>>PREVIEW
AMOS GARRETT
Nickelodeon Music Club
Saturday, January 14
Crescent Heights Community Centre
Google "Amos Garrett" and you'll get an amazing number of sites. Something like 781,000 (more or less). In addition to his official website, numerous retailers will try to sell you albums, sheet music and other paraphernalia. Science fiction writer Spider Robinson will regale with tales about Amos in his copyrighted online diary. You will even find a street and park in Annapolis, Maryland named after him. Oops. Sorry. Different Amos Garrett. You will also find that Amos hasn't quite managed to leave his past behind him.
Ask anybody about Garrett and chances are good that they will mention his extended guitar solo on "Midnight at the Oasis." It has become his calling card. At least it was. Garrett thinks that he is probably better remembered now for his cover version of Santo & Johnny's classic instrumental "Sleep Walk." Either way, he is philosophical about the whole thing. It opened some doors for him and led to a great job as Maria Muldaur's bandleader for eight years.
The downside was that he was typecast as an electric guitar player and soloist. Session work dried up. Prior to that point he had done a lot of work as a rhythm guitar player. Afterwards, not so much. Even so Garrett has managed to keep himself very busy over a career spanning at least 40 years. He has appeared on well over 200 recordings with such people as Emmylou Harris, Paul Butterfield and Doug Sahm and is entering his 3rd decade as the leader of the Edmonton Folk Festival's house band.
This doesn't leave much time for leisure activities but Amos likes to spend whatever time he can pursuing his other passions of hunting, fishing and training birddogs. A committed outdoorsman, he is looking forward to the upcoming election and political change. He remains a realist, however, and knows that the type of change he favours is unlikely. Garrett is less forthcoming when you ask him where he goes to fish. He does admit that he is fond of the Bow River and likes the area between Red Deer and Water Valley, but you'll get no more out of him on that topic.
Not that he fishes much these days. It is winter after all and Garrett is much too busy compiling his back catalogue of songs. Recent changes to Canadian copyright law have made musicians eligible to receive airplay and private copying royalties retroactive to 1999 on all songs they contributed to. Garrett isn't complaining. In fact, he is all for this development even though, he admits, it is a "daunting task" that demands a lot of time and effort. Two hundred recordings translates into thousands of songs. Garrett is also in favour of downloading songs, again with the caveat that the artists get paid for their work.
"It costs me money to produce the music," he points out.
Much of his time is also devoted to his own solo work and his recent acoustic roots trio project. This is something of a departure for Garrett or, more correctly, a return to his roots, with what some people are calling his first acoustic project in 25 years. There was also, of course, that little indie thing called The Cold Club 10 years ago and there is some overlap between the two projects. David Wilkie played mandolin with The Cold Club and also appears as a mandolin and slide guitar player on The Amos Garrett Acoustic Album.
Dave has been in poor health lately but Garrett says there is a very good chance that he will join the trio for Saturday's performance. Greg Carroll and Steve Pineo complete the band. Look for them to perform a lot of material from this latest album and for Garrett to sing a lot more than usual. He has been going down that road lately and has managed to gather a lot of critical acclaim while doing so. Ontario singer-songwriter Terry Tufts will be the opening act for what promises to be a great evening. |
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.