A glutton for punishment

I’m going, and I hope you will too.

I’m going to the John McDermott concert at Picton United Church on Saturday October 5. Doors open at 7 p.m. for a 7:30 p.m. start. Tickets are $40 apiece. The display ad shows where to get them.

I’m going for two reasons. First of all, it’s all to benefit the Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital Foundation. The Foundation admits that “the proposed reduction of services announced in January this year [by Quinte Health Care Corporation] has caused many people who would normally donate to our Foundation to have second thoughts and this is a hurdle that we will have to work hard to overcome.” And I must say, it must be tough to be one of the Foundation’s stewards when the hospital doesn’t determine its own future and is faced with the knife over the short to medium term, and only the vague prospect of some new integrated services facility in the long term. So even if you were to think of the evening as a donation to the Foundation with a free concert thrown in, it would be worth your while.

Having said that, the second reason for going is because the evening’s principal entertainer is John McDermott, who is hardly a free concert throw-in. Indeed, paying 40 bucks to see him as a purely commercial transaction would be well worth the ticket price. And in case that sounds as though I am shilling for McDermott, let me assure you that my wife and I have seen him perform many times over the years and are happily forking out to see him again. Call us each a glutton for punishment.

There are number of reasons why we enjoy John McDermott. He of course has the requisite mellifluous tenor voice; but if that were all that he had, you might as well have him take a number and join the lottery of competent performers who could be stars.

But I think the key to his popularity is his rapport with his audience. McDermott builds it by creating a feeling that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. He’ll introduce his concerts with some back and forth banter, gently chiding latecomers; he’ll happily mingle with concertgoers in the lobby; he’ll tell jokes on himself, and repeat the same corny anecdotes year after year. His fans love him for his continued signals that he knows he is the luckiest of people to have been able to (but also had the courage to) pursue a career as an entertainer, and that his fans are the people who put him and keep him in that position.

I like McDermott’s music for two other reasons. When he performs, he always brings along younger Canadian musicians and ensures they are given a prominent role in his concerts. Perhaps the best example of that lies in the relationship with his onstage musical director, Jason Fowler, with whom there flows an evident and easy mutual respect and confidence. In addition, while he got his start singing full volume versions of songs your parents could love more than you could—such as Mother Machree and Danny Boy—and remains overtly respectful of the memory of his late parents, his repertoire draws more these days from songwriters in the folk tradition, including Bruce Cockburn, Murray McLauchlan, Ron Hynes, Allister McGillivray, Michael P. Smith (“The Dutchman”) and John Prine. He has recorded one full album of songs written by Toronto’s Ron Sexsmith, and toured with and recorded an album almost full of songs by Australia’s Eric Bogle (called “Journeys,” it’s my personal favourite). Bogle is the author of The Green Fields of France and And the band played Walzing Matilda, two of the most powerful ‘folly of war’ songs ever written, both of which McDermott performs.

McDermott also has a long list of charitable credits of his own. He is perhaps best known for his work on behalf of veterans, and has won the congressional Bob Hope Award for his commitment to veterans’ causes. His personal focus at the moment is to expand the palliative care service at the veterans’ “K- wing” at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital. However, when I spoke to McDermott last week, he wanted to stress that the evening was to be about the County and its Hospital Foundation rather than his personal charitable works. Indeed, McDermott says that he knows the County well and has many friends here.

So it is appropriate that McDermott will be celebrating his 20th anniversary as a performer on the very night he is performing in the County. He remembers vividly taking the stage in Halifax on October 5, 1993, the first time he had performed with his own band after touring for a year with The Chieftains as an opening act, and receiving a thunderous ovation from a full house.

McDermott has issued many recordings over the years and continues to work on new ones. He told me of two he is involved in: one is a multi-disc boxed set which includes footage from his first solo concert; the other is a recording of a tribute to the Irish boxer/actor/singer Jack Doyle (known in his time as “The Gorgeous Gael”) together with some of the traditional material of Irish folksinger Christy Moore (voted in 2007 as Ireland’s greatest living musician).

If your appetite isn’t whetted by now, well I’m sorry, there’s not much more I can do for you. If you’re also a glutton for punishment of the most pleasant sort, I’ll see you on October 5.

dsimmonds@wellingtontimes.ca