C. R. Avery
I wish I could sit each of you down, individually, right here in my kitchen, and tell you about C.R. Avery… over coffee. If we could relax here at my kitchen table for five minutes, I’d tell you just enough. Just enough that when you got up to go on with your day, there’d be no chance of you missing his show at Glenn Gould Studio on Thursday, February 25.
I travel for a living, and I see a lot of acts in my travels. Last year I played 140 shows in three countries and nine provinces. And it’s only roughly every two or three years that I discover an artist who transforms my whole landscape and changes every rule. Who makes everything possible again. I first saw C.R. Avery in Ottawa at the end of 2008– with the very band he’s bringing to Glenn Gould Studio on February 25. And I haven’t been the same since.
I’m opening the Glenn Gould show with my Toronto band The Sundowners (Treasa Levasseur, David Baxter, Brian Kobayakawa), while C.R. is touring his way toward us right now from his home in East Vancouver. I think he’s in the mountains tonight. We jump around a lot in this business.
Case in point, two weeks ago Wednesday, I flew out to Nova Scotia to play the ‘In The Dead Of Winter’ festival in Halifax. My duo The Undesirables were playing Thursday night but I arrived a day early just to catch C.R.’s solo set on Wednesday night. Once again, he had all the oxygen in the room in his hand. Once again he broke my heart in fifty places, and gave it back to me better than it was. Once again, words bloomed in my head like narcotic Asian flowers and I was left absolutely intoxicated– and re-inspired to do what I do.
If you read the blurb about C.R. on the Roy Thomson Hall website, you’ll see what Tom Waits said about him. It was real simple: ‘blowin’ my mind…’ Tom Waits isn’t a man who gives many compliments, let alone quotes. But in this case it makes perfect sense. C.R. Avery embodies everything that inspired Tom Waits to be Tom Waits in the first place. C.R. Avery has the ability to make children of us all again. C.R. Avery is a phenomenon, and every Canadian should know that he’s ours. I could say more, but what I most hope is that you will get to experience him for yourself.
Oh, and I won’t let you down either. Promise.
Guest contributor Corin Raymond, is a Toronto-based musician and songwriter who will be performing tracks from his latest album “There Will Always Be A Small Time” when he supports C.R. Avery live at Glenn Gould Studio February 25
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