(From Penguin
Eggs Magazine Winter 2001)
The
Calgary Folk Club currently hosts its 30th successful season. A misty
eyed Les Siemieniuk supplies the history lesson, class.
Johnny Worrall, The Wild Colonial Boys' lead singer, steps up to the
microphone and sings that song - just as he has done ever second Friday
at 8 p.m., from September to April, for the past 30 years. AS he launches
in to the chorus - "And it's no, nay, never" - once again,
on cue, as they have done for the last 30 years, the full house responds
with The Wild Rover's mandatory clap, clap, clap.
Another
night at the Calgary Folk Club is officially underway. After a 45-minute
set by the Boys, and a break for beer and sausage rolls, Garnet Rogers
takes the stage. He is not exactly sure, but he has played this club
at least a dozen times over the years, both as a solo act and with his
late brother Stan. The 30th season largely consists of audience favourites
from the past.
It's
hard to imagine this local music community was ever without the Calgary
Folk Club. But in 1972, a wave of immigration brought Welshman, Mansel
Davies, and his wife, Anne, from Birmingham, England to teach in Calgary.
Mansel, a guitarist and bass player, had toured with the likes of The
Corries and The Ian Campbell Group around Europe. Davies was soon teaching
guitar for Calgary Adult Education. He also hooked up with local lawyer
and bass player John Martland and Sheffield native Johnny Worrall. Together
they formed The Wild Colonial Boys.
But
where to play? In 1972, Calgary really was a cowtown, not the big, sophisticated
Cow City it has become. Besides the ski hills, the music venues were
few and far between. In Birmingham, Davies, with Ian Campbell, was heavily
involved in The Jug O' Punch, a famous folk club there. "It was
a great part of our social and Mansel's professional life," says
Anne. "He played there all the time." One of the good things
about being immigrants in the Promised Land, anything was possible.
So they started their own club modeled on the Jug O' Punch. The Wild
Colonial Boys became the house band and now had a regular place to play.
Drawing from a built in audience of guitar students and teachers, the
doors opened in September of 1972.
"The boys thought of it as a one-off. We didn't think it would
last," says Mansel.
The
initial hall was a log cabin owned by the Calgary Sports Car Club, featuring
a septic field into which five gallon buckets from the washrooms had
to be emptied throughout the night because there was no running water.
"Usually, the men just went outside in the snow and some couldn't
be trusted to carry the buckets all the way to the proper spot for dumping,"
says Anne.
Beer
service and non-North American bathroom standards not-withstanding,
the place was packed and necessitated a move to a larger hall very shortly.
Three moves later, the club's current home, the Dalhousie Community
Center, continues to sell out its 400 seats on a regular basis. Initially,
Calgary musicians were booked. Mansel and Anne then looked to Edmonton
and surrounding areas for their performers. As the club grew and prospered,
Anne says, they realized they could actually book anyone they wanted
from anywhere. So they did.
Garnet
Rogers played the folk club first with Stan in the late '70s. At the
time, he remembers, "They paid you well. They gave you $500, which
was a lot at the time and helped you set up other gigs in and around
Calgary so you could afford to come out (West.) And they treated you
well. You got a sound check, a decent place to stay, that was rare then."
Garnet reckons musicians playing the independent music scene owe a lot
to the Calgary Folk Club.
Besides
being an exceptional place to play, it is also a good place to listen
to music. There is no bar service during performances so the focus remains
on the music. And it has grown into a social event. People have sat
at the same tables with the same people for years. Some bring their
own food and they decorate their tables at Christmas. And as with most
folk clubs, it would cease to exist without the volunteers. It started
with the wives and families of the band members, but grew in numbers
and professionalism. Susan Casey, who now handles the booking, first
attended as an audience member in 1978 and started by stacking chairs
at the end of the night. "We've built a community," she says.
"It's become more than the music. It's a place like the world should
be, when you're here." Casey, a former schoolteacher, now works
professionally in music. She learned her trade at the club.
On
a personal note, I arrived in Calgary in 1981 to take a job as a music
producer with CBC Radio, which included producing Simply Folk, a national
folk music program. I was from Winnipeg, home of a great folk festival,
and had lived in London, England, but I had never seen a year-round
folk music scene like the one in Calgary. Over the passing years, the
success of the Calgary Folk Club had spawned others: The Rocky Mountain
Folk Club, The Nickelodeon, The Saturday Night Special, The Bow Valley
Music Club, The Lethbridge Folk Club and the Fort MacLeod Folk Club.
There were even two in arch rival Edmonton. All operated on the same
format - a community hall, volunteers, a house band, and a featured
act. As the producer of a folk music program, I had landed in the best
possible place as international folk acts passed through every weekend
night on a regular basis. Live recordings from the Calgary Folk Clubs
were an integral part of the show's nine-year run.
But
all the history and stories aside, the best thing the Calgary Folk Club
has done in 30 years is to provide a loving atmosphere for the music
to effect the audience. Everyone I talked to researching this story
had a magic moment where things rose above the norm because of the performances.
Mansel says of the first time Stan Rogers played the club, "He
was so good he was too big for the stage. I'll never forget that night."
Anne was particularly moved by the transformation of Rita MacNeil as
she took the stage. "She was a different person than the one I
talked to earlier. It was magic." For Susan Casey, Odetta took
her to that special place. And once, as a radio producer on the job
at the Calgary Folk Club, my engineer and I let the tape run out because
we were both so totally mesmerized by June Tabor and Martin Simpson.
And Tom Paxton, after having played the club, wrote them a letter suggesting
they write a booklet on how to run a folk club because, in his opinion,
it was the best run club he'd ever encountered. The Calgary Folk Club
- it's all about the music and it has touched a lot of lives. Here's
to thirty more years.
Penguin
Eggs - a Great Canadian Folk Music magazine published
by Roddy Campbell in Edmonton. Feature articles, performance listings,
reviews on the latest record releases and some sheet music. Check out
their website: www.penguineggs.ab.ca
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Complete Past Season's
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(well, as complete as we can remember)
Feel free to
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37th
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36th
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35th
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27th
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21st
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18th
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15th
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14th
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- 1985 / 1986 - |
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| 13th
Season
- 1984 / 1985 - |
12th
Season
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11th
Season
- 1982 / 1983 - |
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| 10th
Season
- 1981 / 1982 - |
9th
Season
- 1980 / 1981 - |
8th
Season
- 1979 / 1980 - |
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|
Vera Johnson
The Mystic Sons of the Coyotes
Fraser Bruce
Lyn & Barry Luft (Alta.)
Calgary Ceili Band
Bob Evans
Ceard
Paul Hann
(Alberta)
Ron Nolan
Jon Bartlett & Rika Ruebsaat
The Calgary Ukrainian Mandolin Orchestra
Frank Guy
The Trout Creek Pickers
Chris Rawlings
Sid Marty
Judy Threet & Aliesje van Melle
Sandy Greenberg
Richard Harrow & Glen Mundy
The Mandolin Brothers
Robin
Williamson (Scotland)
Jim Page
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| 7th
Season
- 1978 / 1979 - |
6th
Season
- 1977 / 1978 - |
5th
Season
- 1976 / 1977 - |
| 4th
Season
- 1975 / 1976 - |
3rd
Season
- 1974 / 1975 - |
2nd
Season
- 1973 / 1974 - |
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1st
Season
- 1972 / 1973 - |
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