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Hello
friends!
I’m Tim Hus. I was born in the little Kooteney Lake town
of Nelson BC, which is a railway town on the Canadian Pacific's
secondary mainline in Southern British Columbia. Since then
I’ve been all over the place, mainly here and there, doin’
this an’ that. I saw a lot of highways, walked a lot of
miles, shook a lot of hands, heard a lot of stories, laughed
at a lot of jokes, ate a lot of good food, drank a lot of beer,
saw a lot of pretty girls, stepped in a lot of cowpies, hung
my hat on a lot of walls, felt a lot of sunshine, froze in a
few snowstorms, heard a lot of songs, and made a lot of friends
along the way. I spent some time workin’ as a carpenter’s
helper, warehouse hand, forklift driver, van driver, treeplanter,
brewery truck driver, fruit picker, fisherman, pine cone picker,
sawhand, woodworker, well driller, painter, courier, assembly
line worker, salmon farmer, furniture mover, labourer, and jack
of all trades. I lived in a number of different towns and cities
throughout Canada and Europe and after blowin’, rollin’,
bangin’,driftin’, singin’, pickin’,
wranglin’ workin’, and hitch-hikin’ my way
from coast to coast and end to end I wrote some songs about
the people and places I came across, learned to play the flattop
guitar, and began stompin’ my cowboy boots. I found that
people liked my songs so I sang to a lot of people around different
bars, saloons, pubs, taverns, festivals, parties, tractor pulls,
rodeos, jobsites, campfires. I performed at a heap of exhibitions
in Europe as a kind of ambassador for Canada, recorded my first
album Songs of West Canada, and ended up in Calgary, Alberta
in 2003 where I now stomp my boots with The Rocky Mountain Two.
The songs I sing are mainly about miners, loggers, farmers,
railroaders, ranchers, cowboys, oil riggers, truck drivers,
fishermen, gunfighters, bootleggers, brawlers, gamblers, drinkers,
and low down two-bit sons-of-guns. To those of you who know
me I’ll tip my hat and say “Thanks for all the good
times and it’s a pleasure to know ya!”. For those
of you who don’t yet know me
I look forward to meetin’ ya!
Take it easy
but take it...
Tim Hus
Alberta, Canada |
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LIGHTNING THOUGHTS BY TIM:
- Over 2/3 of all log truck crashes result in a rollover.
-What do tractors and boats have in common? I don' t know either
dammit.
-Canadian Pacific Railway provides rail services coast to coast
over a 14,000-mile network. Not an inch further so I'm told
-Some Mack trucks can go in reverse in multiple speeds. Try
it sometime!
-In 1966, 14,000,000 pounds of frozen fish were produced in
Newfoundland. Not a pound more so I'm told.
-A fully loaded Mack truck can weigh up to 80,000 lbs. Most
cars only weigh 3,000 lbs. When I was born I weighed about 8
pounds, so ten thousand of me as a little babe would fit on
the back of that Mack. Jumpin' Geronimo!
-Ringette, the game of hockey with a coffee and a donut, originated
in North Bay, Ontario, the same small town that boasts the world
famous Quintuplets...a mere coincidence...so I'm told.
-The best way to shape a felt cowboy hat is to put a grapefruit
in it and float it in the bathtub overnight. (Try not to fall
asleep).
-To make a real cowboy coffee, never throw out the grounds.
Coffee doesn't taste good until the pot is three weeks old.
-Don't spit in the wind and never draw when you're facing the
sun.
CANADIAN
INTERVIEWS
A PORTRAIT OF CANADA, ONE
INTERVIEW AT A TIME
Tim Hus is a cowboy
singer and songwriter based in Calgary, Alberta.
Stony Plain Records released his fifth album, Hockeytown, on
June 15, 2010.
For six weeks during that summer he was on tour with the legendary
Stompin’ Tom Connors. For Canadian Interviews Tim wrote
a chronicle of his travels with Stompin’ Tom to reveal
what happens behind-the-scenes at
‘the most Canadian show in the country’.
On Tour With Stompin' Tom:
Letters From the Road
August 2, 2010
Hello friends,
This is Tim Hus writing to you from Dryden, Ontario. Tonight
we will be performing our second concert of the Stompin' Tom
tour at the Dryden Cultural Centre.
It has been a really busy year for my band, The Rocky Mountain
Two. We started things off by being honoured to perform at the
2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Right after that we were
off to the Caribbean island of Martinique where we performed
as part of a cultural exchange - we were told that we were the
first Canadian band to perform in Martinique. Next I was singing
my songs in Korea for university students. We toured western
Canada and the Northwest states and recorded a new album, Hockeytown,
which came out on Stony Plain Records on June 15th. After a
series of CD release concerts throughout the province of Alberta
we performed 2 and 3 shows daily at the Calgary stampede before
flying to the Northwest Territories to perform at the 'Folk
on the Rocks' music festival in Yellowknife.
After picking up a rental truck at the Calgary airport it was
down the highway again on the long lonely road to Thunder Bay
to meet up with The Stomper and the other members of the Stompin'
Tom band.
This is my second tour where I am sharing the stage with Canada's
legendary ‘Man of the Land’ with the big black cowboy
hat and the stompin' board. The first tour was last summer in
2009 where I opened his tour from Ontario to the Maritimes and
Newfoundland. We got along very well and became friends and
enjoyed working together, and so I was very pleased that Tom
invited me to tour with him again - this time western Canada
all the way to Vancouver.
Most nights I open the show with about a 20-minute set with
the band backing me up. After that we bring Tom out on stage
where the band and I back him up for 40 minutes or so. After
an intermission we do the same thing again for a second set.
For a young singer/songwriter who is working hard at building
a career in music and a name for myself it is almost ideal as
I am able to introduce the songs that I have written to Tom's
many fans night after night. Tom has such a strong following
in this country and the people really do adore him. Some nights
the crowds are in excess of 6000 people. There isn't a Canadian
who hasn't heard of Stompin' Tom or ‘The Hockey Song’
and know how proud he is of this land and all that he stands
for. I don't think that there has ever been a country performer
in Canada who has won over the hearts of the people the way
that Tom has.
This year the members of the Stompin' Tom band are Billy MacInnis,
Al Widmeyer, Tim Hadley, and Rick Preston.
Billy has been playing with Tom for a number of tours. He is
from Prince Edward Island and comes from a long line of fiddle
players. He is a great musician and plays guitar, mandolin,
and piano in addition to his outstanding ability on the fiddle.
Tom is very fond of Billy as they are both from PEI and his
style is ideal for Tom's music.
Al Widmeyer is from Kitchener, Ontario and plays everything
with strings on it: guitar, banjo, mandolin, steel, dobro, and
fiddle (he doesn't play fiddle on this tour). He has a great
ear for music and of course, with his wide range of talents,
is a welcome addition to any country band. He drives the city
bus in Kitchener when he is not working the road as a traveling
musician.
Tim Hadley plays the upright bass. His doghouse bass has a carved
cedar top (as opposed to a plywood top) and is about 100 years
old - a truly beautiful instrument. He has performed with many
bands over the years and has toured with Tom for about 9 years
now. He is a schoolteacher and lives in Plainfield, Ontario.
The guitar player on this tour is Rick Preston who I brought
with me from Alberta. Rick and I played together for three or
four years with my first band in Alberta. His guitar work can
be heard on my 2004 'Alberta Crude' album and my 2006 'Huskies
& Husqvarnas' album. I am very excited to have him on this
tour as he has a great feel for my songs and we used to play
a lot of Tom's songs for fun when we played together. I guess
we never dreamed that we would be playing those same famous
songs with the man who wrote them a few years later! Rick has
been a professional guitar player for more than 40 years. He
has performed with Dave Dudley (Six Days on the Road) and Lucille
Star (The French Song) and is an excellent country lead guitar
player.
We had a couple days of rehearsals in Thunder Bay before our
first concert. Everybody is getting along well and I have a
feeling it is going to be a really great tour. I can hardly
wait to play the western provinces with the one and only Stompin'
Tom!
On Tour With Stompin’ Tom:
Westbound Out Of Winnipeg
August 18, 2010
Hello everybody,
We're rollin' west on the Trans-Canada highway and across the
great plains of North America. There is no place in the world
like the Canadian prairies. Although I have crossed the prairies
many times I don't believe that I have ever seen them as green
as they seem to be this August. Usually by this time of year
the grasslands and fields are starting to look quite brown but
it must be a banner year for rain around these parts.
We are a few shows into the Stompin' Tom tour by now so everybody
in the band is getting a feel for playing together and the shows
are getting more comfortable and settling in. I think that all
of the musicians in the band have as much fun as the audience
on most nights as the show is never the same from night to night.
Tom doesn't use a set list so we just try to listen to his stories
and try to anticipate what song he is going to sing next and
then do our best to back him up.
Tom generally starts every show with ‘Bud the Spud’
and finishes with ‘Sudbury Saturday Night’. You
can be quite sure that he will sing the ‘Hockey Song’
somewhere in the show, but other than that it is as much a mystery
to us as it is to the audience what songs he will sing. I think
Tom himself doesn't really have planned what program he is going
to do until he is actually on the stage and into the show.
Tom is a first-rate showman and a very charismatic entertainer
so he really feeds off the energy of the audience and is able
to pick up on what it is they have come to hear. It gets really
funny when everybody starts yelling out requests. In Thunder
Bay somebody called out ‘Movin’ on to Rouyn’
- a song that Tom wrote many years ago while singin' in the
hotel bars in Northern Ontario in the mid-1960s. The song is
recorded on Tom's very first album with only his old Gibson
flat-top guitar as accompaniment. Even though I'm sure he hasn't
sung that song on a stage in 40 years he just started singing
it and we did our best to join him. You just never know what
to expect at a Stompin' Tom show!
On Wednesday, August 4th our entourage rolled into Winnipeg
for a concert at the Centennial Music Hall. This was to be our
only show in the province of Manitoba for this time around.
Most people would think that when traveling down the road from
concert to concert a famous band like the legendary Stompin'
Tom surely must be riding in a big fancy tour bus. That is the
way that most country music stars travel, isn't it? Most would
expect there to be more than one bus - perhaps the star of the
show has his own personal bus and the musicians ride in a separate
bus? It is plain to see from Tom's music that he is a down-home
kind of guy with simple, honest values, so what kind of a tour
bus does he travel in? Quite a few people have asked me what
Stompin' Tom's tour bus is like, and does it have his name or
a big boot painted on the side? Is it red or white or both?
Does it have a Canada flag on the front or a Prince Edward Island
license plate on the back? It might surprise you to hear that
we don't have a bus on the Stompin' tour at all. We travel in
a convoy of trucks and vans and use CB radios to keep in touch.
That is how Tom toured in the 1970s and we still travel that
way today. "Breaker, breaker, you got a copy on me Back
Door?" Pretty cool, eh?
The very first vehicle carries our security, manager-promoter,
and merchandise guy. They travel on ahead of the convoy and
check in at the venues and the motels, etc.
The lead vehicle is driven by our road manager, Tom Jr. (he
is the Stomper’s son), and he has our security man and
one more with him. The second vehicle is Tom himself and he
does all of his own driving. He doesn’t travel with the
radio on or have any distractions. He just likes to take the
travel time to look out at the country, think of new song ideas,
and focus on the upcoming show (all while smoking a steady stream
of cigarettes, of course).
The ‘Back Door’ of the convoy is the band van where
all we musicians ride. Last year we used my own touring rig
- the ‘Hus Bus’ - for the tour, but this year we
are using a rental vehicle that has a satellite radio. None
of us have satellite radio at home or in our own vehicles so
we are all very much enjoying listening to it on this tour.
Most of the time we are listening to ‘Outlaw Country’
on Sirius or Willie Nelson’s channel or the Bluegrass
channel. It is great to hear the songs of Kris Kristofferson,
Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams, Hank Snow, Tom Russell, Hayes
Carll, Dave Dudley, and so many other artists that play truck-drivin’
and honky-tonk music that you never get to hear on commercial
radio these days. There are no commercials either. Definitely
an improvement in radio in my opinion. The only thing is that
we haven't heard any Stompin' Tom or Tim Hus songs yet. That
would sure be great. I was told that they played my song ‘Beer
Hauler’ (a song I wrote about a guy driving a beer truck
from coast to coast) on one of the truckin' shows, and also
the song ‘Hurtin' Albertan’ that I wrote with my
friend Corb Lund, but I haven't heard them yet so far.
The last truck is a rig that carries all of the sound and lighting
equipment as well as all the merchandise (CDs, T-shirts, books,
etc.) that we have for sale at all of the concerts.
We had a big crowd in Winnipeg and they were really into it
so the show was great. My friend Andrew Neville and his band
‘The Poor Choices’ were sitting right in front and
you could tell that they were enjoying themselves to the fullest.
John Scoles was there as well, wearing a big cowboy hat. He
is the proprietor of a great live music venue in Winnipeg where
I have performed several times called ‘The Times Change(d)
High and Lonesome Club’. I would recommend that you check
it out if you are ever in town and want to take in some original
roots, country or blues music. Andrew and his band perform there
all the time and they play great prairie truckin’ honkytonkin’
music.
I sang a couple of the songs that I wrote about Manitoba at
the show. ‘Red River Flood’ is off of my latest
album and tells the story of Manitoba’s ongoing struggle
with the big river. It is a bluegrass type of song and we play
it quite fast. It went over really well as did ‘Flin Flon’
- a hard rock mining song about the sulphide mines that I recorded
on my 2006 Huskies & Husqvarnas album.
Tom of course was in good shape and served up songs for the
Ukrainians and prairie folks and poor, poor farmers. When he
sang ‘Red River Jane’ one guy yelled out "That
is the best song in the whole world!"
We loaded up the trucks and were westbound out of Winnipeg ...
past the 100th meridian where the great plains begin.
On Tour With Stompin' Tom: Croquet
in Saskatchewan
August 23, 2010
Hi everybody!
Here's another letter from the road as we make our way across
the prairies and ever closer to the Pacific Ocean.
With the hot summer sun blazing overhead we pulled into Regina.
We performed our concert in the showroom at Casino Regina. The
format of the show was different than usual. Instead of our
usual two sets we performed only one longer set. Billy MacInnis
started the show with a couple of fiddle tunes and then I sang
three songs before bringing Tom out for an extended 75 minute
set.
Although I only had the opportunity to sing a few songs I made
sure that one of them was my new song ‘Saskatchewan Son-of-Gun’,
recorded earlier this year on my latest album Hockeytown. As
you can imagine it went over gangbusters, as the song is sort
of an anthem about all things SK.
I have always enjoyed playing in Saskatchewan and my band has
always been made to feel very welcome. Big bassman extraordinaire
Spider Bishop is from Broadview and played upright bass for
my band for over 1000 shows so I guess I sort of wrote that
song with Spider in mind and thinking about all of the good
times we shared, and also all of the good folks who have been
coming to our concerts over the years with Pilsner beer and
the Roughriders near and dear to their hearts.
Last year when we performed two nights at Casino Rama in Ontario
with Stompin' Tom the show also had the same format of one longer
set rather than two sets. I don't really know why the show is
different when we play at casinos. The particulars of the performance
are determined by the promoter, and it is likely that if it
is a casino bringing in the show, it is in their best interest
to have a shorter set so that the concert ends earlier and the
audience has ample time to spend their money on the gaming floor.
When we arrived at the venue there were a couple of musicians
heading for their gig at the lounge next door, and when they
recognized who I was they stopped to tell me that they had learned
a couple of the songs that I have written and are performing
them on stage. Naturally this made me feel good as there is
no greater compliment to a songwriter than having somebody think
enough of your song to take the time to learn to sing and play
it. I am proud to say that there seem to be more and more people
covering my songs all over the country these days.
I should share with you a little bit about what life on the
road is like. For those who make a living traveling up and down
the road from place to place life can sometimes start to feel
like an endless string of highways, gas stations, restaurants,
dressing rooms, motels, hotels, and venues. Of course the real
thrill and excitement is the two hours we spend on stage performing
our music as a band and connecting with a live audience. I have
always felt that playing in a band is quite similar to playing
on a hockey team. You have the same kind of camaraderie and
joking around. You really get to know each other well and start
to trust each other and depend on each other and become a team.
You pull into a town you have never been to before, and step
in front of an audience you have never seen before, and put
forth your best effort and try to win them over. This is just
like a hockey team pulling into a foreign town to play a team
they have never played before. When you win over an audience
and leave town victorious you grow closer as team members and
as bandmates.
In Saskatoon we had a day off and got into a serious game of
croquet. Yep ... that's right. The most important thing on the
Stompin' Tom tour (aside from drinking Moosehead Beer to your
heart's content) is not letting your team down when things are
going head to head in a battle out on a grassy field in a nearby
park or behind the motel. In Toontown we got into a game that
lasted six hours and came right down to the last shot. We played
in a park close to the river and the mosquitos were truly vicious
and you had to keep swatting 'em away while contemplating your
next shot. Halfway through the match (just as our team was taking
the lead) a big prairie thunderstorm came rolling in. As the
thunder and lightning came ever closer we started ducking our
heads down lower and lower and began scanning the surroundings
for cover. An open field is not the best place to be in a prairie
thunderstorm. Finally the skies opened up and the rain started
pouring down in sheets. We ran and jumped into the vehicles
and waited out the downpour and then when it let up to a sprinkle
we went out again and right back to our game. By this time it
was starting to get dark and the mosquitos were on a post-thunderstorm
feeding frenzy, but the game was close and we had to see it
through.
Finally it got to the point where we couldn't see the croquet
balls in the grass anymore because it had become so dark. So
what to do? We pulled the vehicles up onto the field and turned
the headlights on. The legendary Stompin' Tom and his band of
Moosehead beer drinkers knocking croquet balls through hoops
on the grassy banks of the Saskatchewan River by the light of
truck headlights while the blood-sucking insects swarmed us
– pretty Canadian, isn't it?
Of course most of us were shivering in the cool night air because
our shirts had become soaked in the rain and none of us had
thought to bring our jackets. So that's how we finished the
game after midnight with The Stomper missing the final shot
and our team suffering a hard-fought defeat. The tour is far
from over though and we will certainly have a rematch!
On Tour With Stompin' Tom: Beautiful
British Columbia
September 3, 2010
Hello friends,
Here we are again with another installment of ‘Letters
From The Road’ on the Stompin' Tom Western Canadian summer
tour 2010. I woke up this morning (it was actually around noon)
after having stayed up until 6:30 AM sharing stories and a few
bottles of beer with Tom. The bright sunlight shining through
the blinds finally woke me up, and after finding some clothes
I headed for a nearby restaurant to find something to eat. I
passed by the open door of Tom's motel room and found him eating
cold wieners from a can with a fork in one hand and a bottle
of beer in the other. He was in a good mood and in good health,
greeting me with a hearty "Mornin' Tim! Just having my
breakfast..."
After loading our suitcases and guitars in the trucks we fueled
up and headed westward from Saskatoon towards Alberta. We stopped
for something to eat in Bigger and rolled into Alberta on Highway
12, passing through Consort, Veteran, Coronation, Castor, Halkirk,
Stettler, Clive, Alix, and Lacombe. It was quite a surreal feeling
because I got my start in the music business playing in every
one of those little towns. Spider and I (we performed as a duo)
would drive out in the middle of winter and put on a Canadiana
country cowboy music show. Oftentimes the audience was just
a handful of people. (I'm sure that some of you remember those
days...it was your kind words and encouragement that inspired
me to stick with it and keep going.) I can tell you that I never
thought that in just a few short years I would be driving past
those same hotel saloons on tour with the legendary Stompin'
Tom and performing in the largest concert halls in Canada. I
shook my head and thought to myself how incredible it is that
dreams sometimes really do come true.
We had a really nice summertime BBQ behind the motel in Red
Deer - cooking up steaks and sitting around a picnic table with
potato salad and our usual plentiful supply of Moosehead beer.
We pulled the truck up and turned on the radio - listening to
Hank Snow and enjoying the afternoon. We finished things off
with a game of croquet. This time our team was victorious!
We had really good concerts in Red Deer and Calgary before heading
for British Columbia. Tom was in fine form and now we were getting
into quite familiar territory for myself so there were lots
of Hus hats and T-shirts in the audience. It really meant a
lot to me to see such strong support for the music I have been
putting out over the last number of years – lots of folks
singing along with the words to the songs.
In Red Deer, Riley Tubbs (the upright bass player in my regular
band) came to the concert with his girlfriend Mel. It was really
great to see them. Unfortunately there wasn't a position for
Riley on the Stompin' Tom tour. Tom and I are sharing a band,
so there is only room for one bass player in the band. Tim Hadley
is the bass player on this tour and he has been a member of
the Stompin' Tom band for longer than anybody else ever has
... I think this is his ninth or tenth year. Tim Hadley is a
great bass player and a great guy and a perfect fit for Tom's
style of music, and I enjoy sharing the stage with him.
Opening concerts for the legendary Stompin' Tom in Canada's
biggest concert halls has been a dream come true for me and
an experience I will always treasure, but I am also very much
looking forward to getting back on the concert trail with my
own band in September. The guys in my band mean the world to
me and I regret not having them around this summer. There is
simply nothing that can replace the bond that is shared performing
a couple hundred concerts a year and traveling the world together.
From Calgary we were on to my home province of British Columbia
with shows in Kamloops, Chilliwack, Vancouver, and Dawson Creek.
All of these shows were very strong and of course I had family
and friends at every concert, which put me in great spirits.
Tom was giving me lots of good-natured ribbing and saying that
I didn't need to tell him fifty times a day how beautiful British
Columbia is. We stopped at Craigellachie (the site of the driving
of the last spike on the Canadian Pacific Railway) and took
some photographs. This is the site of Canada's most famous historical
photograph where Donald A. Smith is hammering the last spike
and completing the national railway linking the country from
sea to sea. It meant a lot to me to visit this site with Canada's
most famous Canadiana songwriter. This coming November will
mark 125 years since the historic event and I am trying to get
my band booked to perform at the occasion as I have a couple
of songs about the railway and this subject.
In British Columbia Tom was singing ‘The Bridge Came Tumbling
Down’ (about the collapse of the Second Narrows bridge
in Vancouver), ‘Okanagan Okie’, ‘My British
Columbian Home’, and ‘Alcan Run’ (about driving
the Alaska highway from Dawson Creek to Fairbanks), and I was
singing ‘Hell's Gate Run’, ‘Open Pit Mine’
(about the Highland Valley Copper Mine), ‘Vancouver Blues’,
and ‘Seine Boat Song’ (about fishing for Pacific
salmon). The audiences were delighted to hear so many songs
about their part of the world. It is looking to be a great year
for the Pacific salmon fishery as they are expecting the greatest
salmon run in 97 years! Can you name the five species of Pacific
Salmon? Here's the answer (in reverse letters): eyekcos, koonihc,
ohoc, knip, muhc – I used to work in the fishery before
I became a no-good, two-bit, guitar-pickin' son-of-a-gun.)
On Tour With Stompin' Tom: Wrapping
Up in Fort McMurray
September 10, 2010
We are in Fort McMurray on the day of our last show on the Stompin'
Tom tour. Tonight we will take the stage at Summer's End Festival
at Macdonald Island Park. We are billed as the ‘Greatest
Kitchen Party in the World’. This is Stompin' Tom's first
time ever performing in Fort Mac. This town is full of Newfoundlanders
and Maritimers working in the oil patch and there is no doubt
that they will be out in full force to hear Tom sing ‘The
Gumboot Cloggeroo’, ‘The Man in the Moon is a Newfie’,
and ‘Margo's Cargo’ as well as the many other East
coast songs that he has written over the years. It is surely
gonna be a concert to be remembered!
Tomorrow Rick and I will make the long drive to Calgary and
the rest of the crew will board a plane for Ontario and all
points East. A few guys from Rocklands Talent flew out yesterday
and they will drive the remaining band vehicles back across
the country to Ontario.
The summer has come to an end and fall is in the air. In northern
Alberta some of the leaves are beginning to change colour and
the children are getting ready to head back to school. And so
our tour with the one and only Stompin' Tom draws to a close.
So what is Stompin' Tom really like? He is undoubtedly one of
a kind. I have never met anybody like him before. First of all,
he has an amazing constitution. He eats very little (and when
he does it is just boiled wieners or cold clam chowder or kippers
that he eats directly from the can). He hardly sleeps (those
who play in his band are required to sign a contract stating
that we will stay up with him until 5 AM every night). Some
nights he doesn't go to sleep at all, but one thing that you
can be sure of is that you will never see him without a bottle
of beer and a cigarette. He smokes 109 cigarettes a day. I have
never met anybody else who can go longer without sleep, eat
less, or drink and smoke more than Stompin' Tom. What makes
it all that much more remarkable is that he is going on 75 years
old!
He likes to joke around and tell stories. He is very intelligent
and knowledgeable on a variety of subjects, and he is a real
thinker and observer. He is a real supporter and champion of
all things Canadian. What you see on the stage is pretty much
what he is like off the stage: a very down-to-earth kind of
a guy who doesn't put on any airs. I remember when we played
at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa we were told that they have never
seen an act before that is capable of filling a stadium that
has a Rider (band hospitality requirements) of two cases of
Moosehead beer and nothing else. Most people show up at a house
party with more demands than that...
I don't know if there has ever been anybody in this great country
of ours that has come from more humble beginnings (born to an
unwed teenager in St. John and then put into an orphanage at
a young age) to go on to greater acclaim. Tom ran away for the
final time from his adopted family on Prince Edward Island at
the age of fifteen and hitchhiked and hoboed the land for the
next thirteen years. He was a drifter and a dreamer, and through
his music and love of the land – and his ability to chronicle
it in song – he has gone on to sell millions of records,
be awarded several honourary degrees from top universities,
and be awarded the Order of Canada and the Governor General’s
Award. Last year Canada Post even issued Stompin' Tom his own
postage stamp. To learn all about the remarkable story of Tom's
life I recommend that you read his two autobiographies, Before
the Fame and The Connor's Tone.
It has been a dream come true for myself to have the opportunity
to meet one of my biggest musical idols and to tour with him
across the whole country from St. John's to Vancouver. I am
the first westerner that has opened the Stompin' Tour and I
was very proud to represent my half of the country in concert
and in song. It was a good time spending the summer with the
members of the band and crew and I'm sure it will be a change
not to see them every day.
There were also a few things on the tour that I was a little
disappointed about. We visited the town of Merritt, BC, which
claims to be the ‘Country Music Capital of Canada’.
We stopped at the Husky restaurant and had something to eat
and had a look at the Johnny Cash ‘Walk of Stars’
handprint in the sidewalk. Tom had never been to Merritt so
he asked that we go into town to look at all the country music
displays.
Merritt is home to a very big country music festival and jamboree
and the town really does celebrate country music. The sidewalks
of town are filled with handprints of famous country music personalities
and most every building has a large mural with the face of a
country music star on the side of it – Johnny Cash, George
Jones, Hank Snow, Alan Jackson, Don Messer, Wilf Carter, Dwight
Yoakam, Paul Brandt, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Ian Tyson,
and on and on. New stars and old-time stars and superstars and
lesser-known personalities - they are all represented and honoured
in Merritt. Even Casey Clark and Beverly Mahood from CMT have
a mural, but nowhere in Merritt is there any mention of Stompin'
Tom. That was certainly a disappointment and kind of embarrassing
to look at all the displays with the legendary Stompin' Tom
at my side and to find that nobody bothered with him at all.
After being in the Canadian Musicians’ Union for 50 years
and recording 50 albums and spending a lifetime touring this
country and celebrating it in song, ‘The Country Music
Capital of Canada’ completely passed him over.
In one of my earlier letters from the beginning of the tour
I mentioned that we were listening to satellite radio and how
much we were enjoying it. After listening to satellite radio
for the last six weeks in the tour van I found it a little bit
discouraging that we heard so very little Canadian music being
played. We all know that commercial radio for the most part
does not play very many Canadian artists (there is a Canadian
content regulation to ensure that some do get played, but the
stations rarely go above and beyond the minimum that they are
required by law to give airtime to) but it seems that the same
is true of satellite radio. We listened mostly to the Outlaw
Country and Bluegrass programs. The music was very enjoyable
but there was very little Canadiana. This was to be expected
as the programs are broadcast from the USA, but the thing that
was disappointing was that there seemed to be no channel where
you could hear Canadian music all of the time.
I must admit that I am quite new to satellite radio and there
might be a channel that plays all Canadian music, but I was
not able to find it. I found 189 channels or more with everything
from comedy to sports to gospel and every type of music you
can imagine, but no all-Canadian music channel. Elvis Presley
even has his own channel on Satellite radio that plays Elvis
all day and night. If one guy (who died 33 years ago) can have
his own channel, why is it that a whole country doesn't have
a channel dedicated to Canadian music?
Anyway, that's about all. I have certainly had an experience
that I will never forget and no matter what life has in store
for me I will always be able to say that I toured with Stompin'
Tom from one end of the country to the other and became friends
with one of my musical idols. In a small way I have become a
piece of Canadian and country music history.
I will be performing at Country Music Week in Edmonton and opening
a concert for Clint Black at the Epcor Center in Calgary before
getting back on the road with my own outfit in a couple of weeks.
We are touring east all across the land as far as Halifax. I
hope you can make it to a show. You can be assured that it is
gonna be filled with Canadiana country and cowboy music!
We look forward to seeing you on the road...
All the best,
Tim Hus
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Tim Hus Music Copyright 2008
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