I just cleared US Customs at the new schmanchy Halifax Airport Facility.  Sweet.  Looks like Halifax Airport is bound to become a new Eastern Seaboard hub, making it a hell of a lot easier for us to access New York, Boston, DC, Philly etc.

I had a grand time with some folks from my past in Petty Harbour a few days back.  Come Home Year Celebrations started a couple of weeks ago in my home town and in between GBS Tours I managed to get home for one grand evening.  On Saturday Night, at a planned concert on the ball field, I sang a few songs on my own off the top of the show.  I sang a few popular GBS tunes, and a few that I’ve written for other projects as well.  Most of them were well received, I think, as the crowd grew steadily for the main attraction to follow.

The Headliner for the evening was the re-formed Ringdelles.  At different era’s on the Southern Shore, this cover band played everything from 50’s Rock and Roll, to Classic Country and Western, to Traditional Newfoundland and Irish Songs and Tunes, to the Beatles.   There was hardly a club, Legion Hall, Church Basement, or ball field, from Petty Harbour to Trepassey that did not host this group at one point or another over its 30 year run.  Some remember the band as the Sandelle’s or Medicine Jar, or High Tide, but to me it was and is simply Uncle Ronnie’s Band.

My Uncles Ron and Leonard along with a revolving cast of players were well a established club and dance band by the time I was born.  When I was ten or eleven years old I remember begging Mom and Dad to let me stay up to hear them rehearsing across the dirt road in my Nan’s house.  When they played at the Crystal Palace, a long since demolished Night Club I the Goulds, Dad would park our car up to the side window and let me stand on the bonnet to watch them sound check for the evenings gig.  There was lots of music around my house along with a piano, an accordion and a guitar, but Uncle Ronnie’s band had electric instruments, drums, amplifiers, a PA system and lights.  They had real gigs that had advance ticket sales and played in clubs where people paid cover charge.  On Sundays around mass time and in the early days of the week I would hear adults talk about the time they had at Dance in Bay Bulls or at the Hayloft Lounge where the band had played.  On Thursdays and Fridays on the wharf in the Summertime the fisherman would talk about how they could not wait to get in off the water on Saturday to get to a wedding up the shore that had booked the band for the dance.

In my pre, and early teen years, Uncle Ronnie’s band was the coolest thing in my world.  By the time I was fifteen, I had basically memorized the entire bands repertoire on as many instruments as I could.  All designed to be ready when the call came.   Shortly after my fifteenth birth day, one of the guitar players in the band, could not make the Sunday Matinee after the band had played a rollicking Friday and Saturday night at the San Juan in Cape Broyle, a few towns down the shore from Petty Harbour.  Uncle Ron called Dad, I suppose, and got the OK to ask me to sit in on rhythm guitar for the 2-6pm afternoon set.  When Dad past me the phone I nearly fainted with excitement, but tried to sound seasoned and cool about the fill in gig.  I tried to sound as if I were doing Uncle Ron and the band a favour by getting them out this jam.  Anything for a fellow professional musician.  I suspect that I was not very convincing and my true desperation and enthusiasm very plain for all to see as I jumped at the chance to play the gig.

We drove down the shore in a beat up station wagon.  In the band van with the band.  Oh yeah. The club was a beaten up nightclub halfway up a long hill on the way out of Cape Broyle.  The club would have been packed for the two previous nights, but the Sunday Matinees were long out of style.  Everybody knew it except the club owner, I guess.   We played for about an hour to six people and one German Sheppard.  I may as well have been at Madison Square Gardens.  I played every song like it was my last.  After the gig, Uncle Ron gave me $50, same as the other guys got for the gig.  That was the first time I had ever been paid to play music.  I’ll never forget it.

Last Saturday night I got to play with Uncle Ronnie’s band for the first time in many years.  It was a very cool reminder of my apprenticeship as entertainer where the focus is on keeping people on the dance floor. 

Here’s a photo from the gig. 

Uncle Ron is sitting, flanked from left by Dave Stack, Uncle Leonard Doyle, Al Hearn, and Myself.

Congrats to all the organizing committee of the Petty Harbour Come Home Year.  A grand time was had by all.

Cheers,
Alan