I had a bit of bad luck and a bit of good luck for my readings and songs at the Jake Epp library in Steinbach last evening. The bad luck was the weather, basically sleet and a cool wind. So I much appreciated the determination of the small crowd that did show up. The good luck was being able to add Paul to the show at the last minute. He found out late Monday that he had to do some banking in Steinbach, and volunteered to stay in town and join the show. I was relieved and thankful. I had changed the readings for Steinbach by deleting the Grad 1968 bit as not relevant to the crowd. I had substituted a reading from the funeral scene late in the book. I had to re-write it a bit so as not to spoil the ending for those who had not read the book. Neither of the ’third’ songs we had been doing, Across the Norwood Bridge or Hopelessly Lost in Love, worked with the new reading. So, I had decided to use Mercy Mild, being the song that the character Jack sings at the funeral. This was logical but scary. I or we had never before performed Mercy Mild live. I was therefore nervous about how it would go over, especially solo. The song has few lyrics and a simple structure, and is accordingly recorded with two guitar solos (by the absent Senor Tony Buchner). Just about the only person who could step in without notice was Paul Hodgert. Paul had produced all the recordings, including of Mercy Mild. So, on the night before the show, we popped down to the rehearsal studio to see if we could fake it. We could. Paul knew my second guitar part on Except My Love For You, and Tony’s parts from Mercy Mild. For Angel of Truth, Paul cooked up a new lead part, inspired in part by the version that Doug Anderson had written for the Millenium Library show.

Anyway, in the event it worked. We brought my Garnet amp with its old school reverb and tremolo that had been used for the recording of Except My Love For You. Paul ran a clean Garnet signal through his Blues Driver pedal for Angel of Truth, and did something else I can’t remember for Mercy MIld. The room was small, enclosed, and with a vault ceiling - so the sound was gorgeous! I sang and played my Takemine acoustic, both un-amplified. Paul used his arch-top, F hole, semi-acoustic Samax - which adds a killer rockabilly vibe to everything!

The people seemed to enjoy the words and music, and stayed quite a while to ask questions about the book and the music, and, most interestingly, about the inter-relationship of the two. Thanks to the library staff, especially Melissa Froese, and to Alan and Carol at Bendecido for setting things up. Melissa is contacting area book clubs to set up some gigs for me in SE Manitoba. I’d love to come back. And, of course, thanks again and forever to Paul.