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    Friday, February the 3rd, 2006, the Oscar Peterson Hall hosted the 9th Annual Roots of Rock n’ Roll Concert. This year’s event entitled “Rock around the Clock: The Golden Age of Rock n’ Roll”, was organized once again by Craig Morrison. The decor was simple, yet sufficient, and the sound was appropriate; not too loud nor too soft.

    From the first notes of Ritchie Valens’ “Come On Let’s Go,” the crowd knew it was in for a trip back to the old days. Other titles performed included Buddy Holly’s “Everyday” and “That’ll Be the Day,” as well as Elvis Presley’s “She’s Not You” and “Don’t Be Cruel,” ending with the title song of the concert, “Rock around the Clock” from Bill Haley and the Comets.

    Craig Morrison was backed-up by John McDiarmid and Pierre Gauthier of the Momentz, as well as Daniel Hubert and Gary Sharkey from Vintage Wine. Other performers were Dave Turner on the saxophone, Jeanne Bowser, Steve Solo, and Alex Nesrallah on vocals.  Dancers complemented the musical performance.

    Immediately after the first song, you could see Craig Morrison’s ease and earthiness. He performs naturally, and intimately. Craig’s relationship with the crowd is instantaneous and amusing. It is obvious that he is at home on the stage. One left with the impression that he/she had just participated in a close, intimate concert for 20 people; however, the concert hall was full.
One of the strongest moments of the night was Craig’s interpretation of Buddy Holly’s “Raining in my Heart” dedicated to… Buddy Holly. Before the song, Craig Morrison talked about how the performance of this song from one of Holly’s band mates inspired him to integrate the song to the program.

    Both Morrison and the band played with energy and a sort of nostalgia. The professionalism of the performers peaked through.  The variety of singers enhanced the concert. It enabled the audience to hear several styles of singing. From Jeanne Bowser’s innocent voice in “My Boyfriend’s Back” to Gary Sharkey’s powerful and romantic singing on “Unchained Melody.”

    The audience liked every moment of the night. Two sets full of their favourite Rock n’ Roll tunes played just like in the good old days. The crowd sang along to the songs they knew well and hummed to the ones they could not remember the words to.
In all, the show was great. The tickets, averaging between five and ten dollars, were quite affordable and worth more than the price paid, the performance energetic, and the songs well picked.  The concert is definitely among the best that Montreal has to offer in the roots genre.  And as it was pointed out at the concert, the music has not died.
 
 

    The intimate concert hall was filled to seating capacity, with an audience ranging from students to seniors.  Craig Morrison took center stage with a rousing performance of…Ritchie Valens’ “Come On Let’s Go” and ended with a rendition of Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock” as an encore.

    Accompanying Morrison on guitar was a small three piece ensemble, with John McDiarmid on piano, Pierre Gauthier and Gary Sharkey sharing drum duties, and Daniel Hubert on bass.  Many special guests contributed to the performances throughout the night, including Dave Turner on sax; local Montreal actress Jeanne Bowser sharing vocal and background harmonies; Steve Solo on vocals and guitar; Alex Nesrallah of the duo, Never-Be-Brothers (Craig Morrison is the other member), on vocals and guitar; and lastly, the riveting jiving dancing performances of The Jivers which brought about a nostalgic feeling with the proper attire and dance crazes of that time.

    The musicians were exquisitely competent with their musicianship…the professionalism and enthusiasm of the band was clearly nothing but strong and present.   Morrison’s guitar solos and fingering technique was alive and to the mark.  A sweet duet between Jeanne Bowser and Morrison with a rendition of Dale and Grace’s “I’m Leaving It All Up to You” brought a flavor of great harmonizing and a great example of duets of that era.  Morrison got the audience literally to their feet with the audience’s vocal and dance participation on the song “Come Go With Me” by the Dell-Vikings.  It was one of the great highlights of the night; a refreshing idea, considering most concerts today are just “sit and listen.”

    The show was filled with fabulous music from “the vaults.”  Instead of rehashing old songs that may already be known too well…Morrison and his band performed a superb set that carried the era to an audience who otherwise might never have experienced it before.  It’s an educational experience of a “lost artistry.”  A pinnacle point in musical history was shared with a lucky crowd fortunate enough to witness live the “Golden Age of Rock & Roll”!
 
 

        THE CONCERTS
1st annual, 1998: "OLD NEW BORROWED AND BLUE" with Craig Morrison & the Momentz

2nd, 1999: "OLD NEW BORROWED AND BLUE" with Craig Morrison & the Momentz.  Parts of this show can be heard on the Rocket Radio CD.

3rd, 2000: "OLD NEW BORROWED AND BLUE" with Craig Morrison & the Momentz

4th, 2001: "THE ROOTS OF ROCK AND ROLL" with Craig Morrison & the Momentz, Lew Dite, and Bob Fuller and the Wandering Hillbillies.

5th, 2002:  "FROM SKIFFLE TO PSYCHEDELIC" with Craig Morrison & the Momentz, Jitterbug Swing, and the Lew Dite Skiffle Group.  A journey through musical genres and styles.

6th, 2003: "THE MUSIC NEVER DIED" with Jitterbug Swing, the Lew Dite Skiffle Group, Bob Fuller & the Wandering Hillbillies, Slim Sandy & the Shady Rhythm Cats, Blind, Ronnie Hayward, Craig Morrison & the Momentz.  A showcase of Montreal musicians, proving that roots music traditions are alive and well.  See review below.

7th, 2004: "BRITISH INVASION 40th ANNIVERSARY SHOW" with the Craig Morrison & the Momentz, the Lew Dite Skiffle Group, Ian Cooney & the Rockafellas, and Vintage Wine.  The 7th annual concert celebrated the music of the British Invasion, 40 years after, almost to the day, that the Beatles first appeared on television in America on the Ed Sullivan Show.

8th, 2005: "HEY! MR. TAMBOURINE MAN" Folk and Folk Rock, with Craig Morrison & the Momentz, Vintage Wine, Lew Dite with Terry Joe Banjo, Gerry Kandestin, and Mike O'Brien and Friends.  The repertoire included songs by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, the Byrds, the Lovin' Spoonful, Simon and Garfunkel, Gordon Lightfoot, and R.E.M. as well as traditional and newly composed songs.  See article below.

9th, 2006: "ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK" Rock and Roll's Golden Age.  Craig Morrison & the Momentz: John McDiarmid (keyboards), Pierre Gauthier (drums, percussion), plus guests including Gary Sharkey (drums, vocals) of Vintage Wine, Steve Solo (vocals, Momentz co-founder), Alex Nesrallah (vocals, guitar), Jeanne Bowser (vocals), and Dave Turner (sax).

UPCOMING: 10th, 2007    see top of page
 

Here is Bill (Anything But) Bland and Jeannie Arsenault of the Wandering Hillbillies, 2003.  Photo by Ulgen Semerci.
 
 

    The Oscar Peterson Concert Hall was transformed into a swingin' back porch-style jam session last Friday, as music enthusiasts gathered together for the sixth annual Roots of Rock and Roll concert, an eight act jubilee featuring some of the top players in Montreal's roots scene.

    Craig Morrison, the concert's organizer, is an ethnomusicologist who teaches a class at Concordia called "Rock and Roll and its Roots." The event began as an opportunity to bring the music of his class to the ears of his students.  After three years the event grew from a one-act piece with Morrison's band The Momentz into a multi-band spectacle of down-home sounds.

    "This is my missionary work in its own way," he said. "First to let the people of Montreal know that this great
music exists, and second to build a sense of community."  That sense of community was precisely what was unique about Friday night. The hall seemed to shrink as it filled with people. A spontaneous aural communication arose between musicians, instruments, and audience, allowing a head bobbing, knee slappin' excitement to permeate the air from beginning to end.  Performers joked with their audience and called them by name. The theatre cheered, stomped and sang along from their seats.

    Jitterbug Swing's Danielle Lemieux tapped her tiny toes atop a washtub bass, singing out of the lazy side of her mouth, as she plucked the blues from a single string, accompanied by a sunglassed Brian Edgar on his blinding
chrome resonator guitar.

    Ron Hayward cradled his stand-up bass as though it were a slow-dancing lady, dipping it as he leaned over to whisper "Whiskey Kisses" into the microphone.  Bob Fuller and the checkered shirt Wandering Hillbillies belted out darlin' old ballads and hay bale jigs in round jolly voices that tickled a temptation to two-step.

    Also dedicated to preserving the tradition of the roots of rock and roll were performers from The Lew Dite Skiffle Group, Craig Morrison's The Momentz, Slim Sandy, and Blind. The musical conversation was soulful and concise, while the harmonic storytelling of lost loves was enough to make a hound dog howl.

    Morrison feels that the human element is what is so special about Roots music. "I think it's important to maintain the tradition of musical communication," he said. "There's always an element of chance, a spontaneity. Audiences feel the sincerity. It touches them, that's what it's all about."

    Commemorating the deaths of Buddy Holly, the concert's "patron saint" and Hank Williams, "the king of country music", the concert always falls on the first weekend in February.  The theme, "the music never dies", is a rebuttal to the song "American Pie", which claims that music died with Holly, at the end of the 1950s. After the last act, Morrison exclaimed to the cheering audience, "We're here to tell you and show you that the music never died, folks!"  Not with these guys around. Next year the Oscar Peterson Concert Hall may want to clear space for a dance floor.
 
 

CONCORDIA PROFESSOR KEEPS ROOTS MUSIC ALIVE

by Sarah Geledi.  Published in The Concordian: Concordia's Weekly Independent Student Newspaper, Wednesday, February 2, 2005

    Craig Morrison is many things. He's an ethnomusicologist, an author, a teacher, and a performer. Recently, he realized that what he really is, an ambassador for music.  For the past eight years, he has been presenting his annual Roots of Rock and Roll concert, a showcase of Montreal's roots musical community, at Oscar Peterson Hall during the first weekend of February.

    Since the event's fifth year, it has had a specific theme ranging from The British Invasion's 40th anniversary to the 50th anniversary of Hank Williams' death.  This year, the theme is folk and folk rock and its title "Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man," is a nod to the song, which is known as the first folk rock hit in 1965.

    The concert wasn't conceived as an annual event from the start. Morrison explained the first weekend in February was the anniversary date of Buddy Holly's death, commonly referred to as the day the music died.  "Quickly on, I realized that one of the things I was trying to do was to let people know that the music never died," the organizer said over a cup of Earl Grey in his Outremont home.

    In his own way, Morrison is like folk song hunter Alan Lomax and John Hammond, the famed producer and organizer of the Spirituals to Swing concert, which brought black music into the white spotlight for the first time.  Interestingly enough, Hammond and Lomax have a direct relation to this year's theme. Lomax is the most important folklorist of the past century, and Hammond discovered Bob Dylan, the man credited with turning folk music into folk rock in 1965.

    The "music ambassador" has assembled a line-up of some of Montreal's finest roots musicians. These include Lew Dite, Gerry Kandestin, Mike O'Brien and Vintage Wine as opening acts. Craig Morrison & the Momentz will take care of the second half. The night's musical repertoire consists of songs by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, The Byrds, Lovin' Spoonful, Simon and Garfunkel, Gordon Lightfoot, R.E.M., as well as traditional and newly composed songs.  "It's evolved into a community event and I'm very, very happy about that," Morrison added enthusiastically.

    Although the annual event's first audiences were students from the teacher's roots of rock and roll class, it always attracted outside people as well. Today there are multi-generational families in attendance, from "the grannies with their walkers, to six year-old kids."  "I've been concerned over the years that little kids can't hear live music. [Also] where music used to be, it's not there anymore and where it is now is always associated with alcohol," said Morrison. "So that's a part of the momentum...to make an all ages show."

    Other than performing and talking about music (he is like a walking music encyclopedia), Morrison loves informing others about it.  "I love to turn that light bulb on for somebody, because I did a lot of it myself by putting the pieces together."  Being the music advocator he is, Morrison is in the process of editing his rock and roll encyclopedia.  "Who could imagine music would need an ambassador?"

    Hey Mr. Tambourine Man happens Friday Feb. 4, 8pm at Oscar Peterson Hall, Loyola Campus