Stories from the Edge of Music #34: Your storyteller gets interviewed — now you’ll know what makes me tick!

Plus, a quote to think about, some recommended Substacks, and three video links by artists you may not have heard (yet)

A week ago, Karen Bliss, one of the few freelance music journalists still working in Canada, interviewed me as part of a series she writes for Canadian Music Week called Making Noise. 

I was planning to do a Substack this week on a handful of brilliant Canadian artists who quit music — why they left and what they’re doing now. That’ll come down the pike in a couple more weeks!

Meanwhile, courtesy of Ms. Bliss and Canadian Music Week, here’s me, rabbiting on about music and what it means to me. I hope you’ll find it interesting. The biographical part which opens Karen’s interview, while accurate, is a little embarrassing. I’ve slightly edited Karen’s work for length and to suit the Substack format.

And if reading all this is too daunting, skip ahead and read the short pieces that follow.

Interviewer Karen Bliss asks the questions

BY KAREN BLISS

Richard Flohil may not move like Jagger, but at the seen-it-all age of 89 — turning 90 on June 24 with a music-filled bash at Toronto’s Lula Lounge — the man with the trademark white silk scarf draped around his neck, heavy British accent, likely holding court with “smart, young, bright, focused people” — is still going out to see live music on a weekly basis — last year almost 150 times.

The former music trade writer, publicist, concert promoter, festival programmer, and manager has age-defying energy and an enthusiasm for music that has not waned over 70-some-odd years in the business.

Known for his engaging personal stories about a range of artists — Muddy Waters, Louis Armstrong, Bonnie Raitt, Leon Redbone, Ani DiFranco, Loreena McKennitt, k.d. lang, Serena Ryder, and countless more — the raconteur was told by friends and colleagues so many times to write a book that he finally started one a decade ago, before deciding, instead, to create a Substack blog.

Born in Selby, Yorkshire, England, Flohil started his journalism career at age 16, apprenticing for The Yorkshire Evening Press, then was hired as chief reporter for The Selby Gazette and Herald. He relocated to Canada in 1957, where he began freelancing and editing trade magazines. Beginning in 1970, for more than 20 years, he edited The Canadian Composer, the in-house publication for performing rights organization CAPAC (now SOCAN), and co-founded and contributed to the now defunct weekly trade magazine The Record.

He dabbled in other areas of the business along the way, presenting or publicizing concerts for the likes of Waters, Redbone, Miles Davis, Benny Goodman, John Prine, Long John Baldry, Jeff Healey, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, The Chieftains, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Ry Cooder and Ian Tyson. He also handled publicity for such disparate talent as Sir George Martin, Eric Idle, Alice Cooper, Chuck D, Nana Mouskouri and Billy Connolly.

A lifelong blues and folk music fan, he also managed the legendary Downchild Blues Band for several decades and was program director for the famed Mariposa Folk Festival. He has also emceed stages and workshops at folk festivals in Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Guelph’s Hillside Festival.

He received his first industry honour in 1990, the Special Achievement Award at the CASBY Music Awards; he was still in his 50s. There’s been many more since, including the 2005 Blues Booster Award from the Toronto Blues Society, 2006’s Estelle Klein Award from Folk Music Ontario, 2010’s Spirit of Folk Award from Folk Alliance International, 2016’s Unsung Hero Award from the Canadian Independent Music Association (CIMA) and the 2017 Hall of Fame from the Mariposa Folk Festival.

While he is essentially retired, you would never know it. He is still out there, championing artists, usually young and yet-to-be discovered by the industry at large. Extend him an invitation to live music and he will almost always say yes — unless he has another show that conflicts.

This summer, he will actually be listed on the lineup for the Calgary Folk Festival, alongside BC-based banjo player, guitarist and singer Tamara T. Nile, for a story and song collaboration. “A 90-year-old rock star storyteller and a banjo queen,” is how Nile describes it to Making Noise. “Kinda has a nice ring to it,” she says. “We dreamed up the idea, as we do most things, trying to come up with excuses to hang out and act like giddy teenagers together. We’ve been best of friends since 2006 and counting. Just love him so much and can’t wait to share our music and stories for an audience this summer.”

Flohil and Tamara Nile, acting like giddy teenagers

What is it that draws you, at 89 years old, 90 in a few days, to go to bars and clubs until 2 a.m., to go to venues at all, and even get on a plane to go to music festivals?

I keep a list in my journal. Last year, I went to 148 shows. This year, so far, I’ve only been to 49. I’m falling behind.

Since I live on an old age pension these days, I don’t exactly have a shitload of money to buy Taylor Swift tickets, as much as I would like to. But I do think you can get value for money hearing or finding artists that speak to you that are working in clubs and pubs and bars for 10 bucks in the jug.

And there are people like that who I see fairly regularly. There’s a songwriter in Toronto called Corin Raymond. And Corin is somebody whose songs speak to me. He’s not gonna be a major star. And it doesn’t matter. He has a great song called “There Will Always Be a Small Time.”

In addition to the Calgary festival, where I’m also hosting a panel called “War Stories” with a bunch of musicians, I’m going to the Calgary Blues Festival, the Canmore Folk Festival (where I’ll do some on-stage interviews with performers) and the Edmonton Folk Festival. And of course I’m also going to Mariposa; can’t miss that.

How crucial is live music to your well-being and your ability to keep active?

I’m not sure I can answer that. I just keep going out. I’d rather go out and hear live music than sit at home all day and write my Substack column or look at what’s happening on my computer screen. Get the hell out of the apartment and see live music and support live music. There’s a wide range of music that attracts me.

I went the other day to see a group called CATL, a duo, husband and wife, and they are probably the loudest act I’ve heard since I remember seeing The Who at Maple Leaf Gardens a thousand years ago. The point I wanted to make was that I would go and see a folk artist, a blues artist, a country artist, a power rocker, all in a day’s work and a day’s enjoyment.

We all have old friends, not in the music business, who say they don’t like today’s music and music’s not as good as it was in the ’60s or ’70s. Is that just silliness?

Well, the kind of music I loved as a teenager almost doesn’t exist anymore. It was the British attempt to play early American jazz. The fact that it was cool, incredibly popular, etc., etc., is impossible for young people to understand today. My father hated it. “How do they know when to stop?” he used to say.

And, yeah, there’s a lot of music today I don’t like. I try not to emulate my father. If it’s not my cup of tea, I won’t particularly dis it, but I certainly won’t support it.

You go out a lot. The past few years, sometimes you are having a tough time, but you have a really supportive group of younger songwriters, friends, who get you out of your apartment and check up on you.

Well, that’s very true. I do. Fortunately, my brain seems to be working reasonably well. My body, of course, is beginning to fall apart. Everybody’s does at this age. But you just keep going.

And friends keep you going. Without friends, you are—pardon the expression—fucked. And I have so many friends, who are so valuable, and they keep me alive, literally.

I’m constantly surrounded by smart, young, bright, focused people, and they keep me sane. They introduce me to new music and they let me ramble on and be an old fart and talk about old shit that makes my heart beat faster.

You are my inspiration. I want to be like you in my 80s, if I live that long, and into my 90s, still going to concerts. I don’t want to be sitting on a porch learning how to crochet.

The knack is always to have something to look forward to. A party. A trip. A date with a friend. The next show.

I have to say that, like everybody else, I resented the COVID years, and I resented them because, at my age, two years of doing nothing is gone forever. You’re not getting that back.

Some people were very creative, and I would have been if I had known it was going to be a specific two-year term. I’d have learned French, or learned the guitar, or finish writing my stupid book project, which I abandoned.

Let’s talk about that stupid book project, because you are known for your incredible stories. You are a storyteller. You’re a writer. What was the difficulty for you finishing the book you started a decade ago?

The difficulty was that the book was being written and designed more to look like a magazine than a text-only book. My collaborator (graphic designer) Michael Wrycraft died in May 2022 and that was an incredible blow to the future functioning of the book as my friend and I were making it. My mentor (music industry pioneer) Al Mair, who was a financial backstop, said, “If you run out of money, or you need some help, I’m there.” And he died in November 2022. And I thought, “Well, if you think things go in threes, it’s a good time to quit while you’re ahead.” So, I did.

Then I discovered Substack, an ad-free platform where writers can put up their work, and people can read it for free. But, if they like it and can be persuaded, they can actually pay you a little bit of money. So I started repurposing some of the material that I’d written for the book, and then I wrote new stuff. And for the last ten months, I’ve been telling these stories every week or ten days.

Your stories are sometimes quite funny. Just an enviable list: Muddy Waters, BB King, Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt…

Everyone has stories. But I do believe that anybody in any profession who is passionate about their work and goes about it with an open heart and an open mind and they don’t get any stories… well, they’ve blown it, big time.

You mentioned Substack and that’s another unique thing about you, in your late 80s, embracing a new online platform. How have you found keeping up with technology?

Well, I have not done well. Everything I write on my Substack column — and I’ve done pieces on everybody from Ani DiFranco to k.d. lang to Ray Charles to Louis Armstrong to Solomon Burke, But the actual mechanics of editing it, laying it out, and uploading it is done by a friend of mine,

Michael Barclay

, who knows this stuff  way better than I do. So, I have help. And my youngest daughter copy edits my writing (and my bad typing).

So you started as a journalist, but you also became a publicist, a manager and a concert promoter. Always independent. Did you ever consider having a full-time job at one company?

After I stopped editing trade magazines, I never considered getting a full-time job.

When you look at the music industry now, AI and these technologies, if used for evil, threatening not just the creativity of writers, songwriters, but also our livelihoods, what’s your view?

To be honest, I’ve turned a blind eye to it. It’s here. It’ll come; it’ll go. It’ll be replaced by something else. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here, about to turn 90, doing what I’ve always done. And I don’t know what else to do.

People often ask me, “Well, what do you think about the music today versus the music then?” And my answer is always the same: I think it was Louis Armstrong who said, “There are two kinds of music, the good, and the bad. I play the good kind.”

Will you be telling any stories at your birthday celebration?

I won’t. Let the music speak for itself. Kevin Breit, Paul Reddick, Shakura S’Aida, Samantha Martin and Delta Sugar and more. My dear friend from England, Mariska Martina, who has never performed in Canada before, is coming over to do it. No stories.

But in Calgary I’ll be doing stories about k.d. lang, Bonnie Raitt, Armstrong, Solomon Burke and Leon Redbone. They’re great stories. I mean, when I met Louis Armstrong, who is god in my pantheon of heroes, and he says, “So, are you regular? Do you have gas?” I wonder, “What?” And he’s hyping me on a herbal laxative called Swiss Kriss and to my astonishment, he autographed a flyer with a picture of him sitting on the john with his pants around his knees and a big grin and it says, “Satchmo says leave it all behind ya — Swiss Krissly.” Now, that’s a story you’re never going to forget, and that happened when I was, what, 19 or so?

The greatest jazz musician of all time, leaving it all behind

Most importantly, how is your health?  

Basically, I’m in good health given my age. I’ve had two weeks of really being down and depressed and a little miserable I’m sure we’ve all gone through that kind of thing every now and then, accompanied by colds and coughs. But now I’ve got 99% of my energy back. I’m sitting drinking coffee, I’m writing my journal and I’m talking to you. So, I’m a happy camper.

Have you asked your doctor if you’re okay to hop on a plane and go to all these festivals?

I don’t even think twice. Hey, that’s none of their effing business.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Toronto-based blues artist Shakura S’Aida, who (so far) has performed in 36 countries around the world: “I’ve faced a lot of ‘no’s’ relating to my gender, my race, and my age. I’ve heard ‘you’re great! I love what you do, but I don’t know what to do with you, because of…’ Whether it was sexism, racism or ageism, the long and short is that everything that I have received — everything I have been through — (has) led me to this place of grace and whatever success I have achieved.

“I always say thank you to every ‘no’ spoken in my direction. They have encouraged me to always be willing and able to choose another route. Because whatever the issue is, it is first and foremost an invitation to find space elsewhere to flourish, grow and succeed.”

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FIVE MORE SUBSTACKS YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT

A Fan's Notes, by Nick Hornby

Notes. The man who gave us best-selling novels High Fidelity, About a Boy and Juliet Naked writes about writing (he’s creating movie scripts these days), music, and his beloved Arsenal football club.

Lyz Lenz —

Men Yell at Me

. A feminist from the fly-over state of Iowa, who writes with wisdom and passion, and — especially when she chooses the “dingus of the week” (usually a politician or a dumb celebrity) — a terrific sense of humour.

Al Lewis —

Business Blunders

. A former newspaper business editor writes about catastrophic (and often hilarious) corporate screw-ups. Since society seems to revere successful businessmen, it’s a relief to read that their companies often have feet of clay.

Juvenescence with Leah McLaren

. A former columnist with the Toronto-based Globe and Mail, McLaren now lives in London and is a single mother raising her kids in the greatest city in the world.

Dan Rather —

Steady

. The former TV news anchor has one of the most popular Substacks, with well over 100,000 subscribers. Now in his 90s, he’s as sharp as ever. Trenchant reporting on a nation in decline.

(Oh, and five more next week…)

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YOUR VIDEO LINKS FOR YOUR WEEKEND

On Monday June 24 I’m holding a birthday concert/party at Lula Lounge in Toronto, which, to my astonishment, is now sold out (350 people). It’s a benefit for Unison, a benevolent fund for musicians who find themselves in trouble — I’m paying it forward; I might need Unison in the future!

Here are some links to videos of three of the folk who are donating their talent to a good cause. 

First, my friend Mariska Martina, who is coming from London to be in Toronto for this. This is my favourite song she’s written; hope she sings it at the party.

The “house band” will be Samantha Martin and Delta Sugar. She’s a powerhouse singer with a killer group, and they’ll play a short set and then accompany any of the other singers who need a band.

Finally, this is another guest at the event, Kevin Breit. He’s a totally unpredictable guitarist who has recorded with dozens of artists. Hugh Laurie, the actor and occasional bandleader, said “The thing I like about Kevin Breit is that he never plays the same thing once.”

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WHAT TO EXPECT NEXT

I wish I could tell you! Pieces in the works include a story about the only Canadian who was a member of Duke Ellington’s band, my memories of Muddy Waters, and the second part of the personal story about my teenage years as a newspaper reporter.

Thanks so much for reading the stuff I send out very week to ten days. If you’re not a paid subscriber I could suggest you become one; $6 a month would keep the stories coming… and nicely supplement my old age pension.