Tonight is the second and only full rehearsal for the full band behind ‘Across the Norwood Bridge’. The prospect of Wednesday’s launch at the Park finds me calm about the readings and nervous about the songs. Too tense to type, too ready to gripe. Let’s end this tripe. I’ll see you all at the launch and at the subsequent events now listed under “News”.

I just got back from the Park Theatre, where I was interviewed by Joanne Kelly of Shaw TV. She asked intelligent questions. I answered them in my way. I also played Except My Love For You and Angel of Truth. ‘Except’ went reasonably well - no more than a muff or two. During ‘Angel’, however, I dropped my pick, played several wrong chords, and made a face. They liked it. They can edit around that, can’t they? Make it charming? Gruesome? It’s all good fun. The interview/musical execution will air periodically tomorrow, and again on May 26, the day before the Launch at the Park.

P.S. I promise to do better with the full band of real musicians. Anyway, they’ll do better.

With apologies to Neil Diamond, I can sing “I ain’t I said, to no one there.” The first thing I can say about the question, “Is the book an autobiography?” is - on the surface, “kind of”. But, although the lead character, Gordon Strachan, shares certain biographical facts with me, he ain’t me. Gordon’s youth is set in St. Vital and his life takes him to places with which I am familiar. But then, what I am to write about, a boy growing up in Moscow? He grew up in St. Vital, while I moved there when I was thirteen. He married his childhood sweetheart, while I married (thirty years ago yesterday) the wonderful Norwood girl, Pat Newman who I had met at work, in my late twenties. And we have never (thank God) separated or divorced. Similarly, both Gord and I were in the finance business. He was worth $40M when he broke up with his wife. Me? Not even close!

Like all authors, absent extensive research, I have only my own life’s experiences to draw on. And like any work of imagination, the book uses bits from here and there, jumbles them up, and reassigns them amongst characters and settings. For instance, I wrote the songs used in the book. However, Jack, not Gordon is credited with the composition - because it is more ‘true’ in the imaginary world of Except My Love For You. It’s more like Jack to have been and still be a musician. Perhaps if Gord could or would have written songs (or poems as he belatedly attempts), he might not have been so screwed up. But it was necessary and therefore true that he didn’t, and that he did screw up. And spread it around!

But that suggests the more subtle question. “Life details aside, are the issues with which Gordon grapples modeled on issues from the author’s life?” This time the answer is “not much”. Gord’s inappropriate behaviour in mid-life stems from the return of his unorthodox way of thinking, which stems from his upbringing, presumably from his genetics, and from... the authors’ imagination.

The author has, from time to time in his life, behaved in ways he ought not. And for the usual human reasons; laziness, stubbornness, ignorance, and who knows what. But no more than normal, and not in ways grand enough to support a novel. But the author has, as author’s ought, imagined an exaggerated version of these and other human failings, and wondered what would happen if they carried on uncorrected, or at least unmitigated. It follows that such strong, persistent miscues would be caused by strong, persistent causes. What might they be? What might happen if the screw ups went beyond a certain point? Well - people would get fed up. What would they do? They would break with the offender. Then what would he do? Hey, how about he follows through on some goofy ideas he has, associated with his weird way of thinking? Hence the Minimum List. Hence the story. The rest is detail that flows from the central struggle.

In the final analysis, Gordon Strachan ended up as a more powerful, more disciplined, more successful, and more doomed man than John Hodgert ever was or could be.

The files for the readings and songs have gone to the CD manufacturer. In the grand tradition of recording they were delivered late, with just enough time available to have the finished product back a day or two before the launch at the Park on the 27th of May! We intend to give them away as souvenirs to everybody attending the Launch. Until all 500 are gone, I’ll be handing them out at readings and Meadowlark Orchestra shows. Now all that needs to be worried about is not falling on our faces as we perform the material. Reading doesn’t scare me, but playing/singing does. There is too much to do today (30th anniversary, wife back from visit to daughter/bride-to-be in Toronto) to start ‘the rest of the story’. But, soon, I will begin to talk about the question I get all the time, “How much of the book is autobiographical?”

The publisher says the books have arrived from the printer, and they’re clogging up the warehouse. Please help us out. Cleanse our pallets of these novels. They can be acquired at the low introductory price of the full retail asking price! (www.bendedecidobooks.ca)

All kidding aside, we’re very excited. After a couple of years of effort, we’re there - at the staring line. I’m looking forward to the launch in Winnipeg, then to the one (hopefully) in Gimli, and then to any readings or shows in the months ahead. I look forward to meeting the hordes (There will be hordes won’t there?), or anyway the few folks who will be in attendance. I hope to get a chance to speak to everyone, but if not, I can always be reached via this website (or directly at johnhodgert@shaw.ca). We’re stuck now.

Hope to see you soon,
John

Across the Norwood Bridge (ATNB) is another song from the early to mid nineteen-eighties. With two young children around, I was spending lots of time at home - when I wasn’t working all hours. The song is a ‘story’ song to the extent that it harkens back to my real adolescence. My friend Ross McKellar, my brother Frank, sometimes some other friends and I would, as the song says, walk from our home neighbourhood in north St. Vital, across the Norwood Bridge, and into downtown. Once there we would spray ourselves with men’s cologne at Eaton’s (first Old Spice, then Jade East and then? Frank, what was the brand? Brut!), check out the record department there, move down Portage Avenue to Kresge’s or the Met (maybe stop for a Coke fellas?), continue to the Bay record department (I won’t say what we did there!), and finally end up at the Paddlwheel. Full of chips and gravy and impressions, we’d head home - back the way we came.

The song as I first played it was more about lyrics than melody. In fact, I have three or four more verses not used on the record. (N.B. The “Gord’ referred to in the first verse of the recorded version was originally ‘Ross’.) Anyway, I just bashed away on my acoustic, using a few simple chords and obvious changes. I originally had no particular style in mind, but the story-like lyrics and the straight-ahead music suggested Country. And there it sat for many years.

Fast forward to a few years ago, and I was showing a few original songs to a new friend of ours, Vanessa Kuzina (superb solo singer/song-writer and part of Oh My Darling - the best roots/everything band anywhere! www.myspace.com/ohmydarlingmusic). ATNB was her favourite, which surprised me because I had never taken it very seriously. However, that was the point. Properly done, it’s not serious - it’s lighthearted, simple, and sincere.

As part of the CD project with my son Paul, we were trying to figure out how to arrange it. Tony Buchner and I had tried it as rock-n-roll, in a higher key. I had tried it with Doug Anderson as country blues, but nothing quite fit what I could hear in my head. For years I had wondered what it would sound like with honky-tonk or barrel-house piano. When the CD project folded into the novel project, ATNB was almost a perfect fit. It had the right setting, the right time-frame, the right characters (just change one name), and the right attitude. Somebody/everybody came up with the idea of a ‘back-story’ for the song that would fold into right into he novel - and determine the arrangement/production. One of the characters in Except My Love for You is Jack Lovell, real good childhood friend of the protagonist, Gordon Strachan. In the book, Jack played guitar and wrote songs - the songs we’re talking about here. So....if Jack had had a garage band back in the day (late 60’s), that garage band might have played the song a certain way - loose, lighthearted, and loud.

Paul came up with a piano player, Nick Mullin. After a few takes, Nick came up with exactly the rollicking piano rolls and riffs we needed. Paul’s wife, Ashli Hodgert was drafted to add a goofy but good trombone counter-melody. Vanessa the K. graciously agreed to put some sweet but soulful harmonies behind my thin lead vocal. Paul played drums for the track, to get the ‘learner’ feel we wanted. Paul also did the boom-diddy-boom bass and the straight-up slide guitar. I was on ‘When do I start?’ rhythmn guitar, as usual. Paul, John, Luke Bergen, Jane Helbrecht, and Ashli put on the ‘just in control’ vocal chorus.

The resulting thirty odd tracks were a magnificent mess, which Paul wove into what I think is a very entertaining simulation of how Jack’s not quite fully rehearsed band would have performed the song - some time long ago in the friendly imagination.

P. S. The rest of the back-story:
1. See, Jack met this cute girl at band camp who played trombone. He told the boys he wanted her in the band. “There are no trombones in rock bands!” was there reply.’She’s really cute and it’s my band.’ was the answer.
2. If you’ve read the book, imagine Vanessa as Muriel the mystery girl. Is she in the band or not?

***Click ‘Apr 2009’ on the right hand margin - for more blogs on the songs and the story.