slot on November 5.

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Canadian Spaces – CKCU – Saturday May 27, 2017

CKCU can be heard at 93.1 FM in Ottawa and http://www.ckcufm.com/ on the web.

This particular show is now available for on-demand listening.

http://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/129/32540.html

Canadian Spaces on CKCU in Ottawa is Canada’s longest-running folk music radio program. It is heard Saturday mornings from 10:00 am until noon (Eastern time).

It was hosted for more than 33 years by the late Chopper McKinnon and is now hosted by Chris White and a rotating cast of co-hosts.

This week’s show was co-hosted by Mike Regenstreif and Chris White.

Guests: Jeff Mills; Tony Turner; Terry Gillespie; Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop

The Malvinas- Crow

God Bless the Grass (Soona Songs)

Jayme Stone, Moira Smiley, Sumaia Jackson & Joe Phillips- Drunken Hiccups

Jayme Stone’s Folklife (Borealis)

The Eisenhauers- Newfoundland Song

The Road We Once Knew (Black Hen)

Michael Earnie Taylor Orchestra- Clyde Beatty

$3 Pants (Laughing Cactus Music)

Jon Brooks- Down by the Dirty Don

The Songs of Tony Quarrington (B. Gladstone/Winterfolk)

David Clayton-Thomas- Suzanne

Canadiana (Antionette/ILS)

Tom Russell- Wild Geese

Play One More: The Songs of Ian & Sylvia (True North)

Joe Newberry & April Verch- Will You Wait for Me?

Going Home (Slab Town)

Diana Braithwaite & Chris Whiteley- Morning Sun

Morning Sun (Electro-Fi)

Durham County Poets- Monday Morning

Grimshaw Road (Durham County Poets)

Doug McArthur- The Big Machine

Tears Like Rain (Doug McArthur)

Lynn Miles- Surrender Dorothy

Black Flowers Volume 1-2 (True North)

Jennifer Noxon- Nothing More

Sweet (Jennifer Noxon)

Tony Turner- Long Way Down

Love & Other Attractions (Tony Turner)

Terry Gillespie- Brother of the Blues

Live in the studio

Terry Gillespie- Magnolia Tree

Live in the studio

Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop- Red Shoes

Red Shoes (Borealis)

I’ll be co-hosting Canadian Spaces again on July 8.

In the meantime, I’ll be hosting Saturday Morning (7-10 am) on June 24.

Find me on Twitter. @MikeRegenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Michael Earnie Taylor Orchestra – $3 Pants

MICHAEL EARNIE TAYLOR ORCHESTRA

$3 Pants

Laughing Cactus Music

Michael Earnie Taylor Orchestra on Facebook

Once upon a time – or, more accurately, the 1970s – my favorite Canadian band was a folk-bluegrass-country-jug band from Saskatoon called Humphrey & the Dumptrucks. I met the Dumptrucks – guitarists and lead singers Michael “Earnie” Taylor and Graeme Card, banjo and Dobro maestro Gary “Humphrey” Walsh and acoustic bassist Michael “Bear” Millar – for the first time, circa 1972, when I was helping to run the Yellow Door Coffee House in Montreal and they came to play a weekend gig.

The band was tight, they wrote great original material, and their shows and LPs were always a guaranteed good time. Graeme left the band in 1973 and Humphrey & the Dumptrucks carried on as a trio that was just as good and just as entertaining. I brought them back to Montreal to play at the concert series I was running at Dawson College in ‘73 – which I recall being one of the best attended shows ever during that two-year series – and they played at the Golem, the folk club I was running in Montreal in 1976 when they came to town for an extended run at Centaur Theatre of “Cruel Tears,” the country-and-western opera they co-wrote with playwright Ken Mitchell, as part of the cultural programming for the Summer Olympic Games. “Cruel Tears” was one of the most memorable Canadian theatrical productions of that era.

While none of the terrific LPs recorded by Humphrey & the Dumptrucks has ever been reissued on CD, you can hear some of them on YouTube.

The Dumptrucks broke up in the early-1980s and Michael “Earnie” Taylor settled in Stratford, Ontario where he worked for the Stratford Festival for many years and continued playing music. He formed a band called Me & My Uncle (with Humphrey on banjo) which released a terrific self-titled CD in 1996. He followed that with an equally terrific CD called Folk ‘n’ Western released under his own name in 2002.

Now, 15 years since the last CD, comes $3 Pants by the Michael Earnie Taylor Orchestra (METO). In addition to Michael on guitar, kazoo and most lead vocals, METO includes Jeff Laughton – who was in Me & My Uncle and also played on Folk ‘n’ Western – on acoustic bass and harmony vocals; Ross Mulligan on electric and nylon-string guitars; and Terri Dans and Carol Miller on kazoo and vocals. Terri and Carol each take the lead vocal on one song.

The album opens with a fun version of “Ring of Fire,” a Johnny Cash hit from 1964. Cash’s version of the song featured an instantly recognizable intro and fills played by a mariachi horn section while METO’s kazoo trio plays those parts here. You can tell that METO’s arrangement is both tongue-in-cheek and respectful.

Then comes a new version of “Calgary Song,” one of Michael’s original songs from Six Days of Paper Ladies, the first Humphrey & the Dumptrucks LP. Hearing it again after all these years reminded me of great times listening to the Dumptrucks and of the time Michael showed me the guitar chords for “Calgary Song” about 45 years ago. $3 Pants also includes a new version “Clyde Beattie,” also first recorded on Six Days of Paper Ladies, Michael’s memory of the lion tamer in a circus that came through Saskatoon when he was 10.

There are also new versions of “Lady of the Prairie” and “One More for the Women,” two of the songs from “Cruel Tears.” Although it’s been more than 40 years since I’ve seen the show, hearing them on this CD brought back visual memories of the scenes in “Cruel Tears” in which they were sung.

Among the other highlights on $3 Pants are Michael’s “Tourist Town,” an infectious boogie modeled on Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee’s “Spread the News Around” that spoofs Stratford (the opening line is taken from William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”) and a deeply-felt version of Bruce “Utah” Phillips’ emotional “Rock Salt and Nails”with countrypolitan harmonies by Terri and Carol.

This album will certainly be appreciated by anyone who remembers Humphrey & the Dumptrucks – and should also win lots of new fans for the Michael Earnie Taylor Orchestra.

Pictured: The Michael Earnie Taylor Orchestra – (from left) Ross Mulligan, Michael “Earnie” Taylor, Terri Dans, Carol Miller and Jeff Laughton.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif