The lugubrious story of Washboard Hank
Peterborough, Ontario musician is troubadour in search of a legend
PREVIEW
WASHBOARD HANK
Tuesday, April 16
MacEwan Hall (U of C)
Saturday, April 20
Ship & Anchor Pub
It’s a chilly Saturday night in November and a few of the local folk are gathered at the pub to join friends for a pint or two. It’s pretty quiet, with only a few low conversations going on among patrons. Suddenly, a man swings open the front door – he’s got a contraption strapped to his chest that’s made from an old washboard with a conglomeration of bells, license plates and duck calls nailed to it. With a miner’s helmet on his head, he enters the pub with two other musicians trailing behind him and announces: "Hello everybody – I’m Washboard Hank!"
If you missed Washboard Hank when he blew through town last fall, you can catch up with him again now, as he hooks up with rockabilly guitarist Lance Loree and Calgary upright bassist Ronnie Hayward to play a few gigs and record some new material.
"It’s drastically overdue," says Hank about the impending recording session. "It will be along the lines of the original recording (Donkeys & Tire Fires, released in 1992), with a few serious songs. The working title might be Lugubrious."
Lugubrious might also describe some of Hank’s early days as a busker, when he travelled from city to city, making his way from his home in Peterborough, Ontario (where he grew up working on his grandfather's farm), persevering through Canadian winters and hitting a few bad notes. One of his first indoor gigs, at the Canmore Hotel in 1979, was cancelled after the hotel owner discovered a horse’s leg under the musician’s bed. It wasn’t his.
Around that time, while busking on the streets in Calgary, Hank met Loree, who introduced him to a cousin who was playing in a bluegrass band. Hank was subsequently invited to play with the group one night in DeWinton.
"I’m still running into people who saw me play that night," says Hank, adding that he and Loree have many friends in common in their musical realm, including Hayward, whom he met in Toronto when Ronnie was playing bass in a rockabilly trio called Shotgun Shack. Hayward eventually moved to Calgary, where he and Hank played a number of street gigs together.
Given the combined talents of the three musicians, who all share the same attitude towards music , Hank says he feels privileged to be working with this group.
"I think this is the absolute purest distillation of what I want and the kind of band I want to be in. They're such great players and we all fit together." He describes the relationship as "pure caviar – with ketchup," explaining the group is unique without being too "artsy-fartsy."
Hank is a big fan of western swing, and describes his own sound as a "real salad mix of different kinds of music," including hillbilly boogie and bluegrass – stuff that cheers people up and lets them have a good time. He recalls one cold Christmas Eve on the streets in Vancouver when he and his band at the time, Reverend Ken and the Lost Followers, played for a group of street people, long after the stores closed and people went home to their warm houses and families. They played short, funny tunes that made the crowd laugh and enjoy a little happiness – if only for a brief moment.
"It probably looked like the saddest thing in the world, but to see the look on those... faces made me feel truly happy – it was probably the happiest time of my life."
Hank and Reverend Ken travelled to cities all over North America playing what Hank describes as hillbilly punk gospel, with Hank writing the songs and Reverend Ken writing the music. Driving from city to city in an old pickup truck with only a shell on top to protect their equipment and belongings, they were reminiscent of musicians of an earlier era, like Bill Monroe and Hank Williams, who travelled with no tour manager or record rep. Hank claims he still lives that way.
"It’s a more direct and honest way to do things. It’s a lot better than getting some slick guy supplying superlatives to people," he says.
Eventually Reverend Ken went on to establish a six-piece blues band that, according to Hank, was "too generic" and ventured too far from his musical roots. Hank established his own group called Washboard Hank and the Honkers, which played a combination of rockabilly and hillbilly gospel mixed with a little honky-tonk.
"I wanted to stay close to my rural roots and play music that I liked," he says. "I don’t want to be a flavour of the month – I want to be a legend." |
