Montreal: Folk Festival on the Canal June 12-16

Montreal’s Folk Festival on the Canal will open this year with three stellar indoor concerts in venues near the Lachine Canal and then continue outdoors with a weekend of free music on its banks. The artists at the three indoor concerts would be among the headliners at any major folk festival.

The first concert features the great Roger McGuinn on Wednesday, June 12, 8:00 pm, at the Corona Theatre (2490 Notre Dame St. West).

Roger – originally known as Jim McGuinn – came out of the Chicago folk scene as a teenager in the late-1950s and early-‘60s and gained attention as a sideman for groups like the Limeliters and the Chad Mitchell Trio and for singers like Judy Collins and Bobby Darin. In 1964, he co-founded a band which became The Byrds, one of the most influential American bands of the 1960s. The Byrds were seminal to the birth and development of both folk-rock and country-rock. Roger was the key member of the Byrds through all of their history and permutations.

I saw Roger perform for the first time in 1975 when he was one of the featured artists in Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue and I chatted with him at the after-concert party (I was a guest of Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, one of the other artists on the show). Then, in the 1980s, I produced a couple of intimate acoustic concerts with him at the Golem. In 1998, Roger was my guest on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio program when he returned to Montreal for a concert with Richie Havens.

Always a great performer, Roger’s concerts are a fascinating and entertaining walk through some of the most significant musical times of the past 50 years.

The second concert will feature Tim O’Brien on Thursday, June 13, 8:00 pm, at the Georges Vanier Cultural Centre (2450 Workman).

Tim, a multi-instrumentalist and fine singer and songwriter began his career in the 1970s and ‘80s as a member of Hot Rize, one of the best bluegrass bands of the day. With Hot Rize – and their offbeat country alter-egos Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers – and as a soloist, Tim has built a substantial body of excellent work encompassing both the folk roots of traditional music and the folk branches of contemporary music.

The third concert features the Travelin’ McCourys on Friday, June 14, 8:00 pm, at the Corona Theatre.

Fronted by brothers Ronnie McCoury on mandolin and Rob McCoury on banjo, and also featuring Jason Carter on fiddle and Alan Bartram on bass, the Travelin McCourys backed bluegrass legend Del McCoury – Ronnie and Rob’s father – for many years developing into one of today’s premiere bluegrass units.

Tickets for the three indoor concerts are available at this link.

On Saturday and Sunday, June 14 and 15, the festival shifts to Ilot Charlevoix (corner of St. Patrick and Charlevoix) for two full days of concerts and other activities – all free of charge – featuring a diverse selection of artists highlighted by Old Man Luedecke on Saturday and The Once on Sunday. The complete schedule is available at this link.

I like to refer to Montreal’s Folk Festival on the Canal as the little folk festival that could. Founded and still run by Matt Large and Rebecca Anderson of Hello Darlin’ Productions and Carl Comeau of Hyperbole Music, the festival has slowly, but surely, developed into an important part of Montreal’s busy festival calendar.

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--Mike Regenstreif

Chad Mitchell Trio -- Then & Now

CHAD MITCHELL TRIO
Then & Now
Trio Productions
chadmitchelltrio.com

I spent an interesting – and surprisingly enjoyable – evening recently watching Then & Now, a 3-DVD set documenting, through commentaries, conversations and performances, the history of the Chad Mitchell Trio, one of the most venerable of the commercial folk boom groups.

The first of the three DVDs compiles clips from the many television shows – Bell Telephone Hour, Ed Sullivan, Dinah Shore, etc. – the trio did during their heyday in the early-to-mid-1960s. Watching them sing poignant songs like “Dona Dona,” topical songs like “The John Birch Society,” kids’ songs like Tom Paxton’s “The Marvelous Toy,” and all manner of tightly arranged traditional folksongs was made easy by the quality and cleverness of the singing and vocal arrangements, and by the fact that they always surrounded themselves with such topflight instrumental accompanists as Roger McGuinn (then Jim McGuinn) and Paul Prestopino. While much of these period pieces might seem dated by today’s standards, listening in the context of the times allowed me to enjoy the songs – and the conversations of trio members Chad Mitchell, Joe Frazier and Mike Kobluk which are inserted throughout the DVD.

One of the things that personally interested me in the three earliest clips from the ‘60s was seeing McGuinn as the trio’s accompanist on banjo and guitar. Roger, of course, went on to make folk-rock history as leader of the Byrds and then as a noted solo artist who I’ve had the chance to produce a couple of concerts with at the Golem in the 1980s, and have as a guest on Folk Roots/Folk Branches in 1998. He couldn’t have been much more than 20 or so playing beside a tuxedoed or tie-and-jacketed Chad Mitchell Trio in 1961-’62.

Chad Mitchell left the trio in 1965 and the trio continued for a time as the Mitchell Trio with the young John Denver as the third member.

In 1987, Chad Mitchell, Joe Frazier and Mike Kobluk came together for a reunion concert that was recorded for a PBS fundraiser and that comprises the second DVD in the set. Maybe it was the superior recording quality, but the Chad Mitchell Trio sounded better to me in 1987 than they did in the ‘60s. The harmonies and arrangements are as good, or better, than ever and there seems to be a greater depth to the interpretations.

Each of the three also steps forward with a solo performance. Mike does a sweet version of Charles Badger Clark’s “Spanish is a Loving Tongue,” Chad does well with Yip Harburg’s “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,” and Joe does a powerful version of Bruce Cockburn’s then-very-topical “Nicaragua,” a brave and compelling choice for a reunion concert during the days of the Reagan Administartion.

Toward the end of the concert, Chad Mitchell steps out for a song to be replaced – as he was in 1965 – by John Denver who sings a really nice version of “For Baby (For Bobbie),” a song they sang together as Mitchell Trio (and the first John Denver song ever to be recorded) with Joe and Mike.

All four – Chad, Mike, Joe and John – sing the finale, Ed McCurdy’s “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream,” their standard closer, together.

Twenty years after that reunion concert – and almost a half-century since they first performed together – the Chad Mitchell Trio came together again in 2007 for two concerts that are seamlessly edited together as the third DVD in the set.

Earlier, I said the trio sounded better to me in 1987 than they did in the 1960s. Well, they also sounded even better to me in 2007 than in 1987 as they work their way through a familiar repertoire of traditional and contemporary folk standards including lovely versions of Ian Tyson’s “Four Strong Winds,” Tom Paxton’s “Last Thing On My Mind” and Woody Guthrie’s “Great Historical Bum.

Speaking of Tom Paxton, the Chad Mitchell Trio sang a lot of Tom’s songs during their run in the 1960s (and, circa 1960, the young Tom actually auditioned for the spot in the trio filled by Joe Frazier) and he joins them late in the concert for a really nice version of his classic “I Can’t Help but Wonder Where I’m Bound,” and for the closer, “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream.”

Watching the DVDs was, to be sure, an exercise in Mighty Wind-type nostalgia for the commercial folk era. But it was also a reminder that the Chad Mitchell Trio – like Peter, Paul and Mary, like the Weavers, like Ian and Sylvia – had something very special that transcended their commercialism and that deepened greatly over time.

--Mike Regenstreif

This week in Folk Roots/Folk Branches history (November 17-23)

Folk Roots/Folk Branches with Mike Regenstreif was a Thursday tradition on CKUT in Montreal for nearly 14 years from February 3, 1994 until August 30, 2007. Folk Roots/Folk Branches continued as occasional features on CKUT and is now also a blog. Here’s the 12th instalment of “This week in Folk Roots/Folk Branches,” a weekly look back continuing through next August at some of the most notable guests, features and moments in Folk Roots/Folk Branches history.

November 17, 1994: Extended feature- Christine Lavin.
November 23, 1995: Extended feature- The Songs of Jack Hardy.
November 20, 1997: Guest- Robert Atyeo.
November 19, 1998: Guest- Roger McGuinn.
November 18, 1999: Guest- Stacey Earle.
November 23, 2000: Guest- Michael Jerome Browne; Special festure- Jesse Winchester recorded in concert, August 5, 2000, at the Champlain Valley Folk Festival.
November 22, 2001: Guest- “Philadelphia” Jerry Ricks.
November 21, 2002: Guest- Dave Clarke.
November 20, 2003: Guests- The McDades; Chris Frye of the Bills.
November 18, 2004: Guests- Penny Lang & Dave Clarke.
November 17, 2005: My 650th show on CKUT.
November 23, 2006: Guest- David Gogo.
November 22, 2007 (Folk Roots/Folk Branches feature): The Songs of Bruce Murdoch.
November 20, 2008 (Folk Roots/Folk Branches feature): The Tom Russell Anthology: Veteran’s Day, Part 1.

Pictured: Me and Jesse Winchester at the Champlain Valley Folk Festival on August 5, 2000.

--Mike Regenstreif