ALAN MACRAE

ALAN MACRAE

Alan McRae, Ont.: Born in the British Isles, the son of a highland piper, Alan was a gold miner and with ...? was instrumental in organizing Canada's first folk club in Vancouver, BC. He moved to Toronto and became the resident singer at Toronto's first "folk bar" the Steeles' Tavern. he played the Horseshoe Tavern most of the summer of 1975. He was a mentor and friend to many Toronto folk musicians through the 60s and 70s before he passed away. T.C. played the Horseshoe the summer of 75 and hung out at my bar. I admired his drive a real folk star in spite of the lack of natural talent he could entertain.

comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember persuading Basil Steele to book Gordon Lightfoot, give him a try for a week. Gordon was at home there for a long time. Hard to be precise about the year in the 1960s but Brita, Gord's first wife brought their first child to Steeles one night, the first night the child was out of the house. During this period Alan's professional home was The Mousehole on Yorkville. I have no memory of Alan singing at Steele's but we lost contact. His personal home was a coach house in the back of a house at the bottom of Poplar Plains where much fun was had. "Leaping, and ballooning and steaming" was Alan's prediction of a good time there. We took him at his word without having any clear sense of his words' meaning. Everybody knew Alan's place. A couple of songs that everybody knows today were at least partially written there but those are not my tales to tell. I would love to know more about what happened to him after my path made a sharp turn in an altogether different direction.

September 2, 2022 at 9:29 PM

Anonymous said...

I remember when my wife and I used to go to Steele’s Tavern in the later 60’s and listen to Alan MacRae. One song I remember was the Ski Song of what happened to a hapless skier as he hit everything on the way down the slope. It was done to the hymn Glory glory hallelujah.

Don

September 9, 2022 at 9:22 PM

Anonymous said...

Alan called the song "Super Skier". The words glory hallelujah were replaced with " gory gory, what a hell of a way to die". I sang it for years. Probably still remember the lyrics.

February 14, 2023 at 6:46 PM

Anonymous said...

I knew him only at the Mousehole. Yes, that coach house! A lot of hanging out there after the Mousehole closed, intobthe wee hours. Ĺ

February 14, 2023 at 6:49 PM

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Mr. Troubadour

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KEN DANBY

I hung out with Ken for a while at his coffee house in Toronto. The New Gate of Cleve. I was hanging out with him one afternoon. He was working on a poster for Mariposa 63. Ed Cowan came by and through him I ended up with a job at the festival. Somewhere along the way Ken broke a leg and was hobbling along with a cast.
A couple of weeks after Mariposa, Goodwood Go track had a big due with concerts and a tent city. I was duty bootlegger. I had a tent filled booze. Ken stayed in the tent with me. When suddenly we were raided by the provincial police. Ken and sneaked away and sat up on a hill and watched the police check every tent except for mine. Ken was pretty much a wild guy to hang with. I think this was his last hurrah. It was the last I saw of him as he suddenly cleaned up his act and concentrated on his painting.

Ken Danby (1940-2007) was one of Canada's foremost practitioners of contemporary realism. Rooted in the Canadian psyche, nourished by his Ontario rural roots, Danby's subject matter was broad and expansive, yet it was the images of Canadian landscapes and life that captured the public's attention. At the Crease, a 1972 egg tempera painting depicting a nameless hockey goalie viewed from ice-level, was his best-known work, and for many, it defined him as an artist.