On Saturday night of Easter weekend about
25 people in Sooke ~ mostly members of the Sooke
Folk Music Society ~ experienced an intimate concert with
Canadian singer-songwriter Jon Brooks.

An essayist and master of his ‘pet’ guitar,
Brooks profiles himself as a thinker, writer, traveller
and ‘armchair theologian’ turned full-time songwriter
(in 2010). He is already touring all over North America
to small audiences of 20, mid-size of 200 (though he
calls that big), and “5,000 might be the biggest crowd
I’ll play to on any regular basis and that’s a festival
stage,” he said following the show that was held at
Sooke Baptist Church.

“I never thought I’d be playing in a Baptist
church,” he quipped during this part-talk, much-sung
performance that with a short intermission lasted
about two hours, and then expounded on the irony
and hypocrisy of a myriad Christian denominations
and the ‘scarring’ of people raised Catholic to which
at least one gasp was elicited from someone in the
back. Brooks believes in telling ‘the rude truth’ (a
phrase coined by Ralph Waldo Emerson). For him,
songwriting is an art form that – if it tells the harshest
truths with melodic accompaniment – will hit home
some important realizations about today’s modern
world. He quotes Gloria Steinem: “The truth will set
you free but it’ll piss you off first.”

Brooks is a sharp observer of what he calls
the “alleys” of life. Hear his lyric “…and in the alleys
and in love there is the truth” a few times and it will
sear deep. And so: “I’d like to start with your newspaper
– the underground press is the last bastion of
journalism today and also, in and of itself, a kind of
‘alley’. Like used bookstores, cemeteries, independent coffee shops
and art galleries – the soul of a place
may be found faster in such shadowy corners,” he
pontificated later on. “Something about ‘youngest
average age’ on Vancouver Island and yet no evidence of
economic growth in Sooke (Sooke Voice
News, Mar.29). That’s a bad marriage – at the very
least, it’s a daunting first impression and a song could
easily grow out of that fertile little statistic.” So Sooke
Voice News asks: “What is society’s sliding edge
nowadays?” and the singer-songwriter replies: “There
is a blindness to others that is more pronounced.”

Sooke has a “mythic quality” that is “crucial for a song setting”,
says the Ontario-born idea weaver. Thinking runs deep: “That there is truth in love
is impossible to prove and therefore (is) self-evident.”

And his commitment to his craft is strong:
“The greater the obviousness of the truth, the more it
needs to be sung! I can feel people’s cathartic reaction pulsing along with me during certain songs. A songwriter is only afforded so many opportunities to sing
‘the rude truth’. An audience that laughs with you will
follow you anywhere … but not until you’ve ingratiated
yourself to them through humour.”

Son of a one-time professional drummer , Jon
Brooks is his own ‘one man band’. There’s a warm,
melodic, full sound right from the opening beat. It’s
amazing to watch and hear melody, harmony and self styled percussion emerge from one guitar (he usually plays his 1995 Taylor 615 Jumbo made of spruce and
maple, now obedient to his every variant touch). Occasionally he pops the harmonica around his neck to
add that tonality by which to repeat a melodic line while
the audience absorbs the impact of his searing lyrics.

There’s the song about a war resister who
dismays that he was trained to kill, or the single mother
shopping in WalMart who “cannot not afford to do
what’s right”, or a song in which he laments how people may discover too late how small their problems
were in the big scheme of things. An observer of personal strife and a social critic, the 44-year-old seasoned performer tosses out zingers between his songs that
sit with you a while longer: “The lies, they hurt us. They
lie by omitting the real truth.” or ”Our heart has a dark
side; there is no darker place to hide than the beautiful
countryside.” And there is sweetness and surrender:
“Now that I’m older it’s mercy that I admire most,” he
concludes in one line.

In conversation he will tell you something that
is best taken in the context of aiming for a healthy psyche and more balanced society:
“Kids are too muchthe centre of everyone’s limited attention – the world
is too fascinated in an unhealthy way toward kids.”

Many of the song titles are terse and fierce:
Cage Fighter,Safer Days, and The Crying of the Times
but his CD’s wrap up with positive tunes: There is Only
Love and Because We’re Free. All of them performed
at much the same hypnotic pace.

CD sales after the show were brisk but autographs in CD covers were written after pause to comeup with a thoughtful annotation, to each new fan.

The tatooed artist is optimistic about a world
that could be better than it is. His lyrics are intended
“to inspire calmness and hope in those who’ve seen
evil and to terrify those who have not.”

The www.jonbrooks.ca website which is
heavily laden with reviews, commentaries and lists of
awards (at the Canadian Folk Music Awards in October 2012 Brooks received his third nomination in fiveyears for Songwriter of the Year), is headed up with
one of Jon’s most signature lyrics: “How can we hear
the stories of the people and yet we can’t hear the
crying of the times?”

Kudos to the Sooke Folk Music Society for organizing this concert.

http://folkawards.ca/awards-night/nominees/

The Smiling and Beautiful Countryside

Mercy

Hudson Girl

Mimico

Courage is the Curve of The Earth

The decision is for good reason.

“It’s sort of an illiterate request,” said Brooks. “My aim is to inspire. I’m not in the business of taking people away from themselves. That’s the role of pop music.”

Brooks said he writes music that takes people on the type of introspective journey so-called happy music could never conquer.

“An hour of pop music could take you away from your life and make you happy for a bit, but when the show is over, everyone goes home alone,” said Brooks. “I write music that takes people on a journey and asks them to look at themselves, so when everyone goes home, they have the feeling they are not alone in the world.”

Brooks is set to perform a house concert at the Blue Babes Guest House and Studio on Friday, Aug. 17, bringing his unique brand of music to the intimate venue, which holds about 20 people.

A folk singer-songwriter with four albums under his belt, Brooks says the industry is embarking on a dangerous course.

“The music business as it is, is run by 15-year-olds,” said Brooks. “These are the dark ages. The world for some reason doesn’t want us to be thoughtful. It pays people to shut up, so if it seems the folk singer has less of an audience, that’s why.”

Brooks said his South River house concert is one of only a handful of Northern Ontario performances he has ever played.

“You’re never a prophet at home, and Canada, whether she wants to admit it or not, is sort of culturally insecure,” said Brooks. “One thing that you can’t take away from Americans is their pride in their culture. Canadians like to wait for New York to say thumbs up, or London to say thumbs up first before they will get behind their artists. But that’s not always a bad thing. There’s a virtue to our cultural humility. It’s part of our charm.”

Toronto-based Brooks said that cultural humility is likely why he has a larger fan base in the state of Texas than on his home turf.

“The irony is, I write about Canada. But I think that is part of my success in the U.S. We’re always drawn to the exotic,” said Brooks.

To further support Brooks’ thoughts on the allure of the exotic, his opening act is a very talented Australian singer-songwriter.

Gina Horswood opened for Suzie Vinnick during the Blues Babes’ grand opening last month. The young singer gave a heartfelt performance of original music combined with her endearing humour on her trials and triumphs as a quasi-Canadian. Horswood is a fan favourite and is set to come back to Blues Babes for a full-length performance in the near future.

http://www.realpeoplesmusic.com/newsletters/OccasionalSummer12.pdf

• Pope, Orwell, Eliot, and Solzhenitsyn: Four requisite readings for the aspiring
songwriter today. An introductory look at how Essay On Criticism, Politics And The English Language, Tradition And The Individual Talent, and an excerpt from The Gulag Archipelago all inform what we do as songwriters.

• The Road. A practical discussion on 21st Century touring. The hows and how nots
to touring. Why touring is crucial, not just for reaching audiences, but for mining inspiration.

• Conversation With Death. Named after the classic Southern Appalachian dirge, this workshop could include all manner of songs focusing on death: murder ballads, last words, overcoming grief, essential ideas, hymns…and neither does the mood have to be singular: many murder ballads in folk tradition are light and ironically filled with humour.

• Occupy (insert location here)! The folk singer and the folk song tradition are inherently subversive. The folk song is the soundtrack to social change. We are here, first and foremost, as agents of justice and human improvement. Here is the workshop opportunity to unapologetically take pride in this sadly unfashionable idea.

• Moral Purpose Without Isms. Amid such polarized times, today’s songwriter of conscience must transcend ideology. We are not just here to mobilize the liberal class! We are essentially here to unite people, and spread empathy. Isms alienate and over simplify: the songwriter needs to be vigilante now more than ever.

• If I Had A Rocket Launcher. The pros and cons of protest, polemic, and prayer in songs, as well as the onstage banter between songs. Successful and unsuccessful examples will be offered and discussed from earlyfolk tradition to contemporary rap, ’90s grunge, ’60s revivalism, and British punk.

• Sing What You Want To Know, Not What You Know. Let’s dispel this tired old wisdom
that songwriters only are capable of writing ‘what they know and have lived. If we truly believed that, every songwriter would have only 5 songs to sing. Let’s take a look at appropriation of voice in song.

• The Pop Song Is Dead. Ironically titled, the idea of this talk/performance is that today, the folk song has a greater relevance to where we’re at than does the distraction typically afforded by the pop song. ‘Pop’ comes from suspiciously from above; ‘folk’ comes from below. Issues of class, power, and the distribution of wealth will be central in such a workshop.

• The Songwriters’ 3 Laws Of The Universe. Successful songwriters, whether they admit it or not, set rules for themselves. Neither an architect nor a songwriter construct a building or a song without a plan.

• Regrets, I’ve Had A Few. Sharing my embarrassing mistakes onstage and offstage along the ‘Camino of Song’ may save others some time and confidence.