The Ottawa Folklore Centre closes

Ottawa Folklore Centre (Google Streetview)

The folk music community in Ottawa, in Ontario, and, indeed, across Canada, was dealt a harsh blow today with the announcement that the Ottawa Folklore Centre has fallen into bankruptcy and has closed.

The announcement came in a letter to the community (see below) from Arthur McGregor, who founded the Ottawa Folklore Centre in 1976 and ran it with tremendous dedication and love for nearly four decades – most of his adult life. As Arthur writes in his letter, it has been his life’s work.

The Ottawa Folklore Centre was never just a musical instrument store. It was also a music school where skilled musicians taught novices how to sing and play guitar, banjo, ukulele, mandolin, fiddle and who knows what else. It published songbooks by the likes of Stan Rogers and Bruce Cockburn and it was a community gathering point. The Ottawa Folklore Centre was a place to drop in and hang out. It was a great source of information about what was happening on the folk scene. The Ottawa Folklore Centre was a beloved community institution that nurtured and supported other community institutions – from the Ottawa Folk Festival to Canadian Spaces on CKCU to the Canadian Folk Music Awards, Rasputin’s Folk Café, Irene’s, the Black Sheep Inn, the Ottawa Grassroots Festival, and virtually every other festival, concert venue and music producer in the region.

But, noting all of that, and so many other incredible accomplishments, doesn’t begin to address the real, lasting contribution of the Ottawa Folklore Centre – which was to make folk music an accessible, affordable, participatory part of people’s lives.

Arthur McGregor performing at the 2013 Ottawa Folk Festival. (Mike Regenstreif)

I know that running a business like the Ottawa Folklore Centre has never been easy. But it’s been more than a business – for Arthur, in particular, but also for just about everyone else who has ever worked there – it’s been a calling. Most of the folklore centres I got to hang out as a young folkie – the legendary New York Folklore Center, the Toronto Folklore Centre, and the Montreal Folklore Centre – were gone by the 1980s. A select few – the Denver Folklore Center, the Halifax Folklore Centre, and, until now, the Ottawa Folklore Centre, come to mind – have endured. I hope their communities know what treasures these places are.

I have some idea of how tough it’s been for Arthur to keep the Ottawa Folklore Centre going over the past number of years. And while most business-oriented people might have called it a day long ago, Arthur kept on keeping on because, deep down, he knew how important the Ottawa Folklore Centre has been to our community.

Thirty-eight years! It’s been a great run, Arthur. The entire folk music community is giving you a well-deserved standing ovation for all that you’ve done and accomplished with the Ottawa Folklore Centre.

Arthur’s letter:

Thursday, July 23, 2015

There are few things more important to me than folk music and the deep community that it engenders. I have dedicated most of my life to this community.  For the past 38 years the main symbol of that dedication has been the Ottawa Folklore Centre. I opened it on Bronson Avenue in 1976 and later, Terry Penner, my late wife, and I moved it to its present location on Bank Street. These thirty-eight years have not been easy but I have continued, with the help of family and friends…hundreds, in the face of many challenges and been proud of what we have accomplished. I have persisted in upholding the original vision of the OFC as a true centre for musicians to come together as well as a centre for teaching. The pursuit of this vision has meant much personal sacrifice over the years and the road has been far from easy. But it has been my life’s work and I am particularly proud of the esteem the community has held for this work and this vision.  That esteem was gloriously on display when it first became known that the business was running into trouble last year. A benefit concert was held which raised enough money to keep us afloat for a while.  This outpouring of love was humbling and heart-warming at the same time.  It is because of this love and community support that the decisions I now have to make are so onerous and difficult. 

In recent years the challenge of keeping the OFC alive has been steadily increasing to the point where the impact on my personal life is no longer bearable.  It has become quite clear that in spite of our on-going efforts and personal sacrifices, this business is simply not sustainable.

We have sought much professional advice and explored several options. I have pursued possible buyers of the business, real estate agents to see if sub-leasing parts of the building is feasible, hired consultants to help organize the business to reflect current realities. We have worked with community organizations to share programming. I have tried everything I know to keep this business afloat. I have invested all the money that I have available to me. I have nothing left to give, monetarily or physically.

With sales recently weakening as the summer arrives, the final decision has been made for me.

Effective July 23, the Ottawa Folklore Centre Ltd. is declaring bankruptcy and will be in the hands of a bankruptcy trustee, Ginsberg/Gingras. There will be customers, students, staff, suppliers, and teachers who will not understand this choice and who will lose earned income and payments for lessons and goods that The Folklore Centre will not be able to honour. I apologize for this. It is not for lack of trying.

Arthur McGregor

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Ottawa Folklore Centre benefit concert – July 31

For almost four decades, the Ottawa Folklore Centre, a modest folk-rooted and folk-branched music, musical instrument, and music instruction emporium run by Arthur McGregor has been at the heart and soul of Ottawa’s folk music scene.

The past year, though, as Arthur explained to Ottawa Citizen music critic Lynn Saxberg, has been tough and the Folklore Centre, which has helped so many professional and amateur musicians over the years needs some help.

So Borealis Records, the Canadian folk music record label, has organized a benefit concert for Thursday, July 31, 7:30 pm, featuring some of the finest folk artists in the area: Lynn Miles, Sneezy Waters, James Keelaghan, Terry Tufts & Kathryn Briggs, and Finest Kind with James Stephens.

Originally scheduled to take place at the Sunnyside Wesleyan Church, Folks for the Folklore Centre has been moved to the larger Southminster United Church just down Bank Street from the Folklore Centre at the corner of Aylmer.

It promises to be one of the great folk music events of the year in Ottawa.

Arthur McGregor performing at the 2013 Ottawa Folk Festival.

Tickets are $25 and are available in person at the Folklore Centre (1111 Bank Street), by phone at 613-730-2887 or online at this link.

I wish I could be there but I’ll be out of town that night. So I’m going to show my support by buying a couple of virtual tickets at this link.

Supporting the Ottawa Folklore Centre is a most worthy cause for folk music lovers.

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--Mike Regenstreif

Remembering Tam Kearney and Chopper McKinnon

It’s been a sad couple of weeks with the passing of Tam Kearney (1940-2013) and A. L. “Chopper” McKinnon (1946-2013), two unique, iconic and essential leadership figures in the Canadian folk music scene. I knew both of them for about 40 years.

Tam Kearney

Tam was the driving force behind the Fiddler’s Green folk club in Toronto, the focal point for traditional folk music, and also traditionally-oriented singer-songwriters, in Toronto. He was also the leader (as if there ever could be one) of the Friends of Fiddler’s Green, the club’s house band of singers and musicians – all of whom but Grit Laskin were British Isles ex-pats – who were fixtures at folk festivals and folk clubs in other cities, including at the Golem, the club that I ran in Montreal. Almost every trip I took to Toronto in those years included an evening at Fiddler’s Green.

Tam was a prankster of much renown, a fine singer and a hilarious on-stage host, whether introducing performers at the club or during a Friends of Fiddler’s Green performance, and the influence he exerted by nurturing and developing Fiddler’s Green was incalculable. My friend Stan Rogers was inspired by Tam and the Friends of Fiddler’s Green to write “Barrett’s Privateers.”

Ian Robb, a member of the Friends of Fiddler’s Green, wrote an excellent obituary about Tam for Sing Out, which can be seen at this link.

Chopper McKinnon

Chopper is one of those guys on the Canadian folk scene that I knew seemingly forever. I’m not exactly sure when we first met, but I have memories of hanging out with him at folk festivals, at the Toronto Folklore Centre where he worked for several years, and of his showing up at the Golem on a few occasions in the 1970s, and on more than a few occasions in the ‘80s.

Chopper was the personification of the folk music scene in Ottawa. He organized and hosted concerts, worked at the Ottawa Folklore Centre for many years, did some artist management, edited some songbooks, including Songs from Fogarty’s Cove by Stan Rogers, but, most notably, he was the host – for 33 years! – of Canadian Spaces, Canada’s longest-running folk radio program.

Canadian Spaces was Chopper’s platform to champion Canadian folk music, particularly Canadian singer-songwriters, and he did it so well for so very long. There was never a stronger advocate for Canadian singer-songwriters.

The folk music scene in Ottawa over the past three decades-plus revolved around Canadian Spaces. In fact, Chris White, the founding artistic director of the Ottawa Folk Festival, said the festival was launched in response to the popularity of the radio show. Chopper, of course, was a familiar figure as a main-stage MC at the Ottawa Folk Festival for many years.

Yesterday morning, Chris White, Lynn Miles and Ian Tamblyn hosted a poignant, moving tribute to Chopper on Canadian Spaces on CKCU. Their memories and by several studio and telephone guests were lovely and some of the songs that were sung were so perfectly heartbreaking. You can stream the program at this link.

Update March 23: A second excellent tribute to Chopper was hosted by Chris White and Matthew Crosier on today's edition of Canadian Spaces on CKCU. A multitude of studio and telephone guests including, among others, Tannis Slimmon, Garnet Rogers, Ann Downey, Laura Smith, Terry Eagen, Karen Flanagan-McCarthy, Gene Swimmer, Joyce McPhee, Ferron and myself shared memories of Chopper. I was greatly honoured to be asked to be part of the program. You can stream the program at this link.

Both Tam Kearney and Chopper McKinnon were builders of the Canadian folk music community. Both will be remembered for many years to come.

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--Mike Regenstreif