Corby's Orbit

Corby's Orbit
Listening in All the High Places illustration by John Kricfalusi

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Playlist For Corby`s Orbit Show Of 25 October with Dayna Manning & Coco Love Alcorn


Commissioner of Selection: Paul Corby 

( Brought to you by Autumn Addict, Halloweèn Again, Naturally &  Octobreity Test)

5-7 p.m. Fridays online http://www.radioregent.com/ and at tunein.com .  

Guests: Dayna Manning and Coco Love Alcorn


Click On Pictures To Enlarge 

Canadians in Asterisk’d RED. 

5:00 Epic Hello Evening



*Walrus ~ Mr. Insecure ~ Cool To Who? NEW DISK

* The New Customs ~ Never Tire of The Road ~ Selling Religion On Government Street NEW DISK

* Sonia Johnson ~ Monsters ~ Chrysalis NEW DISK

Jason Isbell ~ If We Were Vampires ~ The Nashville Sound 

* Paul James ~ Trick or Treat ~ Single

Danny Elfman ~ This Is Hallowe'en ~ The Nightmare Before Christmas sdtk.

5:20 Dayna Fret Lassie


* Dayna Manning ~ I Get Closer / Interview / Charlie Lake ~ Morning Light NEW DISK ~ @ Hugh's Room Live Friday 15 November

5:40 Burns Country Kin 

Skeeter Davis & NRBQ ~ Everybody Wants A Cowboy ~ She Sings They Play

Bobby Bare Jr.~ Sticky Chemical ~ The Longest Meow 

Marty Stuart ~ That's Country ~ The Marty Party Pack


6:00 Take Me To The Rebirth

Coco Love Alcorn ~ I Forgive Myself / My Noughatty Centre / This Little Light Of Mine / Interview / Rebirth NEW DISK~ @ Hugh's Room Live Wednesday 30 October  

Bryan Ferry & The Bryan Ferry Orchestra ~ Love Is The Drug ~ The Great Gatsby Sdtrk

6:20 Pardon My Fresh


* Big Little Lions ~ Old Armchairs ~ Inside Voice NEW DISK

* Miranda Molholland ~ Black Diamond ~ By Appointment Or Chance NEW DISK

* Gathering Sparks ~ We Are The Ones ~ All That's Real (Borealis)  NEW DISK ~ @ Tranzac Sunday 7:30

Jenny Lewis ~ Slippery Slopes ~ The Voyager ~ @ Danforth Music Hall Thursday 31 October

* Riit feat Zaki Ibrahim ~ Uvangattauq ~ Ataataga (Six Shooter) NEW DISK

6:40 Flow In The Dark

Tommy Edwards (October 15, 1922 – October 23, 1969) ~ I'll Always Be With You ~ Strictly Soul

Carmel ~ It's All In The Game ~ Collected

* Jeremy Ledbetter Trio ~ The Pepper Drinker ~ Got A Light? ~ @ Geary Lane Saturday / Toronto Music Listings 

Sheila Jordan ~ It Never Entered My Mind ~ Sheila & Arild Andersen  ~ @ Hugh`s Room Live Saturday for Celebrate 90

* Kristin Lindell ~ Keep On ~ Overflowing ~ @ Cameron House tonight 6-8 pm














Friday, October 18, 2019

Playlist For Corby's Orbit Show of 18 October with Ray Montford & Lynn Moffatt, Dan Pitt and Mike Evin


Commissioner of Selection: Paul Corby 

( Brought to you by Honourable Audio, Anticipatory Democracy and Heights Galore)

5-7 p.m. Fridays online http://www.radioregent.com/ and at tunein.com .  

Guests: Ray Montford & Lynn Moffatt, Dan Pitt and Mike Evin


Click On Pictures To Enlarge 


Canadians in Asterisk’d RED. 

5:00 Furtive Subversives


* Chelsea McBride's Socialist Night School ~ Revolution Blues ~ Aftermath NEW DISK ~ @ The Rex Monday 21 Election Night

* Lee Harvey Osmond ~ Forty Light Years ~ Mohawk ~ Tom Wilson @ Roy Thompson Hall for Gord Downie's Secret Path Saturday

The Ventures ~ Lolita Ya Ya ~ Walk Don't Run ~ The Ad-Ventures @ Garrison tonight for The Members show and @ The Linsmore Thursday 24 October

Joan Baez ~ Civil War ~ Whistle Down The Wind 

The Members ~ Sounds Of The Suburbs ~ @ The Garrison tonight 

5:30 Montford Man

* Ray Montford & Lynn Moffatt ~ Alive / Interview with Ray Montford & Lynn Moffatt / Let Your River Flow (live) / Deliver Me ~ Share My Sky NEW DISK  ~ @ Hugh's Room Live Saturday

6:00 Point Of Blue

* Orchid Ensemble ~ Little Stream ~ From A Dream NEW DISK 

* Dan Pitt Trio ~ Balmoral / Interview with Dan Pitt / January Blues ~ Fundamentally Flawed NEW DISK ~ @ Burdock Monday 21 October

6:30 Vast Poetry

Songhoy Blues ~ Ai Tchere Bele ~ Music In Exile ~ The Great Hall Tuesday 22 October 

* Mike Evin ~ Recovering Romantic / Wide Wide World / Interview / I Miss The Congas ~ Evin On Earth NEW DISK 









* Mike Murley ~ Billie's Bounce ~ Sax Summit ~ @ The Jazz Bistro tonight & Saturday

* Doug Paisley ~ Transient / Bruce Cockburn ~ Al Purdy's ~ The Al Purdy Songbook Live ~ @ Hugh's Room Live Wednesday






Year Gets Older / Music Gets Newer


Thursday, October 17, 2019

The Al Purdy Songbook Live at Hugh's Room Live Tuesday, October 22, 2019 | 8:30pm $25 Advance / $30 Door


The Al Purdy Songbook Live with Doug Paisley and Snowblink
@ Hugh's Room Live Tuesday, October 22, 2019 | 8:30pm $25 Advance / $30 Door *
Sympathetic Resonances: The Al Purdy Songbook and Doug Paisley’s Starter Home
(Reprinted from Roots Music Canada)
From Dante Alighieri to William Carlos Williams, any time that the casual vernacular of a country’s people has invaded its national poetic tradition under the banner of a singular revolutionary and relevant artist, a liberation of language takes place, the floodgates open, and leagues of poets rise up singing. For Canada, that poet, in English, was Al Purdy.
A companionable populist, who shambled into the circumscribed academic cloister of Canadian letters in the early sixties with a stubby beer bottle and two decades of bad published poetry behind him, Purdy managed to re-attenuate the timbre of the nation’s versifiers to the words from the streets, producing a couple dozen volumes of acclaimed work, scooping two Governor General’s awards, and leaving behind a statue honouring him in Queen’s Park, along with an international myriad of fans and supporters.
The end of last year saw the culmination of the enthusiasm of a team of converging curatorial forces from the fields of journalism, literature and music who have been conspiring for years to release The Al Purdy Songbook, out now on Borealis Records, an information package of prime significance to Canadian literature, music, and history.
Along with a DVD, featuring abundant archival footage and Brian Johnson’s recent doc “Al Purdy Was Here,” the music on the enclosed CD bears wonderful witness to Purdy’s enduring influence. The album contains tributes and transformations, and two readings of his work from absent friends Gord Downie and Leonard Cohen. The original song contributions are alloyed formulations by like-minded prospectors from the mine shafts of prosody originally excavated by Purdy and his crew, including Atwood, Ondaatje and Layton. Besides new and fascinating work from Bruce Cockburn, Sarah Harmer and Greg Keelor, there is a tune from Doug Paisley called Transient, which imagines Purdy’s extensive travels within Canada as an exploration that he continues in spirit, inhabiting his proxy within new artists after 20 years absent from his corporeal life.
Roots Music Canada was fortunate enough to catch up with Doug as he was launching into a series of promotional tours for his new disc, Starter Home, which is also very much set to the raconteurial tone of Al Purdy’s Songbook:
P: Congratulations on being part of this Al Purdy project. It’s really something.
D: Yeah, I could tell from the first phone call that it was going to be an interesting, rewarding thing to be a part of.
P: Did the first phone call come from Brian Johnson?
D: It DID, yeah. It’s a while ago now. They did a lot of work at every stage to get this album out, and I’m so glad they did. You’d think it would be a no-brainer with that line-up of talent, but such is the industry, broadly speaking, these days that it was a hard thing to pull together. But I’m glad they stuck with it because it is a beautiful collection.
P: It’s a very impressive project too, because there’s so much information contained in the package
D: And, you know, my own tune was a fair amount of work, but probably small compared to some others, so when you factor all that in, these sorts of collaborations or compilations, yeah, it’s a tremendous amount of effort and all around a very interesting subject and, you know, kind of a cause in a way, keeping not just Al Purdy’s own work but sort of the spirit of how, I think, he engaged with Canadian arts and particularly poetry.
P: What was the personal connection that drew you into the project?
D: Oh, I saw him read at the Red Dog Tavern in Peterborough. ‘Don’t know if you’ve ever been there?
P: Yup, I have.
D: It was the last place I expected ever to attend a poetry reading.
P: He was very convivial and very eager just to meet people and talk deep things.
D: Yeah. In fact, somehow my first impression was that was more of him off-stage than on-stage (chuckles). I mean, his delivery was memorable on-stage. He then sort of plowed through it, but then when he was on the floor he was just so friendly and fun.
P: And there’re so many other poets associated with him that are, you know, actually a part of this project because you can’t avoid running into them in the film and in the references that are made to them. It’s like there was a whole Canadian poetry scene at that time that was sort of analogous to our musical scene nowadays.
D: Yeah, and I guess in a way he was, certainly not the only one or necessarily central, but he was definitely some sort of a hub, right? And I’m sure that when someone like that is gone, then people are probably waiting for opportunities to re-emerge and re-connect, particularly around him
P: He was always telling stories, while he was reading, about some of these other poets, because they said some unique thing, or, like, Margaret Atwood was sitting on his lap and confided this or that, and he’d just bring it out and talk about it.
D: Yeah, the song that I contributed came from his autobiography and his prose writing.  It took me a long time to get to it, but his autobiography, Splinter in the Heart, and then in some of his collected writings, there’s one called No Other Country, and yeah, the storytelling is just as remarkable and sort of characteristic of what you get from his poetry; he was a fascinating character.
P: And the gorgeous booklet and film that come with the CD perpetuates his allusive way of combining his life with the poetry, as if he made his whole life into one creative act. I notice that there is no such booklet, or even notes, to provide any sort of context inside your new album, Starter Home.
 D: Only credits; no lyrics.
P: That’s a bit unusual these days.
D: Some people have sent me back transcriptions, and there’re some interesting interpretations out there (chuckles). Sometimes you have to just welcome them, actually.
P: So you are out touring supporting the record?
D: I just came back. I was in the States for two weeks.
P: How are things in the States?
D: You know, it’s actually really good to go down there. If you are worried about how the States has changed, because there certainly are things to worry about, so not to diminish those, but I think when you are just getting the news through media outlets, you are losing a personal connection. It was very nice to just see all the nice, interesting people down there and realize that so many of the good things are unchanged. And again, that’s not to say there aren’t things going on that we should all be aware of and concerned about, but in terms of the way in which I encounter it, which is music, in the venues and record shops where I spend most of my free time, it’s alive and well and recognizable in spite of some of the other developments
P: But the touchdown points in your song-writing largely come from Canadian attitudes, right? I’m thinking in terms of your community and your personal life. Or are you inventing things? I’m looking for a fiction/non-fiction balance here. Is that a fair question?
D: Yeah, of course it’s a fair question. I think I probably thought I was going to be a music collector, whatever that would be, as a career, before I ever considered being a musician. So I’ve been buying records in Toronto since I was, you know, in junior high.
P: We suffer from the same affliction.
D: Yeah, we could probably do a whole show about record stores that have closed, but in that respect, I think I come from an inspiration which is way outside of my own reality and so, in that way, fiction. But then I think a lot of my early influences, or at least how I responded to music when I was young, was very emotional. When I was very young, like Grade 5 and 6, I was a huge fan of John Lennon, for instance, who I think was a very emotional, personal writer.  So I think in that respect, that influenced how I understood how you can or should make a song. I don’t know if it’s fiction or non-fiction, but I certainly draw on my own feelings, and the situations that create them, so hopefully, at best, it’s a balance of the two. But I’m certainly not some sort of personal historian of my own love lives or my own experiences.
P: No, no. And we all appreciate that! (chuckles)
D: That would be excruciating! (chuckles)
P: We got quite a few of those songwriters already. You have a beautiful guitar style. Did you pull that out of your own consciousness, or did you emulate someone when you were coming up?
D: Thank you. Well, I did a lot of “off the CD,” pre-internet learning from Tony Rice. He had a huge effect.  That’s not to say I’ve become a Tony Rice scholar. I mean, I sort of took what my mechanical faculties could adapt from him … and also Norman Blake. I did actually play a lot of bluegrass in Toronto at the Cameron House and the Tranzac and places like that when I was starting out, and it gave me more than enough guitar to be a “folk player” (chuckles). I mean, not to over-state it, but just to say there’s a lot of demand for precision and speed and clarity and stuff, and I’m not a great student of anything, so I think I just went with it,  and it more than suits me for accompanying myself, you know?
P: Did you do any bluegrass recordings early on?
D: Oh yeah, on quite a small scale. We used to have a band. A friend of mine, Chuck Erlichman, and I had a show called Stanley Brothers: A Loving Tribute, which was just that. We did a whole bunch of Stanley Brothers songs, just the two of us and duo harmonies.  I actually did a recording, sort of in the middle of the albums that I’ve made. I made it over at The Woodshed, the Blue Rodeo Studio over in the east end here, and that was with mandolin, fiddle and double bass and so on, so it’s always close to me, and I still listen to a lot of it. After being down in the States, as we were saying, just this week, I came back with a lot of bluegrass records. It’s still very close to my heart.
P: You’re doing a country song at the Horseshoe for the Daily Bread Food Bank on Sunday. Will it be a new country tune or something from the old days?
D: Well actually I’ve become a huge fan of Ron Hynes. Having seen him perform, he’s just such an incredible songwriter, and my impression was that he was a lovely and obviously very complex guy. His nephew has written about his struggles, and there’s that side of his lore. But so much of what he did when he was with EMI is very country. I’m so immersed in country I can’t even tell sometimes if it’s a country song. But I asked them, “Is this country enough?” and it passed their scrutiny.
P: Do we even talk about singles off Starter Home?
D: Not for someone of my modest magnitude. One of the small things I like about the feedback is that people who have come back to me and enjoyed the album have told me their favourite song, and it’s been a really wide and disparate collection. I write song by song, and any cohesiveness to my albums comes after the fact. People say how they see the songs, and I say, “Wow. I wish I’d thought of that. There’s one song on the record, though, the last one, that I can’t really play alone on guitar. I’ve never made a fast or an upbeat tune, but “Shadows” is relatively that way. Last week, they asked if they could use it on the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast.
P: Oh cool!
D: I said, “Most definitely. Please Do.” (laughs). Yes it was very cool.
P: Better than a Juno.

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Corby's Orbit Expanding Into Blues & Roots Radio Universe

Starting next week, tune in at Blues & Roots Radio, now sharing the Orbital space with a new universe of music and ideas, wired profound to the global community. 

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Playlist For Corby's Orbit Show Of 11 October

Commissioner of Selection: Paul Corby 

( Brought to you by Remorse Control, Think Thank & The Graceful Debts)

5-7 p.m. Fridays online http://www.radioregent.com/ and at tunein.com .  

Guests: Fergus Hambleton & Jon Brooks


Click On Pictures To Enlarge 

Canadians in Asterisk’d RED. 


5:00 United Mistakes Of  America


* Noah Derksen ~ Land Of The Free ~ America, Dreaming NEW DISK

Lake Street Dive ~ Shame Shame Shame ~ Free Yourself Up ~ @ Danforth Music Hall Thursday 17 October

MUNA ~ Number One Fan ~ @ Mod Club Tuesday 15 October

Coco Montoya ~ Trouble ~ Coming In Hot NEW DISK ~ @ Uxbridge Music Hall 31 October

Donny Hathaway ~ Thank You Master For My Soul ~ Everything Is Everything

Lulu ~ The Man With The Golden Gun ~ The Best Of Bond...James Bond ~ TSO presents James Bond: The Music @ Roy Thompson Hall Tuesday & Wednesday 15 & 16 October

Tom Rush ~ Joni Mitchell's Urge For Going ~ Live At Symphony Hall ~ @ Hugh's Room Live Thursday 16 October

5:30 Hambleton's Campaign

* Fergus Hambleton ~ Walking In The Storm / Interview / I Want You Now / Life Of My Own ~ Neighbourhoods NEW DISK~ @ Hugh's Room Live 6 November for CD launch

Bob Marley ~ Thank You Lord ~ Keep On Moving  

6:00 Ornate Culminations

* Brenda Earle Stokes ~ Standing ~ Solo  Sessions vol. 1 NEW DISK

* Dayna Manning ~ You You You ~ Morning Light NEW DISK

* Jeremy Dutcher ~ Ogilon ~ Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa ~ @ Danforth Music Hall ~ Saturday

6:20 Brooks / No Resistance


* Jon Brooks ~ High Five / Interview / The Crying Of The Times #3 / What's Within Us ~ Moth Nor Rust ll NEW DISK ~ @ Intersteer October 19 and  Tribute to Nick Cave @ Redeemer Lutheran Church October 26 

6:45 Grace Is Not to The Swift But To Those Who Endure

* Harley Card ~ Grace ~ The Greatest Invention ~ @ Sapori Sunday / Toronto Music Listings

* Ray Montford ~ Mystery To Me ~ Share My Sky NEW DISK ~ @ Hugh's Room Live Saturday & on Corby's Orbit next Friday 

Byron Cage feat. Mumen "Mookie" Ngenge ~ Gratitude ~ Memoirs











Saturday, October 5, 2019

Playlist For Corby's Orbit Show of 4 October with Wolf Den

                           

Commissioner of Selection: Paul Corby 

( Brought to you by Renewal Ovations, Upgradients & Feel Alignments

5-7 p.m. Fridays online http://www.radioregent.com/ and at tunein.com .  

Guests: Troy Junker & Thea May of Wolf Den


Click On Pictures To Enlarge 

Canadians in Asterisk’d RED. 


5:00 Awe-begotten

* David Francey ~ A Star Above ~ So Say We All ~ @ Hugh's Room Live Sunday

* Jon Brooks ~ Safer Days ~ Moth Nor Rust ll NEW DISK ~ on Corby's Orbit next Friday 

Frank Turner ~ Out Of Breath ~ Positive Songs For Negative People ~ @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre Thursday 10 October

Steely Dan ~ Brain Tap Fever ~ Yellow Peril ~ Pretzel Logic @ The Linsmore Tavern tonight

5:20 Gnarly Rando
Lord Huron ~ The Man Who Lived Forever ~ Lonesome Dreams ~ @ Budweiser Stage Tuesday 8 October

Joel Plaskett ~ Down By The Khyber ~ Down By The Khyber ~ @ Danforth Music Hall with Thrush Hermit tonight

Crosby Stills & Nash ~ Teach Your Children ~ No Nukes ~ David Crosby @ 918 Bathurst Saturday / Graham Nash @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre Tuesday 8 November (coincidence?)

DJ Khaled feat. Post Malone ~ Celebrate ~ Father Of Asahd ~ Post Malone @ ACC tonight

Dirty Dishes ~ Lyin' In The Ground ~ In Sink NEW DISK

5:40 Deaths In The Family

Tosca Tango Orchestra ~ Pelo Negro ~ Waking Life sdtrk.

Jessye Norman 
 (September 15, 1945 – September 30, 2019) ~ Love Is Here To Stay ~ Classics

Larry Willis (20 December 1942 - 29. September 2019) ~ Poppa Nat ~ The Big Push (High Note 2005)


6:00 Bangin' Off Riffs


* Jaron Freeman-Fox ~ The Off Set ~ Manic Almanac / Slow Mobius ~ @ Tranzac Sunday 3 p.m. for ALPHA School Fundraiser

* Wolf Den ~ Interview with Troy Junker & Thea May ~ So Close ~ NEW SINGLE
https://twitter.com/WolfDenMusic1

* Jerome Godboo ~ Why Don't You Love Me? ~ Sanctuary ~ @ The Rex Saturday 3:30 pm

* Emily Burgess ~ Arrested ~ Are We In Love? ~ @ Alleycatz Sunday with Jesse Whitely 4-7 p.m.

Rick Estrin & The Nightcats ~ Resentment File ~ Contemporary NEW DISK  

6:20 Archivals & Departures


Joe Tex ~ I Just Can't Take It ~ Strictly Soul 

Black Keys ~ The Year In Review ~ Turn Blue ~ @ Scotiabank Arena

Betty Everett ~ It's In His Kiss ~ Strictly Soul

Keely Smith ~ Smoke Gets In Your Eyes ~ Be My Love 

6:40 Lyrics By Robert Hunter  (June 23, 1941 – September 23, 2019) 

Heavy As Heaven ~ Friend Of The Devil ~ Original Bones (Dysart 1972)

The Grateful Dead ~ Ship Of Fools ~ From The Mars Hotel 

* Andy Ballantyne ~ Gordian Knot / Ishtar Fan ~ Play On Words NEW DISK / Toronto Music Listings

* Charlotte Cornfield ~ Balladeer ~ The Shape Of Your Name ~ @ The Mod Club Thursday 10 October