Rollin' On Canadian Highway With BTO Rockers...

SONGS I LOVE:

Thanks to my wonderful Canadian buddy Rob M. for the songs I've learnt and the ride along the scenic Canadian Highway:

My own knowledge of heavy metal or rock bands is hardly enough for me to write any decent posting on the genre. But I truly appreciate my first ever heavies when I listened to Deep Purple in the 70s and except for a few songs like Smoke On The Water, Highway Star and Black Night the interest stopped there because I could not take too much of the cacophony and extremely high decibels emanating from both the powerfully voiced singers and their amplified instruments. It was only by chance that I listened to this genre of music again.

On a nostalgia trip in the mid-nineties I returned to Vancouver, Canada and travelled from there to Winnipeg in a car. A really wonderful Winnipegian friend (image 2) came all the way from his home town, drove West to B.C. for two days, picked me up from the city in his purple, 1995 two door sports Chevvy Cavalier and we drove back East for the next 8 days, seeing sights across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskachewan, Manitoba and hearing songs by *BTO (image 5, 6) and other 60s to 70s rockers from his car-radio.

We met many friendly bikers along the way (image 4), bears catching trout on the Canadian rivers, deer that walk the roads, camouflaged white goats amidst the pale hills and sometimes soaring eagles in the skies. In the background, the rugged mountains, hush pines and glacial plains (image 1) were a bonus.

"You seem to love loud music?" I asked on the second day of our journey.

"To keep me awake Andy," he replied. "You don't wanna drive the car since you guys drive on the wrong side of the road in Singapore and I have to keep myself awake all the time. Besides, BTO music is truckers' music and drivers keep themselves awake and entertained with heavy metal and CBRadio."

I understood what he meant. It was hard for him to keep awake during the long and quiet drives (image 2), especially after lunch. I kept my mouth shut for the rest of the journey realising that if it weren't for my good friend I would have to suffer a bus trip that would take more days. But I always made sure he was awake and chatted with him when the player was switched off.

The baptism of gutter guitar filled me with fire and after some driving practice I took over Rob's car on the fourth day. I learnt a few songs on the road like, Taking Care Of Business, Roll On Down The Highway, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, Take It Like A Man, Let It Ride, a favourite American Woman and other rock hits.

I also realised that the growling guitars and gruff grinding of voices from heavy rock kept me awake while we were on the long Canadian roads from two o'clock in the afternoon, sometimes under a blazing Canadian sun in the middle of June. But when the eyes just would not open, we would shade under a large tree on a side road and take a cat nap.

I was sad, not glad, when I had to leave Winnipeg again and missing the BTO stuff that I never got to collect. I am still learning about this genre of music. Anyone got any vinyls or CDs of truckers' music to spare?

*"Bachman–Turner Overdrive (frequently known as BTO) is a Canadian rock group from Winnipeg, Manitoba, that had a series of hit albums and singles in the 1970s, selling over 7 million albums in that decade alone. Their 1970s catalog included five Top 40 albums and six Top 40 singles.

The band has sold nearly 30 million albums worldwide, and has fans affectionately known as gearheads (derived from the band's gear-shaped logo). Many of their songs still receive play on FM classic rock stations (Wiki)."

Images 1, 2, 3, 4/original article: Andy Lim Collection.

Image 5, 6: You Tube and Google.

100 Country Stars n Legends For Easy Ridin'

When Victor Koo of FOYers Bloggers' Group wanted to meet me on the afternoon before National Day (8.8.2011) I thought he wanted to celebrate the occasion together. We did actually and had coffee n cake at a quaint roadside cafe near the Novena Church. But he also brought along a book (image) as a gift. In fact, this same gentleman introduced my blog to yesterday.sg and helped establish it somewhat. Thank you very much, Victor, for your kindness and friendship.

I learned much reading it and realized how the spurts of information, glossy photographs, sidebars, precious *nuggets about each star and a greatest-hits list make the book mighty informative but easy ridin'. Like reading a great blog on an iPad.

Legends of Country by Liz Mechem and Chris Carroll introduces the CW hit list of pop singers that helped put this genre of "music on the map and keep it there." From Roy Acuff, Bill Carlisle, Defore Bailey, Lefty Frizzell and Hank Thompson (I honestly haven't heard of them before) to familiar ones like Alabama, Chet Atkins, Gene Autry, Johnny Cash, Charlie Daniels, Merle Haggard, Barbara Mandrell, Jim Reeves, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Conway Twitty, Shania Twain and Elvis!

There are 100 mostly known names, all covering 160 pages of pioneers, storytellers, and musicians who had, "left their imprint on this unique art form." And like how the Introduction explained, "Country's all about using small stories to represent big themes, and using big themes to illuminate small moments", this huge publication tells a lot.

So much for the **book. Now the authors. Liz Mechem is a freelance writer and editor teaching fiction writing in New York City. Chris Carroll, her husband is a photographer whose work has appeared in many national magazines.

And this ain't no old dusty document! It's 4 years young and published by Dalmatian Press (Dalmatian Publishing Group, Atlanta, Georgia 30329), Copyright 2007. And I'm still browsing through.

Nuggets: 
1. "Barbara Mandrell was known as the Princess of Steel for her prowess on the steel guitar." 

2. "Sonny James became the first country artist in 1971 to record a program for a moon flight." 

3. Did you know that Floyd Tillman recorded, G. I. Blues before Elvis in 1941? Ah, but is it the same song? Interesting facts.

Again, thanks Victor for your present. More book-gift postings for Chun See, Yusnor Ef, Larry Lai, etc. in later weeks.

Image/Original article: Andy Lim Collection.