Gallery – Brian Robertson

1. SOME VIDEO CLIPS FROM THE LAUNCH OF “TIMES & PLACES” AT ST. JAMES HALL IN VANCOUVER, JUNE 25, 2016, The Brian Robertson Band, with (l.-r.) Victor Smith, Michael Burnyeat, Amy Stephen & Jeremy Holmes

When the Tide Goes Out (from the album Saltchuck Serenade)

Time Is a River

George the Blacksmith

Beer Is Good For You

2. THE “ONTARIO SET” OF REELS, filmed at Cortes Island Co-op Café, featuring the prodigious Michael Burnyeat on the fiddle and Victor Smith on bodhran. Check out the lick at 3:20. And thanks for the spoons Andy Vine!

3. A WEARY FIREMAN’S THIRST, filmed at the Cranberry Community Centre, Powell River. An original song based on an eye-witness account of the Great Fire of Vancouver in 1886.

4. THE TALE OF THOMAS NICKERSON, ©Brian Robertson, 2010, an epic ballad of 19 verses performed at the First Congregational Church of Chatham, Massachusetts for the 2011 Nickerson Annual Gathering. The tune is adapted from the traditional Irish maritime song, The Flying Cloud.
Thomas Nickerson, an ancestral relative of my life partner Beth Walters, was the cabin boy aboard the whaler Essex, which was stove in and sunk by an enraged sperm whale in the central Pacific in 1819. The lyrics are primarily based on his original journal which was discovered decades after his passing and, given his limited education, contains astonishingly eloquent passages. The incident inspired Herman Melville to write the American classic novel Moby Dick, and the crew’s desperate voyage of survival in small whaling boats to the Chilean coast was portrayed in the recent movie In the Heart of the Sea.

5. SEA SHANTY AUDIO CLIPS
Brian sings lead in these samples from one of his favourite musical genres

Johnny Come Down to Hilo [short adapted version]; Brian, with the Irish Wakers.

Bully in the Alley; Brian, with the Armchair Sailors

6. HOT AIR BALLOON ©Brian Robertson, 2006, at the 2007-08 Northwest New Years’ Camp, with Dave Bartley (mandolin) and Claude Ginsburg (violin).

7. DON’T LET YOUR DEAL GO DOWN, a cover of the old Flatt & Scruggs favourite, with Michael Burnyeat, from the 2020 Patio Sessions. Written by their wives, I’d say this was an admonition to F & S for when they were on the road.

8. Ms. HEMBLING REGRETS: a friend, Catherine Hembling, who is a lovely and gracious older woman of conscience, was recently convicted and jailed for violating a court injunction protecting the construction of the TMX pipeline near Vancouver, B.C. Her courage inspired this rewrite of the Cole Porter classic.