A tribute to the writer of tributes
Jim Robinson’s recent work writing and recording a tribute song to Rodney Bray was well-deserved, but it is not the only tribute song that the man has ever written. With many CDS under his belt, Robinson can easily be called a prolific and versatile musician.
“The song I recently wrote for (Bray) came from a memory I had of seeing Rodney on stage at Nick’s Barn Dance with Terry and Jerry singing “Mama Tried” and “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive;” songs that were hits for Merle Haggard at the time,” he said.
Robinson said he has vivid memories from, “way back,” and this is where he gets his inspiration to write.
“I recalled standing at the door and listening to the band sounding so good. It must have stayed with me at some level,” he stressed.
Robinson has written a number of songs paying a tribute to musicians he grew up with in the Townships. People such as Russell Nutbrown, Grant and Mayota Taylor, Don and Linda Rothney, George Pinchin, among others.
“They are songs that just came to me. This includes the tribute to Rod Bray whom I admire for his passion for country music and to whom I’ve always been grateful for giving me the opportunity to sit in with his band, which at the time included Terry Howell and Al Bailey, both great players,” he explained. “My father also used to call square dances for Rod when the Countrymen played at the Country Inn.”
Robinson was born on a farm outside a village known in the past as Lower Ireland in the rolling hills of Megantic County. His parents were both from farming families and his father left Lower Ireland to work in order to buy a farm ten years later in the village of Bulwer.
“I was brought up to work hard and take pride in the farming life- working with animals and working in the woods and in the fields when what I really wanted to do was play hockey and play music” he said.
“My parents and two younger sisters all loved music, and while only my father and I played in dance bands, my sisters took piano lessons, sang in the choir, and were always dancing and singing country songs,”
he remembered. “My father played slide guitar, fiddle, piano and drums and being a down-homer of course the fife, so it seemed there was always an instrument lying around the house growing up. We’d play together; he on fiddle, me on guitar and sing songs. The first ones he’d learned like “The Wreck of the Old Ninety-seven” and “When the Works All Done This Fall” and we played by ear.”
Later on, Robinson would meet guys like Sid Prescott, Jerry Robitaille, Winston Nutbrown, and Les Picard, who all loved music as much as he did. With Sid Prescott, he got the chance to see Dick Curless one night at the IOOF hall in Sawyerville and then Buck Owens at the old Montreal Forum, around the same time. It kind of sealed the deal for the two young guys.
“My first gig was with Sid Prescott at what is now the Bulwer Community Centre for a young people’s dance. I was ten or eleven,” he said. “Actually we’d rehearsed in the afternoon at his place and then were racing down Bulwer hill on our bicycles when he hit a pot hole and crashed his bike, so we had to cancel our first performance.”
“I don’t think we ever canceled one after that,” he continued. “We rescheduled the dance for the following week. Anyway, playing live was magical and a lot of fun. Having people get up and dance to what we were playing, connecting with an audience through music, sharing our love for what he and I were so caught by.”
Robinson would go on honing his skills and although he plays a few instruments, guitar always remained his favorite.
“I’m partial to the sound of Martin acoustic guitars, I love the way they sound and play” he stressed.
Robinson played for about ten years in Prescott’s Orchestra, a country band including Sid Prescott on pedal steel and fiddle, Basil Prescott on banjo, Wayne Nutbrown on bass and his father Charlie Robinson on drums.
“We played at Nick Dean’s barn every Saturday night for four or five years, a great gig with Ti-blanc Richard, who owned the barn at the time, showing up and playing the square dances. He was very charismatic and fun to accompany,” the musician shared. “Over a fifteen-year period after that, I played in several bands playing a variety of music, largely working the club circuit with in turn Andromeda, Christopher Cross, J.W. Fish, and The Robinson Fowler Band. My partner Susan Fowler was a vocalist and fellow songwriter in all these bands.”
Early on, the young guitar player was influenced by all the local musicians he played with and, of course, Ray Price, Buck Owens, George Jones, Merle Haggard, and
Chuck Berry. As he got older, Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark, John Prine, The Band, CCR, and Van Morrison are influences that brought some color to his music.
Robinson has gathered many memories through his musical career and these, to him, are happy places that he cherishes. Sometimes, he says, there’s a song that comes on the radio and brings you back to the what and where in our lives.
“It’s always special having a gig. From one of my earliest ones with Russell Nutbrown at Way’s Mills, to working summers at the Ripplecove Inn, to grad dances at Alexander Galt, to the Creamery in Newport, VT, to The Manoir in Waterville, to the Holiday Inn circuit from Halifax, to Sudbury, to Sarnia. More recently, it’s performing with Susan at the Cookshire United Church and singing songs I’ve written and recorded” he stated.
Among the special experiences his music brought him, there’s working with Jason Lang, who has produced all of his nine CDS of original music but it’s not all.
“When I had a Saturday night off and would be visiting my mother, who at the time lived in Birchton, I’d call Rodney Bray, find out where he was playing and ask if I could sit in with his band. I always appreciated their openness to the idea. I wasn’t playing much country music at the time, so these nights would be a lot of fun for me getting back to playing music I’d cut my teeth on” he added.
Robinson credits singers/ songwriters such as Rodney Crowell, Lyle Lovett, Alan Jackson as an influence for his songwriting.
“I started writing my own songs the year my father died, in 1975, in order to help me cope with grief and have kept at it ever since. I’ve been told I’m a storyteller like my dad. I guess it comes from growing up in a home with few books and in a community that valued storytelling and relationships” he stressed.
“I do have an ongoing interest in songwriting and recording. However, I can’t always tell what plans music has for me” said the man who follows his heart and his inspiration of the moment. And like most musicians, he is a fervent music listener.
“There’s so much music available these days and I’m always discovering artists I’ve never heard of who are amazing. However for comfort, what I turn to when I want to get back to my roots is often the “three chords and the truth variety,” Harlan Howard’s definition of a country song. He wrote “Above and Beyond” one of my all-time favourite songs” he concluded.
If you want to hear the music of this talented singer/guitarist and songwriter you can do it by visiting his website at jimrobinson.ca