Alan Skeoch

Month: July 2022

  • EPISODE 620 “AIN’T NO SUNSHINE NOW SHE’S GONE” at Benares July 29, 2022, the Midnight Hour band

    EPISODE 620    ‘AIN’T NO SUNSHINE NOW SHE’S GONE”…the Midnight Hour band at Benares


    alan skeoch
    july 30, 2022

    I WAS LATE.

    “ALAN, you missed Midnight Hour and three other great R and B songs.”
    “Had to get camera battery damnit.
    “the guys are great.   Can we dance?”
    “Alone?”
    “Ain’t no sunshine ….when they’re gone Alan”
    “This band looks like the rebirth of the Blues Brothers.”
    “Loved them.”
    “Midnight Hour lyrics are very suggestive, you know.”






    MIDNIGHT HOUR

    I’m gonna wait ’til the midnight hour
    That’s when my love come tumbling down
    I’m gonna wait ’til the midnight hour
    When there’s no one else around
    I’m gonna take you, girl, and hold you
    And do all things I told you, in the midnight hour



    Another ‘midnight’ song…but not part of this evening’s selections.   Could be next year.

    MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

    Well, you wake up in the mornin’
    You hear the work bell ring
    And they march you to the table
    You see the same old thing
    Ain’t no food upon the table
    And no pork up in the pan
    But you better not complain, boy
    You get in trouble with the man
    Let the Midnight Special shine a light on me
    Let the Midnight Special shine a light on me
    Let the Midnight Special shine a light on me
    Let the Midnight Special shine an ever-lovin’ light on me




    EVERYBODY NEEDS SOMEBODY

    Everybody needs somebody
    Everybody needs somebody to love (everybody)
    Someone to love (needs somebody)
    Sweetheart to miss (everybody)
    Sugar to kiss (needs somebody)

    JANE JANE JANE

    Woah Jane you’re playin’ a game
    But why I don’t see
    Jane you’re playin’ for fun
    But I play for keeps, yes I do
    (Jane, Jane, Jane)
    That’s a game on me, yeah
    (Jane, Jane, Jane)
    So plain to see
    (Jane, Jane, Jane)
    Janie, Janie, Janie, Janie, Janie
    (Jane, Jane, Jane)
    Why you foolin’ with me, me, me
    (Jane, Jane, Jane)
    (Jane, Jane, Jane)
    (Jane, Jane, Jane)
    (Jane, Jane, Jane)


    MIDNIGHT HOUR

    I’m gonna wait ’til the midnight hour
    That’s when my love come tumbling down
    I’m gonna wait ’til the midnight hour
    When there’s no one else around
    I’m gonna take you, girl, and hold you
    And do all things I told you, in the midnight hour





    AIN’T NO SUNSHINE WHEN SHE’S GONE
    Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
    It’s not warm when she’s away
    Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
    And she’s always gone too long
    Anytime she’s goes away
    Wonder this time where she’s gone
    Wonder if she’s gone to stay
    Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
    And this house just ain’t no home
    Anytime she goes away






    BENARES front porch makes me feel I am privileged to have a special concert just
    for my friends on a summer evening.  Perhaps close to one hundred people arrived
    July 29, 2022 to hear the Midnight Hour rhythm and blues band bring back memories of
    Ray Charles, the Blues Brothers, Wilson Picket…others.  Listeners will correct me
    because the band did not play Midnight Special but rather play the sexy Midnight
    Hour.  Nor did they play Georgia on my Mind, the Ray Charles R and B favourite.
    The band only had a two hour window at Benares…wish it was more.  I kept hollering
    Midnight Hour! in the hope they would do an encore.  I did hear the song as I hustled 
    across the Benares field with my camera charged and ready.

    Perhaps the most powerful of their songs was a rendition of  ‘Ain’t Know Sunshine when she’s Gone’…a song
    that really hurts.  As Dean Fulton, lead singer shows below.


    WHO WAS RAY CHARLES?


    Who Was Ray Charles?

    Ray Charles was a legendary musician who pioneered the genre of soul music during the 1950s. Often called the “Father of Soul,” Charles combined blues, gospel and jazz to create groundbreaking hits such as “Unchain My Heart,” “Hit the Road Jack” and “Georgia on My Mind.” He died in 2004, leaving a lasting impression on contemporary music.

    Early Life

    Ray Charles Robinson was born on September 23, 1930, in Albany, Georgia. His father, a mechanic, and his mother, a sharecropper, moved the family to Greenville, Florida when he was an infant. One of the most traumatic events of his childhood was witnessing the drowning death of his younger brother.

    Soon after his brother’s death, Charles gradually began to lose his sight. He was blind by the age of 7, and his mother sent him to a state-sponsored school, the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind in St. Augustine, Florida — where he learned to read, write and arrange music in Braille. He also learned to play piano, organ, sax, clarinet and trumpet. The breadth of his musical interests ranged widely, from gospel to country, to blues.

    GEORGIA  ON MY MIND

    Georgia, Georgia
    The whole day through (the whole day through)
    Just an old sweet song
    Keeps Georgia on my mind (Georgia on my mind)
    I said Georgia
    Georgia
    A song of you (a song of you)
    Comes as sweet and clear
    As moonlight through the pines
    Other arms reach out to me
    Other eyes smile tenderly
    Still in peaceful dreams I see
    The road leads back to you
    I said Georgia
    Oh Georgia, no peace I find (no peace I find)
    Just an old sweet song
    Keeps Georgia on my mind (Georgia on my mind)


  • EPISODE 620 FOUR STRONG WINDS… ALBERTA IN SUMMER OF 2022 WHEN JACK BECAME PRIVATE JACKSON


    EPISODE 620   FOUR STRONG WINDS… ALBERTA IN SUMMER OF 2022 WHEN JACK BECAME PRIVATE JACKSON

    alan skeoch
    July 2022

    THIS STORY IS BOTH PERSONAL AND UNIVERSAL…DON’T REJECT IT …setting is Alberta in summer 2022.


    THE MUSIC KEPT COMING aT ME….”GUESS I’L GO OUT TO ALBERTA, WEATHER’S GOOD THERE IN  THE FALL”

    I still sing the song to myself at times…as do most Canadians of  certain age in 1961…and today in 2022 it still resonates. (alan skeoch
    Wish you could play the song when you see these pictures.)

    (Four Strong Winds was written in or around 1961 by Ian Tyson.

    According to Tyson, he was in a bar listening to Bob Dylan sing. He thought, “I can do that”, took out his guitar and started “fooling around”.

    In half an hour he had written what has been called the greatest Canadian song of all time.)



    The words

    Chorus

    Four strong winds that blow lonely, seven seas that run high
    All those things that don’t change come what may
    For our good times are all gone and I’m bound for movin’ on
    I’ll look for you if I’m ever back this way

    Guess I’ll go out to Alberta, weather’s good there in the fall
    Got some friends that I can go to workin’ for
    Still I wish you’d change your mind if I asked you one more time
    But we’ve been through that a hundred times before

    Chorus

    If I get there before the snow flies and things are goin’ good
    You could meet me if I sent you down the fare
    But by then it would be winter, not too much for you to do
    And the winds sure do blow cold way out there





    NOTE: THIS IS REALLY AN IMPRESSION OF CANADA….NICE PLACE TO LIVE, RIGHT?


    EDMONTON ALBERTA


    Jackson’s army friends…waving once they got  a look at Molly in pink dress.  Find her.


    Giant Hogweed GOT here before we did.   The park guide had never heard of it.  Someone will get hurt for sure.


    You may wonder how 40 to 70 buffalo escaped capture.  they can be invisible…tae a look at picture  above. There is a buffalo there….just a
    few yards away.  Revealed when photo shopped.


    “GUESS I’LL GO OU TO ALBERTA
    WEATHER’S GOOD THERE IN THE FALL
    GOT SOME FRIENDS OUT THERE…”

  • EPISODE 619 “FISHY POETRY!”…JOHN MORTON GETS A GREAT IDEA

    EPISODE 619    “FISHY POETRY!”…JOHN MORTON GETS A GREAT IDEA


    alan skeoch
    July  27, 2022

    Note: These are not John Morton’s exact words but they are close.

    “Anne! I just got  great idea…FISHY POETRY!”
    “John must you always be daft…spouting nonsense.”
    “Not so crazy.”
    “Out with it then”
    “Let’s have Al and Marjorie over for a fish dinner and poetry reading.”
    “Do they like fish.”
    “I checked…they are omnivorous.”
    “John, I think you just want to show off your cooking skills”
    “Mussels, salmon, lobster and clams”

    “How does poetry fit into this dinner?”
    “We will ask them to bring two short poems that they must
    read to us after dinner….short poems, really short.”
    “Why short?
    “Because they also must explain why those two short poems were chosen…
    and that will take more time than the readings.”
    “What about us? “
    “We will do the same.”

    Well. the event was a grand success.  John put on an apron and chefs hat…boiled
    up the muscles and fried the fish, stuffed the lobster, put one big clam on each plate.
    While we all talked with the echoes of our words trailing through the grand old
    mansion like house in west Toronto.  The place was vaguely familiar.

    “John, my dentist lived near here when I was a kid.  I named him Dr. Murder
    which was a very unkind thing to do.  Kids do those things.  His real name
    was Dr. Murta and he was a nice old man who even cancelled his appointments
    and asked me to show slides of my adventures as a miner in Ireland.  How many
    doctors would do that?  I think this was his house back then.”
    (truth be told Dr. Murder’s place was two doors north)

    Conversation rolled off our tongues like water off a lobsters foot.  Anne  is the
    daughter of military parents.   Has seen much of the known world.  John is an
    historian who taught st my old high school, Humberside Colleiate.  There
    was no place for lulls in the conversation.  We all walked on common ground.
    Our grandson, Jack, had just joined the regular army and we were flying 
    to Edmonton to celebrate his success as a Private.  Anne understood that
    while many Canadians would not.

    “Time for poetry!” announced John.  And so the evening changed
    direction.  With each poem came a new directions.  Some poems were
    serious, some political, some naively charming, some close to doggerel.
    All read or spouted from memory.

    We were all educated in days when rote memory was common. So some
    poems were engraved firmly in the twists and turns of our brains.



    Marjorie read and sang and illustrated “The Fox that Went a Hunting”. a child’s storybook semi poem that she loved
    reading to our boys when they were small.   Touching.  We both spent some time practising our
    poetry selections.   As did John and Anne and  pair of Irish friends whose choices brought my days
    miining in Ireland into clear focus   The Irish have never been short of words.



    My choice

    “If you keep your nose to the grindstone rough
    and hold it down there long enough
    In time you’ll say there’s no such thing
    As babbling brooks and birds that sing.”

    Edna Jacques

    Why chosen?

    My grandmother had serious Parkinson’s disease that made her body shake
    but she never felt sorry for herself and remained an optimist in all she ever
    did.  When I was a young man I worked in remote places all around the world
    and always got letters from Grandma Freeman written with a very shaky hand

     Writing was very difficult for her but she did it all the same.


    The Freemans were poor eking out a slim living on a 25 acre stone clad farm.
    They kept  a side of beef hanging in the dirt floor cellar which they called the dairy.
    I always slathered these slices of cold beef with Worcestershire sauce to kill both
    appearance and taste.  Grandma always said “Alan loves Worcestrer sauce”
    which was true.  She may have known the real reason.  I loved her and granddad
    and made an effort to visit as often as possible even by bicycle or by thumb.
    She cut out the poems of Edna Jacques from the Toronto Star and included these
    gems in her notes to me in godforsaken places.

    My second choice was the old chestnut poem Daffodils by William Wordsworth.
    Everyone helped me along because everyone there knew the poem by heart
    as we were all of that age when rote memory was common.  My reason for
    choosing Daffodils was not what might be expected.  That poem was the only
    thing my father remembered from his Grade 8 education.  He only servived
    a few months in hight school before he was sent home to get his father.
    Dad did not go home.  He continued west to Saskatchewan from Fergus, Ontario
    and joined the working class of the 1920’s as a tire builder.  He loved life and
    horse racing.  Why was he thrown out of school?   There was a good reason which
    I put down to adolescent exuberance which, when I taught high school, was
    easy to forgive. I  Never sent a kid home nor did I ever send a student to
    the office because he or she told me to Fuck Off.  Instead I thought of Dad.

    The reason dad was sent home to get his father??  I will not tell you unless you invite me to a poetry reading as
    did Anne and John Morton.   

    “I wandered lonely as a cloud
    that floats on high over vales and hills

    When all at once I saw a crowd

    A host of golden daffodils.”
      (Wordsworth 1802)

    alan skeoch
    July 15, 2022

    William Wordsworth, Daffodils 1802

    page1image3012355456 page1image3012355744 page1image3012356288 page1image3012356480

  • EPISODE 619 DID YOU EVER WONDER “WHY ONTARIO BARNS HAD WHEELS?

    EPISODE 619    DID YOU EVER WONDER “WHY ONTARIO BARNS HAD WHEELS?”


    alan skeoch
    july 2022

    Most Ontario barns also had wheels high up on the high beams.  Why ?
    This was time when barns also used teams of horses , lots of long ropes,  pulleys attached 
    to the floor and lots of two and three pronged forks.  About now, end of July, those wheels were moving
    as were the horses, ropes and pulleys….and the pitch forks..   Why?

  • Fwd: EPISODE 617 A HOSTA GARDEN IN A FOREST … WITH CURIOSITIES JULY 26,2022



    Begin forwarded message:


    From: ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>
    Subject: EPISODE 617 A HOSTA GARDEN IN A FOREST … WITH CURIOSITIES JULY 26,2022
    Date: July 26, 2022 at 1:23:14 PM EDT


    episode 617   JANE’S HOSTA GARDEN IN SUMMER TIME…WITH FOLK ART ACCENTS,  JULY 27,2022



    THIS is Jane….and you are about to see her garden…she loves HOSTA PLANTS, BIRD HOUSES, SHAPELY ROCKS AND SHADE


    EPISODE 617   A HOSTA GARDEN IN SUMMER TIME….WITH FOLK ART ACCENTS

    alan skeoch
    July 26, 2022



    This was the key clue …. “Find a Gardener”, was the task…note nails.


    Once upon a time this garden was part of a climax forest.  Jane has kept the forest in mind
    as she placed mored than 150 Hosta plants beneath the spreading foliage of  ancient oaks and
    maples.

    Find the gardener. Actually they are all gardeners although only one, Jane, has green toenails.  This is her garden.