Bill Bourne and Shannon Johnson have just made the finest album of their lives. Just ask them. Bourne, of course, being longer in the tooth, has more experience in these matters. The proof sits on the mantelpiece of his downtown home.
Junos are heavy. The one awarded to Bill Bourne and Alan MacLeod for Dance and Celebrate - the best roots or traditional album recorded in 1990 - needs two hands to lift. Nobody in Canada at the time approached roots music with such an unorthodox, open-minded, uplifting spirit as these two. They would make only one more album, Moonlight Dancers, before splitting in a haze of substance abuse.
Bourne then joined forces with local fiddler Shannon Johnson and released Dear Madonna - a joyful, spiritual combination of hillbilly country, blues, bluegrass, traditional folk, swing jazz and ... a partridge in a pear tree.
"When we recorded Dear Madonna, I had just started playing with Bill," says Johnson. "We did the first recording session, The Road To Tokyo, and did six gigs or something. Not even. We had barely played together and I was being led, I think. I was unsure of what I was doing and feeling pressures of stepping into someone else's shoes. This one I felt more a part of what was going on. I had a lot more input."
For Victory Train, Johnson wrote her first medley of impressive Celtic fiddle tunes simply titled ... er ... Shannon's Tunes. Her brothers, Solon and Jeremiah McDade, are among the several musicians who provide its musical muscle.
"Frankly, Shannon, to my mind, is the best musician I've ever played with," says Bourne as Johnson intercedes, "He can be out of his mind, though," says she.
It's Bourne's turn to chuckle. "Not only has she the traditional styles but she has also that classical background which also gives a whole other range of colors to the music. I think it works great with folk music."
For all of Johnson's convincing talents, it's still Bourne who wrote the bulk of Victory Train - just as he did with Dear Madonna. While the blatant spiritual references featured on that disc are now more discreet, he still maintains his patented optimism and exuberance in his writing.
"I always find it easy to write negative songs but I try to avoid it. In my experience, songs that are more positive - that have an element of hope in them - those songs always seem to last longer. They're more fun to play, they're easier to play and they seem to have a life of their own."
Victory Train rumbles along to the glorious shuffle of a Cajun, calypso and Celtic cadence. There's also a superb cover of Mississippi John Hurt's country blues treasure Pallet on Your Floor and a blinding treatment of the traditional spiritual, Follow the Drinking Gourd. And once again Bourne's come up with a host of memorable characters, like Joey Marmalade.
All in all, Victory Train is an unmitigated joy - a confident, powerful, intimate, energetic album and a soulmate of the mighty Dance and Celebrate.
"Victory Train was recorded in the most pure form - most of the tracks came right off the floor," says Bourne.
"Dance and Celebrate had that element to a larger degree than (Dear Madonna).
I like that. I'm real partial to a performance, even if there's a note out of tune.
You sort of weigh it against what's important. I think, essentially, there's an immediacy and a spontaneity happening with these performances that you can't get if you go for perfection.
"I'm a fan of the natural approach."
By ROD CAMPBELL
Bill Bourne & Shannon Johnson's Friend Space (Top 8)
