Old Folksinger's News

November 1999

The big news around here came June 19th when David Myles Edward Fulmer Bossin (it's a long story) was born, on the day after Mary Jo's 45th birthday. It was a smooth and joyful home birth - easy for me to say - attended by Maddy, who is now six, and several friends and midwives. Davy is a dapper, healthy, bright-eyed fellow not given to napping.

Accordingly, I am off-the-road and into the dad business, big time. I still perform, but only occasionally, which is pretty much how it will be for the foreseeable. Sigh.

Davy at eight weeks

Recording is another casualty of our wanton ways. I do have new songs, but Heaven only knows when I will get into the studio. Fortunately, CBC has put my locally controversial hit "Nanaimo" on a CD, along with pieces by 14 other BC singer-songwriters, including old friends like Valdy, Stephen Fearing, Shari Ulrich and Roy Forbes. You can order it from The Store for $15 (net proceeds to a worthy cause). Another of the new songs, called "Lily" (it is about unplanned parenthood - I paints what I sees) is available in full, for free, to those with the software and know-how to download it from The Jukebox. (A taste of Nanaimo is there too.)

Soon the Old Folksinger's Homepage will also feature Sulphur Passage, the video, Nettie Wild's multi-prize-winning music video of my Clayoquot protest song. (I can't imagine what hardware and software you need to watch it.)

I recently heard a wonderful story about Sulphur Passage. When blockades and other tactics failed to convince the BC government and MacMillan Bloedel to stop clearcut logging in Clayoquot Sound, Greenpeace and other environmental groups turned to what is known in the protest trade as an "international market campaign." The campaigners bearded MB's customers in Europe and the US - and the first thing they did in those meetings was show them the Sulphur Passage video. Tzeporah Berman, one of the ringleaders, said they used the video because it was "moving, powerful, only 4 minutes long, and it showed them what they were getting into." The market campaign is the 2X4 that finally got the attention of the mulish BC government and logging industry. So I figure I saved Clayoquot Sound.

Of course others helped. I have written about this - the success of the Clayoquot campaign - in a piece called "The Clayoquot Women." It originally appeared in slightly different form in Homemaker's Magazine.

Gabriola V0R1X0, my CD, continues to sell, slow and steady, in part thanks to play on Stuart McLean's radio show, The Vinyl Cafe. And Christmas is coming. Hint, hint. (I don't know how many weddings have now included "Ya Wanna Marry Me?", but it is over 50.)

Old Stringband fans (as Stringband fans tend to be) will be pleased to know that we have now rescued all the Stringband masters, recovering them from the deteriorating tape on which they were recorded in the 1970s. Just in the nick of time, in some cases. Many thanks to Richard Hess. Richard has just gotten Marie-Lynn's solo albums onto CD. See www.marielynnhammond.com. A "Best of Stringband" CD will follow eventually. When the baby is older. In the meantime, if you are desperate to hear one of the old albums again, I can make you a cassette copy. Get in touch and we will figure something out.

The old folksinger enters the new millennium

I will try to keep you posted about eventual recording plans, tours or further children (just kidding, just kidding), if you keep me up-to-date on how to reach you. "A database is as important to a folksinger as a guitar," I told Harrowsmith Magazine and it is true. God bless e-mail. (For a good e-mail joke, e-mail me.) That's about it for this millennium. I recently caught a concert by Bernstein, formerly known as Dan Bern. Apparently God spoke to him, or so he said in a song, and gave him this message: the best is still to come. Seems like as good a fin-de-siecle tip as I know. The best is still to come.

Bob Bossin
Gabriola Island

Old News:
January 1999