It’s a running joke that some of the most important figures in Americana, like The Band and Neil Young, are actually Canadian. Toronto’s Great Lake Swimmers, led by Tony Dekker, are one of the best groups working today in the Great White North’s folk and roots music traditions. Their performance at Jammin Java on Monday, with group member Colleen Brown opening, was full of lovely, atmospheric songs.
Dekker paid tribute to his Canadian heritage by playing “Carefree Highway” by the late, great Gordon Lightfoot. He also wished everyone a happy Canadian Thanksgiving, which fell on that day. Having the holiday on a Monday makes way more sense than ours falling on a Thursday, leading to a workday on Friday where nothing gets done because most people take it off. But a lot of things about Canada make more sense. Don’t get me started!
GLS opened with “Still.” Tony promised that they wouldn’t play their latest album, last year’s Caught Light, in its entirety and in track order, but conceded that the next song, “One More Dance Around the Sun,” is the first song on the album, that “Wrong, Wrong, Wrong,” is the second, and “Waiting Around For You to Come Around,” which is about “waiting around for something that’s never going to show up,” is the third.
The set continued with “Everything Is Moving So Fast” and “Alone But Not Alone.” The title track of Caught Light, Tony said, was inspired by his experiences growing up on his family’s farm in southern Ontario. The farm was close to an airport, and skydivers who were blown off course would sometimes land there.
Watch Great Lakes Swimmers perform “Caught Light” live on YouTube:
After “The Great Exhale,” Tony played “Your Rocky Spine” solo. Colleen rejoined to him duet on “Riverine,” then the full band played “Changing Colors.” Colleen told their banjo joke: “Why are there no banjos on Star Trek? Because it’s a utopian future.” I’m the target demographic for this joke: my partner and I are going to see LeVar Burton next month. They rounded out the set with “Running Out of Time,” finishing with “A Distant Star.” For their encore, they played “Moving Pictures, Silent Films,” which Tony said is one of the first songs he wrote when he started getting serious about his songwriting.
Colleen Brown played a lovely opening set, beginning with “Can’t Wrap My Heart Around It,” which she wrote for her rock band, Major Love. Colleen lives in Edmonton — she was born in the small Alberta town of Lloydminster — and she gave a shoutout to that city’s annual folk festival.
Watch Colleen Brown perform “I Can’t Wrap My Heart Around It” live fronting her band Major Love for CBC Music on YouTube:
Her parents snowbird near Phoenix — something that appeals to me more each year with my allergies — which inspired “Tumbleweed.” While Colleen “mostly writes breakup songs,” she wrote “As The Crow Flies” imagining a good, healthy relationship. During a songwriting retreat in Banff (I resisted urge to ask, “Isn’t that where Nightcrawler goes when he teleports?”) she wrote “Happy On My Own.” It’s about being single and worrying about never finding someone. It took me a long time to find a partner, but the longer the rainbow, the bigger the pot of gold on the other side.
Colleen shared a new song she’d never played live, then mentioned her compilation, Golden Girl, with songs from 2012-2022. She thought she might be done with recording new material, but she received a grant from the Alberta Arts Council and will be making a new album. She also mentioned the upcoming separation referendum to determine whether the province will secede from Canada. She finished her set with her own “Directions” and a cover of Lucinda Williams’s “Jackson.”
Colleen’s vocals have been compared to Joni, and I also hear a strong similarity to Courtney Marie Andrews (who’s received the same comparisons). I thoroughly enjoyed both her set and GLS’s. I’ve wanted to see them for a while, and was delighted they’re making this swing south of the border. The songs were absolutely gorgeous.
