Craig Cardiff A Master Entertainer, Story Teller, and Bear Handler; Concert Series To Resume In Spring of 2015

Craig Cardiff Live at St. James Anglican Church, Gravenhurst, Ontario. (Photos by Bet Smith)

CRAIG CARDIFF PLAYS TO APPRECIATIVE AUDIENCE, CLOSING-OUT THE 2015 CURRIE'S CONCERT SERIES, AT ST.JAMES ANGLICAN CHURCH IN GRAVENHURST

A GREAT WAY TO WRAP-UP A HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL INAUGURAL SEASON AT CHURCH VENUE, AND JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS

     It was a clear, star-lit, bitterly cold, late-autumn's eve. The illuminated stained glass windows of the the historic Anglican church, warmed away the chill of the passerby, stopping momentarily, to admire how the architecture was so picturesquely settled into the shallow snowscape of pre-Christmas town. Inside, on this night, a Canadian folk singer, of considerable acclaim, was performing his music, beneath the great crossing spans of darkly stained, hand-hewn timbers, bracing the charming little church against the elements. The charming old building looked warm and inviting, and the music this night, so cheerfully beckoning, that one felt compelled to investigate what was going on!
     Honestly, I beg of you, how can a concert reviewer, who loves dogs, and just lost his own, be in anyway critical, of a performer who shows up with a little black dog named bear, tucked into what appeared to be a modified, much more comfortable hockey bag; and then allows it to sit up on stage staring back at the audience with those puppy dog eyes. We didn't know where to look. At the performer, the dog, or both at once, which was just about the nicest staging, of any event Andrew Currie and his brother Robert have hosted this year. The dog's name, by the way is "Bear," and the aged but tuned-in companion, with the dapper white muzzle, made friends of all those in the first two rows of pews, at St. James Anglican Church, in Gravenhurst. Did the dog upstage the musician? W.C. Fields might have said so, because he feared being out-performed behind the antics of either kids or pets. Instead, Craig Cardiff, and side-kick Bear, made the perfect concert duo, one softening the other, the other returning the inspiration. This package deal was a nice Christmas season showing of friendship and kindness, in the bosom of a holy sanctuary. It began as a kindly concert, and it ended just as relaxed and friendly, and we felt substantially entertained; but wanted to get home quickly to saddle up to our own wee critters anxiously awaiting our return.
     When Andrew Currie took a chance, in the late spring of 2014, to relocate his upstart "Sessions Concert Series," from a small studio, at the rear of his vintage music and antique business, in Uptown Gravenhurst, he had a number of dissenters, who thought it was a bad idea. There would be many music patrons, already supporting the fledgling series, who wouldn't want to attend a concert in, of all things, a church. He respectfully blew his critics off, but undaunted, found some well known and travelled performers, who actually preferred the idea, especially because the staging of concerts, would be in the beautiful and historic St. James Anglican Church, on the nicely treed corner lot, of Hotchkiss and John Streets. Located on the same urban block as the Gravenhurst Opera House, and one block south of Bethune Memorial House, and of course, a hundred yards from the historic main street of town. It was a chance worth taking, that the relocated series, which has now become popularly known as "Currie's Church Concerts," to performers, would prove a point in the realm of small town concert promotion. Give potential patrons what they want, and you can fill whatever venue you happen to have selected.
      Andrew would have to admit, he was a little nervous after the first three concerts attracted much smaller crowds than anticipated, but what gave him confidence, was the number of positive comments he received, from both entertainers and members of the audience on those evenings. It was most encouraging, he says as a retrospective, that the positive comments from the members of the Anglican Church Board, were the most important critiques, in order to continue planning for future concerts. Gradually, and with the assistance of the local media, and online promotions, the audiences began filling out the charming little church to near capacity. For Andrew and his partner brother, Robert, the final concert's large audience was a pre-Christmas present. Even performer, Craig Cardiff, a widely travelled Canadian folk singer, who has appeared on Stuart McLean's "Vinyl Cafe," was quite impressed by the turn-out for the show, noting that it was always a tough time, to get folks out for concerts, on the cusp of Christmas.
     Let's get this out of the way early in this humble (I'm still learning how to do this stuff) concert overview. Craig Cardiff is a consummate, talented, energetic and smooth entertainer, who knows how to work a crowd, getting them to participate in his sing-a-longs, and interacting as if, well, he was sitting amongst them. You can't get much more calming and pleasantly intrusive than this; and still be able to play the guitar, with the subtle power, and richness of a folk heritage, as Canadian as Tom Thomson's "West Wind!" In other words, Cardiff is a people player, and the audience was glued to the man, because he really is a talented fellow, who travels with his little black dog "Bear," the silent but cuddly partner of the act. Cardiff is unpretentious and good natured, and by experience and clever manipulation, knows how to command a large crowd with high expectations, making the concert an actuality of light heartedness, without a single string attached. Well, just one. The Bear in the room! Patrons clearly wanted to be part of the show, and Cardiff's soft, thorough approach, to quickly get to know his audience, made it all come together like an old and trusted country basket, holding it all together in what the artist would paint, as being traditionally composed. Where being crowded together was both festive and restorative of faith in one another. How fitting then that the backdrop of it all, was this architecturally splendid church building, in the heart of a good old town.
      I liked Craig Cardiff because he didn't perform "at" the crowd, but rather, as a sort of inside persuader, a motivator, and I can see why he is so popular with university and college students. I don't know if calling a performer "a comfortable" entertainer, is appropriate, and the kind of concert review Cardiff might clip for his scrapbook, but it was how I felt, looking down upon the concert from the church balcony. Like a veteran dean of Canadian folk heritage, he was both story teller and professor, with the touch, this night, of a sage vicar tending his flock. His message was a simple one, with a zeal within, that was soft but clearly profound, as the poet on a mission, to create atmosphere in imagination, by best chosen words.
      Craig Cardiff can perform a song that can make you cry. If that was, in fact, his intent. Bestow upon us, a song with a trace-element of translucent melancholy, that can make the listener ponder what life's all about. Then he can suddenly make you feel, a moment later, as if you're traveling somewhere, but when you look down, you're still sitting in the same pew, with feet firmly planted on the church floor, as when you arrived and first sat down. It is the talent, the charisma, of a remarkable and durable singer-song writer, to be able to perform a sad song, yet not inspire a single patron, to well up with tears; sing what gives every perception of being a veil of melancholy, yet curiously, one finds a deeply embedded joy instead; and when it feels as if the world is moving, it really is, so one mustn't fret. In the irony and strange contradictions of melodies, sad songs become anthems of survival and resolution, that remind us with good humor, there are just as many happy endings, as sad refrains. There are no regrets, on the audience's part, that his folk music, is like a warm south wind, one moment, and then a brisk, chill, north wind, the next; soothing in the caress over us, massaging away the preconceived notions, that we have to analyze contentment to the precise molecule, in order that we might better understand it. We are suspect, as mortals, of those emotions, that trip us up, from the normal fare of clenching our jaw, and moving forward to the very next great challenge. Cardiff knows how to relax our nervous anticipation, brought with us from hectic lives, with a cool rhythmic lapping, of guitar and voice, as a flood of poetic waves, washing the sand shore of a moonlit Muskoka Lake. It is as tranquil and invigorating, and a contradiction that works its strange magic on his audience.
      Craig Cardiff isn't one performer on stage. He is a multiple phenomenon of exciting animation, who one moment gives the impression of an illuminated bobble-head, that can sing and play the guitar; and with a unique way of sounding as if there are three singers in one, makes it a nicely balanced stage act, in a basking light of creature comforts. He is a spirited entertainer, who uses music as an elixir to what he might perceive ails us; limits us from dropping our social guard, in order to have a good time. He offers a full sound without a back-up horn section, a token tuba player or dower basonist, or having the benefit of a rosey cheeked choir behind all that thunder. But there he is, at the end of the song; no gimmicks, no slight of hand, no rabbit pulled out of a hat, or having necessarily employed a single illusion, to make us see something that isn't there, and won't soon be arriving. Yet it is the very premise of good theatre, that we come to believe the art of the actor, in character, and their playing-off against one another, making it easy to imagine what doesn't exist. We are all okay with the grand delusion, as it is entertaining, and joyful, and a fine concert. Craig Cardiff was a brilliant choice, to end the Church Concert series for 2014. It is easy for me to understand why this folk singer has a following of fans, who appreciate his unique brand of story telling, and relevance to Canadian folk history which he is quickly become a valued part.
     The Currie family extends thank you to Craig Cardiff and his dog Bear, for driving all the way from Ottawa, on Friday afternoon, to perform here in Gravenhurst. Organizers of the concert series, Andrew and Robert Currie, also wish to extend a special thanks to all the kind folks, and lovers of good music, for coming out to the shows this year, and because of their support, we have decided without hesitation, to continue them throughout the coming year; with the exception of January, the month needed for organizing events for the following eleven months. Thank you Gravenhurst, and thank you Muskoka, for proving a point; that if you build it, of course they will come.
   

A SCULPTOR OF BLOGS, AND WHY I USE CAPITAL LETTERS - MY INNER JACKSON POLLOCK CUTTING LOOSE - BUT LOST IN TRANSLATION

     J.M.W. TURNER. THERE'S A MOVIE COMING OUT, ABOUT THE HISTORIC AND CONTROVERSIAL BRITISH ARTIST, I HAVE ADMIRED FOR AS LONG AS I'VE BEEN COLLECTING ART. IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY, CANADIAN CANOE LEGEND, BILL MASON, WAS ALSO A FAN OF TURNER'S EXCITING INTERPRETATIONS OF STORMY SEAS, POWERFUL AND COMPELLING LANDSCAPES, WHICH INFLUENCED SOME OF HIS OWN ART-WORK, PUBLISHED IN A POPULAR TEXT. I WATCHED HIS DOCUMENTARY "WATERWALKER" ABOUT A THOUSAND TIMES, DURING MY OWN CANOEING PAST, AND WAS FASCINATED BY HIS OWN ART, PAINTED AT LOCATIONS, WHILE TRAVERSING LAKE SUPERIOR, CAMPING IN SOME OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACES IN OUR COUNTRY.
     I HAVE BEEN A LIFETIME ADMIRER OF ART, AND BEEN A FRUSTRATED ARTIST FOR THE SAME PERIOD OF TIME. IN UNIVERSITY, I CAME CLOSEST TO CHANGING MY COURSE OF STUDY, TO SHIFT OVER TO THE FINE ART DEPARTMENT; TO JOIN MY ARTIST FRIEND FROM BRACEBRIDGE, ROSS SMITH, A FINE LANDSCAPE ARTIST WHO CAPTURED MANY MUSKOKA SCENES DURING HIS MOST ACTIVE YEARS. I HAVE LOOKED OVER THE SHOULDERS OF MANY STUDENT ARTISTS, WHO LIVED ON OUR FLOOR OF WINTER'S COLLEGE. I'VE WRITTEN FOUR ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES, AND DESIRED TO PUT TOGETHER SEVERAL OTHERS, ALL THE WHILE, WISHING TO PLAY AROUND AT ART MYSELF. I HAVE TRIED NUMEROUS TIMES TO PAINT AND SKETCH, BUT I SEEM TO BE BETTER DESCRIBING WHAT I WANT TO CAPTURE, IN A STORY, THAN DOING IT JUSTICE, ON A PAINT BOARD. I HAVE THOUGHT THE TIME MIGHT BE RIGHT, TO TAKE ANOTHER STAB AT PAINTING, WHILE I STILL HAVE A FEW FACULTIES LEFT. I PROBABLY WOULD MAKE A MUCH BETTER PAINTER WITH FEWER FACULTIES ANYWAY.
     THE SHORT PIECE BELOW WAS WRITTEN AFTER A FAITHFUL READER OF MY BLOGS, ASKED ME WHY I INSISTED ON STICKING WITH UPPER CASE LETTERING, FOR MY DAILY EDITORIAL PIECES. IT'S NOT LIKE I DIDN'T KNOW I WAS DOING IT, BUT SINCE I BEGAN USING THIS FORMAT, HERS IS ONLY THE THIRD NEGATIVE REVIEW OF MY DOING SO. WHICH MEANS LITTLE OF COURSE, BECAUSE OTHER READERS MAY HAVE JUST PREFERRED TO AVOID MY SITE LIKE THE PLAGUE, AND CHECK OUT ANOTHER BLOGGER WITH LESS OOMPH FOR MAKING BOLD FACE STATEMENTS. CONTEMPLATING WHY I USE THIS ALL CAPS FORMAT, I SOON DISCOVERED MY ARTISTIC SIDE HAD ACTUALLY EMERGED WITHOUT ANY REAL INTENT. MAYBE SOME DAY, THESE UPPER CASE STYLE BLOGS, WILL BE PUBLISHED, FRAMED, AND HUNG IN A GALLERY, AS A SORT OF "CURRIE RETROSPECTIVE," AS BEING IMPRINTS OF WHAT MY SOUL HAD INSPIRED. WHEN YOU READ THE PIECE BELOW, CONSIDER THAT I HAD JUST SPOKEN WITH THE READER, WHO WAS IN OUR STORE FOR ANOTHER REASON, AND JUST DECIDED IT WAS WORTH MENTIONING; A BLOGGER IS ONLY AS SUCCESSFUL AS READERSHIP IS HIGH. WRITING AS ART? I DON'T KNOW WHETHER THIS WILL FLY OR NOT. CHECK IT OUT FOR YOURSELF.

     FOR THE CONCERT REVIEW OF THE CRAIG CARDIFF, I PURPOSELY AVOIDED USING ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, AS I AM PRONE TO DO WHEN I AM FEELING AGGRESSIVE AT THIS LAPTOP KEYBOARD. WHEN I HEARD HIS FIRST TWO SONGS OF THE NIGHT, AND I OPENED UP THE LAPTOP TO COMMENCE WRITING A BIT OF ACTUALITY ABOUT THE CHURCH CONCERT, ON FRIDAY NIGHT, THE FIRST THING I DID, WAS TO CHANGE FROM UPPER CASE, TO LOWER, BUT FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON, OTHER THAN THE FORMALITY OF IT BEING A REVIEW, THAT SHOULD LOOK PROPER; A MAGAZINE FORMAT EDITORIAL THAT WOULD READ AS NORMAL FARE BY THOSE INTERESTED. BESIDES, HIS MUSIC AND LITTLE BLACK DOG, BEAR, MADE ME FEEL MUCH LESS AGGRESSIVE, AND ACTUALLY, DOWNRIGHT PASSIVE. THE CHURCH SETTING DID THE REST. LIKE THE VISITATIONS OF THE CHRISTMAS SPIRITS, MY SCROOGE GENES, WERE SENT PACKING.
     THIS MORNING, I WAS BERATED BY A BLOG READER, WHO POINTED OUT, THAT IN HER OPINION, I WAS, AT THE VERY LEAST, A HALF-JERK FOR WRITING MOST OF MY EDITORIAL MATERIAL THESE DAYS, IN CAPITAL LETTERS, BECAUSE SHE COULDN'T DECIPHER IT, IN THAT PRINT FORMAT. AT THE MOMENT SHE WAS MAKING THIS CRITICISM, POSSIBLY THINKING I DID THIS TO RID MY BLOG OF FRINGE READERS, CLUTTERING UP THE GROUP, I IMAGINED WHAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE, FOR AN ART PATRON TO CHALLENGE ABSTRACT ARTIST, JACKSON POLLACK, ABOUT THE SENSIBILITY OF HIS WORK; VERSUS PAINTING IMAGES OF COWS IN BARNYARDS, AND ROMANTIC LANDSCAPES, THAT SOOTHE THE SENTIMENTAL EYE. WELL, I SUPPOSE THEY WOULD HAVE HAD A BUCKET OF PAINT POURED OVER THEIR HEAD. YET IT WAS ONE OF THOSE "BEZINGA" MOMENTS, FOR THE ARTIST I NEVER INTENDED TO BE, WHEN I REALIZED, GADS, I'M FAR MORE EMBEDDED IN THIS WRITING THING THAN I THOUGHT.     HOLY MACKEREL, THE LADY JUST OFFENDED MY ART WORK. HONEST TO GOD, THIS IS WHAT I THOUGHT AS AN INITIAL REACTION, TO BEING TOLD MY BLOGS ARE UNREADABLE, BECAUSE I CHOSE UPPER CASE TO CHANNEL MY INNER RAGE TO MAKE A POINT. EVEN A HAPPY POINT, ANY POINT IN FACT. IT HAS BECOME BY INTENSITY, A SORT OF UNINTENTIONAL CANVAS, OR PLYWOOD PANEL, UPON WHICH BOLD SPLASHES ARE APPLIED; MUCH AS IF POLLOCK'S STREAKING OF COLORS ONTO HIS PAINT BOARDS, WAS SIMPLE EXPLANATION OF WHAT CONSTITUTED HIS ART FORM. EXPRESSING HIS ANGRY FEELINGS AT THAT PRECISE MOMENT. I'VE BEEN POUNDING THESE KEYS IN THAT VERY SAME VEIN OF SELF EXPRESSION, AND NEVER REALLY UNDERSTOOD WHY. UNTIL THIS MOMENT, IN FACT, ALL BECAUSE A READER DARED TO CHALLENGE MY STYLE CHOICES, THAT I DIDN'T REALIZE WAS CLEARLY, TO OTHERS, AN UNFOLDING "ART FORM." THE BLOGS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE STORIES, EDITORIALS, COMMENTARIES, INTERVIEWS, OVERVIEWS AND UNDER-VIEWS, BUT CERTAINLY NOT VISUAL ART. LOW AND BEHOLD, I WAS SCULPTING AND PAINTING, AND CREATING SOMETHING THAT HAS BEEN OOZING AGGRESSION AND UNRESOLVED ISSUES FOR YEARS. DAMN-IT I'M A COMPLICATED GUY AFTERALL. WELL, NOT REALLY. BUT I CAN BE COLORFULLY EMPHATIC, AND THAT SHOULD BE PRETTY OBVIOUS, READING THIS PORTION OF TODAY'S BLOG.
     Here's how and why it happens, that I select upper case type, versus the normal, readable, newspaper print, which of course is the most recognized way of communicating a message, via the printed letter, of the printed word; but just without the ink and paper component. It all began when I started to write, myself, in a way I had always deplored of others; so much so, that I insisted on cooling down reporters working for me, at Muskoka Publications, who would admittedly be angry about a news item, or feature story, when they set down to type them up for The Herald-Gazette, or Muskoka Advance. I refused their requests to write editorials on the same subjects, for the Opinion Page, because it would then be impossible to be objective. With a news story, it is imperative. An opinion piece demands a more forceful stroke of the pen, or keyboard, but not when it is a deeply personal thing; a situation that could put the writer too close, to prevent a prejudicial overlap of the subject or situation being examined. When I started to write a lot more about local municipal politics, over the past three years, and what I perceived as sloppy regional governance, my sense of emotional equilibrium was tipped off its high, high horse. I would accidentally (but I did know I wasn't disengaging upper case) carry on with a bold face caption to the blog, to then hammer without mercy, the editorial content of the first paragraph. For me, in those instances, I was re-visiting the movie script of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." I was becoming a filibuster by proxy, and it was a most incredible blood-letting, frustration removing, joy to the world unloading, I'd ever experienced before with the printed word. In a short period of time, the capital letters were a sort of silent screaming, to make a point. There was a visual context as well, as the editorial context. I was, in a few of those editorials, kicking ass without lifting my foot. Of course, this isn't what the readers were perceiving, and on one other occasion, before this, I felt it incumbent to offer an explanation, why caps were a choice of beligerance, to those I was targeting as deserving of a reprimand. As art, emphatically so, it obviously missed the point with a lot of my readers. Many just assumed I didn't like wasting time jumping from upper case to lower, just to conform to the way it has always been done.
     Today, as if cracked from an iceberg, and toppled out naked into the world of the fully-animated, I had to reckon with the fact, I have been an "artist misunderstood". Instead of looking at my bricking of words, as a readable abstract, or sculpture you could hang your hopes (like a hat) off of, I was turning away my audience off, by being so intimately aggressive, and expressive, that the message was getting lost in the quagmire of best intentions. You could tell my mood, on any given day, writing these blogs, because of the length and breadth of upper case type. In the past couple of weeks, dealing with the loss of my sidekick, Bosko the dog, I was striking the upper case keys as if rattling on a sheet of old tin, for God to answer my question; what the heck is going on, when you take a man's best friend away? In my mind, slightly convoluted at the best of times, I was making a stern statement about, well, the cause of my "being stern." Suzanne, one day, while editing my copy at our master computer, at home, asked me if I was happy when I was writing. "That all depends," I answered. "on what council has got up to since I looked last!" She was being sincere, and I suppose was a little worried, the inner Jackson Pollock, was splashing onto the laptop keyboard, instead of where it should be; on a large panel of plywood, to be framed an hung on the wall. "Maybe you should drop the blog and take-up painting instead," she quipped, "because what you're writing seems as if you're trying to create a picture. Is that what you're trying to do here, more than tell a story?" It meshed with what the woman said to me this afternoon. I was sculpting these words as if out of stone, to represent something that was getting lost.     I'm passionate about a lot of the topics I engage myself, so it's pretty obvious, I can get easily carried away; thinking you folks can see beyond the print, and the story-line, to image the bigger picture. Yet it only becomes apparent, that this is what I'm doing, and wrongly doing, when someone says, "hey dumb ass, I can't read your blog, cause it looks like a 'find Waldo' sort of thing; and then I can't find him."
     I get the message. I am inadvertently showing my emotional interest in my subjects, something I detested with my newspaper reporters, when they put themselves emotionally, into a front page news story; striking down any potential of objectivity, and leaving us open to public reprimand for being biased. Editorials are different, but even then, objectivity must not be compromised by anger, or an askew perspective. I don't find that I'm hopelessly askew, just occasionally compromised by a seething anger within, usually tripped hearing or reading something stupid, that has, or is about to happen on the political front; and feeling the words produced at this keyboard, are the best spent, catch and release options. The one two punch of point and counterpoint. Versus making a deputation, and instead of bold letters in cyberspace, steaming up a "spitting-mad" oratory that makes local councillors wince and cover their ears, but gives the press a little something extra for above the fold.
     As I wind down this blog, as it currently appears, officially ending on the 2nd of January 2015, I will make every effort and emotional compromise, to please those who find it difficult to read these blogs in upper case print style. I can do it, you know! This is an example of how commonplace and predictable I can be, when not consumed by passion and hubris, to make fire come from the tranquility of cyberspace. Should I, however, resort to bold print beyond the headline, from time to time, in the next week or so, please accept this apology in advance. It is a hard habit to kick, especially for an old wordsmith like me, boldly set in his ways.