Part of a featured set at the 2025 Winterfolk Roots and Blues Festival with Wayne Neon on flute and sax and Bob Cohen on guitar. The set felt good, full of small surprises and an encouraging and forgiving audience. To my grateful surprise, Sierra-Leigh Levine, one of the festival volunteers, had videotaped several songs from our performance. Here they are with some post-editing by James Moore of Valis Video. Special thanks to all of the festival volunteers, its tireless director, Brian Gladstone, the music makers, and all who attended. Below are YouTube links attached to the titles of each song.
Around the same time as Winterfolk, carnival season is on full display in many parts of the Caribbean and South America. The song tries to capture the personal joy the festival brings amidst the difficulties and inequities of life in the Global South.
I often open featured sets with this song and describe it as indicative of a recurring theme in my songwriting repertoire: dysfunctional relationships. The ending of this spousal lament, with its grovelling twist of pitch, also tries to capture the specific moment and location of the performance. The accompanying cover photo of the snow-buried automobile says it all. The weekend of Winterfolk 2025 took place during a time of intense snowfall with some scheduled performers unable to get into town. There was still lots of great music to be enjoyed for those who attended. Speaking of, here are two great blues solos by Wayne Neon on sax and Bob Cohen on guitar.
A song about the indignities of the music business. Some of it is autobiographical, especially the opening verse about the small-town (Regina) boy coming to the big city (Toronto) to seek his fortune and fame. This particular live performance really moves at a fast clip with some sizzling solos by Bob and Wayne. The accompanying cover photo by Allison is of our backyard at dusk. It’s one of my favourites and seems to fit the theme of the song.
One of my favourite moments of a Jughead gig was getting to perform this song. There’s a great band recording of it on Uncorked. Love this photo of the “pirates” by Kat our wonderful dog walker. Our beloved pooch Riley, now departed, is the little buccaneer on the left.
Brian Morgan Music 