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Folk singer bringing old-time tunes to old Longview

Mike Tod to play the Twin Cities Saloon on April 29 with a set list spanning centuries.
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Alberta folk musician Mike Tod will play the Twin Cities Saloon in Longview on April 29.

An Alberta folk musician is bringing his ancient repertoire to Longview next week.

Playing with his band at the Twin Cities Saloon on April 29, Mike Tod tugs at the threads of centuries with his new interpretations of old-time music.

“I personally consider it to be the richest genre out there, in terms of a musical landscape,” Tod said. “It’s a genre that has interesting fascinating characters in the song. 

“It’s very accurate or deep portrayals of landscapes or places, and then it touches on deep basic human emotions like love, loss, tragedy, jubilation and joy."

Those tunes, often imprinted at the dawn of sound recording, date back centuries.

“It’s music that was generally it was considered to be recorded at the dawn of the recording industry,” he said. “So stuff that was recorded in the 1920s and 1930s, but of course those songs were older than that; they had been shaped over generations, time and space. 

“Some songs travelled from across the ocean, and those are more like what’s been considered traditional music, songs without known authors. 

“We don’t know who wrote these lyrics, they’ve just been shaped over generations.” 

One such song, Blackest Crow, can be found on his latest self-titled LP, which dropped April 13. 

“The lyrics that we sing come from the Civil War, so that’s lyrics from the 1800s, but we can trace it back before that,” Tod said. “It goes back into Scotland, Northern England, and it goes under a bunch of different names and pops up in different places."

That particular song is one such example, belonging to a family of songs called Hicks’ Farewell

“It’s sometimes also called Turtle Dove, and people trace it back to the 1700s when there were these things called broadside pamphlets,” Tod explained. “They were given to or sold to workers like shepherds, horse handlers or milkmaids, and they would post these lyrics on the walls of their barns or stables to learn the song as they worked, so they call it a broadside ballad."

Tod puts his own mark on the music sheets of history, slowing the tempo and deepening the tones with his rasping, wistful vocals.

“A lot of people will play it as a waltz, but we played it in 4-4, and we gave it this wide, eerie sparse soundscape,” he said. 

“When I picture it in my mind, it's just looking out on waves on the ocean, birds fluttering, just expansive.”

Another deep cut on the album is Flowers of Edinburgh, and while the song has roots in Scotland, it was the performance under a different name by Quebec folk legend Jean Carignan that got its hooks into Tod.

“It’s a traditional fiddle tune, but I first came across it from the playing of Jean Carignan, and he played it under a French Canadian title La Ronfleuse Gobeil,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a wilder fiddle player in my life; he just combined traditional folk fiddle with classical violin. 

“The more I traced it back, the more I found it was actually a traditional tune of Scottish origin, which was really interesting, under the title The Flowers of Edinburgh.” 

Uncovering the musical geneology is more than just getting to the roots.

“A lot of times it’s like a tree: there’s a trunk, the roots, but then from there it branches, and from those branches there’s leaves, like ‘Oh Ramblin’ Jack Elliott sang this version, or Doc Watson sang that version, but you can trace it back," Tod said.

“My wife said in a different life I would probably be a good private detective or investigator."

Doors open at 5 p.m. and the show starts at 8 pm. Tickets can be found at showpass.com/mike-tod.

Note: The print edition story originally reflected a 5 p.m. start time based on information from the Twin Cities event page, however it has been edited to reflect the 8 p.m. start time found through Showpass.

 

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