1) Main Street is Dave Mallett’s poignant song about the new normal in small towns everywhere. I hope we all get back to thinking small and local.
Gordon Belsher - vocals, guitar, tambourine, sound design (bass, piano, fiddle, shaker)
2) Coridinio is a Galician set that I’ve slowed somewhat to make it a hornpipe.
Gordon Belsher - mandola, sound design (ukulele, drums, bass, guitar, accordion)
3) My dad lived a good 93 years. He was always quite entertaining to anyone who ever knew him. Whenever we’d get together for a party, he’d sing “I was gonna go fishin’, been thinking it over...” Here’s my version of Smiley Burnette’s My Lazy Day.
Gordon Belsher - vocals, ukulele, mandola, sound design (drums, bass, mandolin, steel)
4) I don’t have any recordings of the first band I was in as a teenager during the late 60's. That, of course, was the time of the ‘British Invasion’. My band was one of the local opening acts for “The Who” in Edmonton in 1968! So with that in mind, I thought I’d include a new “folky” version of Little Games, originally done by “The Yardbirds”.
Gordon Belsher - vocals, guitar, sound design (bodhrán, bass, bouzouki, drums)
5) In the 70's, I was the bass player in a very popular dance band called “Patch”. Here’s a live recording from 1977 (done by our keyboard player on a cassette stereo tape recorder!) of Thelma Houston’s Don’t Leave Me This Way.
Rick Francis - lead vocal, tambourine
Gordon Belsher - bass, backing vocal
Rick Dubord - keys, backing vocal
Doug Anderson - electric guitar, backing vocal
Roland Hardie - drums
6) Moving to Prince Edward Island, my wife Charlene and I performed as a duo called “Jar O’Comfort”. From our 1981 vinyl LP that we recorded at Solar Audio in Halifax, here’s Weaver’s Market. (You can tell I was still thinking as a bass player at this time!)
Charlene Belsher - vocals
Gordon Belsher - vocals, 12 string, bass, mandolin
John Alphonse - drums
7) Island comedian (and great friend) Urban Carmichael wrote a lovely ballad originally titled “My Little Girl” when our first daughter Savannah was 3. With Urban’s permission, my old friend Steve Sharratt and I put our own melody to his moving lyrics and called it Butterfly.
Gordon Belsher - vocal, guitar, bass, synth
Charlene Belsher - backing vocal
Steve Sharratt - mandolin, backing vocal
8) Steve Sharratt became a long time member of “Jar O’Comfort”, and the trio released two cassette recordings. The Sea & The Soil is an original from our 1990 album ‘Scatter the Mud!’
This track, as well as ‘Butterfly’, were recorded at my home studio on a four track Fostex machine.
Steve Sharratt - vocal, 12 string
Gordon Belsher - vocal, mandola, bass, drum program, synth
Charlene Belsher - vocal
9) My repertoire has always included Irish traditional classics. Lanigan’s Ball from my 1993 solo recording is dedicated to the Olde Dublin Pub in Charlottetown where I have performed for over 35 years!
Gordon Belsher - vocals, 12 string
Charlene Belsher - backing vocal, bodhrán
Steve Sharratt - mandolin
10) I started playing with Prince Edward Island fiddling dynamo Richard Wood in 1995. The two of us recorded his tune Fiddle Fever in my analog 16 track studio in 1996 when he was a teenager. We have since had many touring career highlights all over the world, including Canada, the US, the UK, Europe, Japan and Australia. Many times it was as a trio with Brad Fremlin or Darla Chaisson. But much of it was just a “power” folk duo.
Richard Wood - fiddle, keys, synth
Gordon Belsher - guitar, bass, drum program, electric guitar
11) Fiddling jewel Cynthia MacLeod’s debut album was recorded in my digital studio in 2002 when she was a fearless 16 year old. ‘Head Over Heels’ won several MUSIC PEI Awards including ‘Album of the Year’. This BIS Live Reel Set from that recording shows the energy that Cynthia creates.
Cynthia MacLeod - fiddle
Jeff Matheson - piano
Gordon Belsher - guitar
12) My son-in-law Todd MacLean on saxophone, my daughter Savannah on vocals, and I on guitar and vocals, played together in 2006 and 2007 as ‘Saxafras’. Todd and I have performed as a duo each summer since then. Our eclectic mix includes classics like Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker Street’, folk tunes, Scottish airs performed beautifully on the saxophone... and pop jazz classics like Paper Moon.
Gordon Belsher - vocal, guitar, sound design (drums, piano)
Todd MacLean - saxophone
Jodi Proznick - bass
13) Song for a Winter’s Night is one of my very favourite Gordon Lightfoot pieces. What a nice Canadian way to end the set!
Gordon Belsher - vocal, guitar, sound design (bass, drums, strings)
