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There's a slightly tattered handbill pinned to a bulletin
board in this scribe's hole-in-the-wall office that states it
came from Toronto's Bamboo Club on Queen Street West back in
April of 1986. It hangs there surrounded by other pieces of
music memorabilia, and every now and again the handbill can
momentarily transport this journalist back to a week that was
filled with some extraordinary musical moments.
Prairie Oyster is a name that appears on the handbill a couple
of times over the six frames marking that entire week of great,
live music that was rooted in the traditions of country, blues,
bluegrass, r&b and folk. The week was put together as a celebration
of the tenth birthday of an independent label out of Edmonton
called Stony Plain, which incidentally was distributed by BMG
back then.
The Oysters, who were hometown favourites, had just signed
a distribution deal with the label for their debut album, Oyster
Tracks. As a result, the band was a frontline act in the six-day
bash that featured performances from a great cast that would
bounce between The Bamboo and The Horseshoe Tavern just up the
street. Doug Sahm of Sir Douglas Quintet and Texas Tornados
fame hooked up with Amos Garrett and Gene Taylor as the Formerly
Brothers for the first time and that team levelled both clubs.
The incredible jazzgrass flatpicking ace Tony Rice brought his
acoustic quartet to the Bamboo on a bill with The Dixie Flyers
while up the street Johnny Copeland rocked blues hounds at the
'Shoe. The Persuasions, Bob Carpenter, Sylvia Tyson, Mendelson
Joe, Roy Forbes and Mark Haines and The Zippers rounded out
the impressive bill. Along with Sahm, Taylor and Garrett, it
was Prairie Oyster's week, as set after the set the band would
confidently knock off batches of tunes that were steeped in
tradition yet conceived and delivered with a great deal of originality.
These people were serious players who sang with conviction and
soul, played with authority and were, on every level, sincere
to boot.
Sahm was knocked on his skinny Texas backside by the band
and the handful of us western Canadians who had come out for
the party were wondering how a band this hot could have remained
a secret to the rest of the country for so long. Although in
hindsight, some of us had an inkling Russell deCarle, Joan Besen,
Keith Glass, John P. Allen and Dennis Delorme were the real
deal, thanks to an infectious honky-tonk tune called Juke Joint
Johnny that had been released a couple of years earlier as an
independent single. It had grabbed the attention of a few country
programmers on the prairies. That week in April '86 was like
a launching pad of sorts for Prairie Oyster. Not long afterward
it was into the van, heading down the highways of this nation
taking their tunes and energetic stage show, at least by country
standards, to clubs, folk and country music festivals, campus
pubs or concert halls, opening dates for everyone from Tanya
Tucker to Carlene Carter.
So here it is fourteen years later, almost to the week, and
the trail that has been blazed to date, and at times been left
blazing, has led to this, a greatest hits disc comprised of
fourteen tunes. Two of the tunes, Will I Do ('Til The Real Thing
Comes Along) and Man In The Moon, were on that first album which
set a high standard for the band. Not only did the members live
up to that standard, but as it should be in the course of a
maturing group, it was continually surpassed in many ways. What
was, and remains so immediately apparent about Prairie Oyster
while listening to this batch of original tunes that became
hits, is that the band covers so much musical territory. The
members of this band have done that while retaining a distinctive
and appealing sound over a time frame, particularly the last
eight years, when country music has largely been diluted and
stripped of its most vital components. Is there a more well-rounded
grouping of great grooves, feels and tempos than is found on
this set of songs? Lyrically, tunes make their point or dish
out sentiments and story lines succinctly and with considerable
imagination. Those lyrics are built around either great hooks,
melody lines or choruses that are pretty hard to shake once
you've been left alone with them. One thing that has set this
team apart from the pack is that as writers Besen, Glass and
deCarle have never fallen into that trap of plagiarizing themselves.
The songs that made this final selection were culled from almost
two dozen singles and each one has its own identity.
This collection is proof positive Prairie Oyster really stirs
the pot. A hardcore country ballad, some Cajun spice, some country
shuffles, some swing-injected and honky-tonk feels, rockabilly
and vintage rock 'n' roll-flavoured pieces fall together in
a seamless manner. Some grab our immediate attention thanks
to hypnotic, rhythmic instrumental slaps while others are more
seductive and effectively stark in their arrangements.
Still others just out and out embrace listeners with energetic,
goodtime grooves that find the entire crew firing on all cylinders.
To the credit of all the Oysters, they, in relatively short
order, realised what everyone's individual strengths were. After
the first record, deCarle became 'the voice' in the band, while
Besen and Glass kept on turning out these great vehicles for
deCarle's distinctive and flexible instrument. With Johnny Allen
and Dennis Delorme, the band has been armed with two more players
who are equally adept at building the foundation of a tune,
as they are punctuating the end of a verse with a shot of fiddle
or pedal steel guitar, or stoking the instrumental fire with
a sizzling solo.
Over the years, band members have been very particular about
whom they've collaborated with, and the results of such creative
unions have been fruitful. Besen and Newfoundland's finest tunesmith
Ron Hynes co-wrote Black- Eyed Susan, which dealt with the sensitive
issue of spousal abuse. Besen framed the song with a stunning,
chamber orchestra-like arrangement, and, with deCarle's narrative-like
reading of the powerful lyrics, radio accepted the song. Willie
P. Bennett and deCarle also combined to put a couple of shots
over the centre-field fence. Their first collaborative effort
was the hit Goodbye, So Long, Hello which appeared on 1990's
Different Kind of Fire, and six years later the two followed
that up with One Way Track for the Blue Plate Special disc.
Both songs put a muscular grip on audiences thanks to very deep
grooves, and on the latter, Glass outdid himself as he added
a propelling elasticity to the arrangement via some rivetting
guitar playing that sounds as if he was playing bailing wire
through a reverb unit. Most recently there was Randy Bachman's
killer cameo on Canadian Sunrise which appeared on the What
is thIs Country? album from '98.
Through the years Prairie Oyster has also teamed with a number
of talented producers including Josh Leo and Richard Bennett,
Steve Berlin of Los Lobos fame and Steve Fishell, the onetime
member of Emmylou Harris's Hot Band. Every member of the band
recognises that these producers taught the group something valuable
during the recording process, helping them bring out certain
nuances of the Oyster sound. These days however the band is
just as comfortable and confident calling all the shots in the
studio.
Two songs that appear here, Man In The Moon and Glass' The
Last Time I'll Feel Blue, were cut specifically for this collection.
Written by Chris Whiteley, Man In The Moon first appeared on
Oyster Tracks and this revamped version features Whiteley, his
son Dan and the voice of daughter Jenny, while The Last Time
I'll Feel Blue is a tune that has been in the Prairie Oyster
repertoire for years now. There's a real confidence in the band
these days and it felt great producing these two songs on our
own, says deCarle who also admitted it wasn't an easy chore
nailing down which tunes would make the final cut for this set.
Just prior to the release of this album, the band, in a full-circle
sort of move headed back down to Toronto's Queen Street and
played the Horseshoe for the first time in a number of years.
Over the course of two nights, deCarle, Glass, Besen, Allen,
Delorme and drummer Charlie Cooley peeled off fifteen years
of recorded works, these hits, and album tracks of equal merit,
for the faithful. I guess what blew me away was that over the
course of two-and-a-half hours on stage, we only played two
or three songs we didn't write. Plus it's a different but great
chemistry in the band right now. There's more energy than ever
before. That blows me away, says the singer and bassist who
then boldly stated, I really believe these Horseshoe shows were
as good as any we've ever played in our lives. Really it shouldn't
come as a surprise - deCarle isn't boasting - as great bands
and artists are supposed to get better with age. Standing in
the Bamboo and Horseshoe clubs all those years ago and soaking
up the sounds of Prairie Oyster for the first time, it really
was a no-brainer in realising this was not only a great band
but one with a great future. What is so refreshing is that this
band has accomplished so much to date, not by breaking the rules,
but by simply playing by their own rules.
Doug Sahm, rest his soul, was one of those unique and rare
artists who helped write the book on marching to one's own beat
while serving up sounds with substance, soul, and staying power.
I can still see him smiling in the Bamboo as he immediately
recognised he had found some Canadian soul mates in the form
of Prairie Oyster in April of '86. Prairie Oyster is also a
rare and unique musical entity and the bottom line is that this
music speaks for itself. One suspects it will do so for many
years to come.
Peter North,
Roots Music Journalist,
Edmonton, Alberta,
April 4, 2000
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