A marriage of music and spoken word
Bob Jensen’s ‘Bob’s Boots’ an engaging and entertaining piece of work
Since moving to Prince Edward Island with his wife in the late 1980s/early ’90s Bob Jensen has established himself as one of Canada’s premiere booking agents.
His agency, JMI, has worked with some of the world’s most respected folk and blues artists, from Pete Seeger and Jerry Jeff Walker to Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Bruce Cockburn and former Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor.
But, before he chose to focus his energies on promoting other artists, Jensen had a promising career as a singer-songwriter, playing his brand of folk music at venues throughout North America.
When he launched JMI, he put that part of his music career on the back burner.
But with his children now grown, Jensen has begun to devote more of his time to writing again.
One of the first projects to emerge is “Bob’s Boots”, an engaging and entertaining piece of work that brings together music and spoken word.
Jensen’s first release since 1984’s “First Time Since August”, is, in his own words, sort of a bootleg recording. “I’ve had all this material kicking around for many years, studio outtakes, demos and live recordings from the 1980s, so I decided to put it out there, as a kind of semi-official bootleg, hence the title.”
Half of the 16 tracks were recorded by CBC Radio in the summer of 1987 at Rasputin’s in Ottawa. Within that cluster are some solid original songs and covers of two popular trad pieces, “Drunken Sailor” and “Mary Mack”. Of the remaining tracks, several are original offerings recorded in Ottawa for a second LP that Jensen never released. Two of the cuts are from a live recording from a gig in northern New Brunswick in the spring of 1984.
Listening to these tracks now, one can’t help but wonder why he chose to devote his energy to working on the other side of the curtain.
Jensen was an accomplished songwriter with a great head for lyrics. He wrote with a true poet’s heart, penning lyrics that in many cases could stand alone without benefit of music.
The music he wrote was pretty good as well, and Jensen had/ has one of those voices that’s very easy to listen to, good range, nice timber and lovely tone, particularly on tracks like “Lazy Bob’s Lament”, “Illegitimate Love Song” and “First Time Since August” .
If some of the titles on “Bob’s Boots” sound familiar it’s because several of the original songs here have been covered by other artists. Valdy used to perform “The Ritz Café” as part of his live show, and “William Casey” and
“Jackie the Liar” and “Christmas Song” have been covered by Ray Bonneville and Black Umfolosi respectively.
The album has a bonus track, a nice little ditty he wrote when his son was born and which he frequently sang while he rocked him to sleep.
If you have a place in your heart for good, traditional folk music with some emotional clout “Bob’s Boots” could well be up your alley.
Don’t expect to hear these tracks played live, though, as Jensen has stopped performing music live, opting instead to focus on performance of spoken word pieces.
Jensen says he has no illusions about setting any sales records with this release.
“I just want to give new life to the material. Last year I signed a worldwide deal with SGO, a really great music publisher out of the U.K., and the more ways I get the music out there, the better. For me though, this is just a hobby. I have no plans to give up my day job”
(Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars)
Doug Gallant is a freelance writer and well-known connoisseur of a wide variety of music. His On Track column will appear in The Guardian every second Saturday. To comment on what he has to say or to offer suggestions for future reviews, email him at dpagallant@gmail.com.