Bill Gallaher and Harmony Road

August 29, 1997 at The Old Chestnuts Song Circle

Hello Everyone,

This being the day after another great house concert weekend at the Old Chestnut's Song Circle, I thought I'd give you a Reader's Digest version of either a) what you enjoyed or b) what you missed depending upon your attendance or absence.

Jack and Lori Cole played host to the featured performers Bill Gallaher & Harmony Road. After the opening acts of Jack, Merrick Jarrett, and the OCSC House Band (slaving away in their premier performance of "Pharoah"), the main event came front and center.

To those of you not familiar with their music - Bill is a balladier who can spin a yarn with the best of them. He loves to focus on the the unsung heroes and villains of Canada's past, as well as a few of his own personal heros of this time. Each historical song included a solid explanation of the who and why surrounding it, leading me to wish that high school history classes had been like this! The harmonies and voice blending were beautiful, in a group that had obviously sung together for a long time, and yet did not come across as over-rehearsed. Almost every song had user-friendly sing-a-long choruses that the audience never resisted. Time swept by fast, and there was more than one person checking their wrist watches in disbelief at the break and the close. (Lori long ago stopped the clock in the livingroom).

Highlights for me -

• Male Bonding Song - I do so love it when new age guys are secure enough in themselves to go running naked through the trees with each other
• The Wild McLean Boys, Mary and the Seal, & Lunenburg Town - favourites at our song circle. No wonder!
• The Good Guys Wore White Hats - Dave's personal choice.
• The Newfoundland Sealers - we had heard in previous house concerts with Modabo of this terrible seal hunt disaster. Jake Galbraith brought us this other passionate version of the story that made clapping afterwards seem almost disrespectful to the memory of the 69 men and boys who had died on the ice flows. But we couldn't help it.
• We Danced - Bill wrote this for a dear couple of his. Missionaries, in the sense that their life's work has been to help people while doing their best to survive wars, famine and disease in far off places. A beautiful song.
• The First and Last of Your Kind - Bill was singing lead on this one, and at the moment that Maureen, Mike and Jake joined him on the chorus, this amazingly blended wall of sound came at me. It was impossible to tell who was singing which line; I think I just gaped while the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end! I can count on one hand the number of times I've been stunned (musically!) like that, and for me, that one moment would have been worth the price of admission.

Cheers! Cathy Byberg