A couple of years later I was featured in a spread about the exciting Vancouver "underground" scene in Miss Chatelaine. This was my first national print coverage.

I also got a very detailed rejection letter from
CBC Television that year.
Go figure...

In 1977 I took off on a cross-country adventure, making it as far as Montreal before coming back to BC and settling in Kaslo, BC, a sweet little old mining town on the north arm of Kootenay Lake. I settled for the next year or so in a tumbledown log cabin with no electricity or running water. It was a great place to just recharge.

I picked up a jazz guitar instruction book by Mickey Baker, and set about learning some serious chords by the wood stove during the long winter days when the cabin was snowed in. Those chords sure came in handy later on.

In Kaslo I played at the Village Green, a fabulous hippie cafe run by Michael Guthrie, who instigated a lot of great concerts and the restoration of the historic Langham Theatre. I had great times with Mike and his family, exploring the back roads in his vintage milk truck and playing a lot of music together. One of the high points of my time in Kaslo was when Bruce Cockburn came to town and parked his camper truck in the driveway on one of his first visits to BC. His concert was amazing, and I still have the little slip of paper he used to write out the chords to "Barrelhouse."

I had met some great musicians in Alberta while hanging out there, played the Bow River Faire in Calgary with a pickup band
that included many of the finest players in Calgary (aka The Backline Orchestra) ,
and wound up gigging quite a bit in Banff and Lake Louise in the off season thanks to a chance meeting with
a wonderful character by the name of Chuck Tracy.

Chuck was a Fats Waller nut and a wonderful human being who taught me a lot about life and the guitar and the value of great tunes. His theme songs were Truckin' and Ain't Misbehavin', and I had cut my teeth on those old 78s as a child, so we had that (and the same sardonic sense of humour) in common. Being on the road with Chuck in his ramshackle wreck of a station wagon, with its overflowing ashtray and worn-out cassette deck, was something I wouldn't have missed for anything. Chuck left the planet a few years later, but he sure packed a heck of a lot of living into his short life. He is sadly missed by all who knew him, but we figure he's up there in blues heaven jamming with the greats.
[Unfortunately I had no camera in those days, so if anyone out there has
any snapshots of Chuck, please send me a copy.]