Still new sound to be found
Murray McLauchlan brings 40 years of music - and some new ideas to Showplace Feb. 25
Seeing Murray McLauchlan without a guitar in hand is a rare sight, as most Canadian music fans likely know.
So it was strange for him, too, when he found himself en route to Italy for an extended stay – without a guitar.
“I didn’t bring one,” he says. “I figured I would buy a cheap one when I got there.”
And he did, at a store called Guitarsland. “That was on my third day,” he says. “I went in and worked through the language barrier and walked out with a pretty good Chinese knockoff of a Gibson J-45.”
So good a knockoff, in fact, that it changed his style.
“By the time I got back to Canada, it had forced me to learn a new language of guitar, something called ‘shell voicings.’ Really jazzy. A new sound. I could play along with Freddy Green, Count Basie.”
That new sound, a structure that uses only the root, third and sevenths of a chord, sparked his writing process and led to his most recently album, Human Writes, much of which he recorded using older technology, including a vintage tube microphone. “The process of reimagining, of reinvention, is important to any musician,” he says.
That’s been part of the process for the Scottish-born, Torontoraised musician, whose first album was Songs From The Street in 1971. The Juno winner’s music has touched on folk, pop and country over the decades.
In addition to his new songs and the classics, McLauchlan is also part of Lunch at Allen’s, a supergroup that also includes Marc Jordan, Cindy Church and Ian Thomas.
There are still a few elements of the ’60s in his music, and in his personal life – he tells the story of how he wrote a song critical of Stephen Harper, and ended up perhaps by coincidence - being audited “intensely” by Revenue Canada. “They sent a guy with a bodyguard to my house!”
McLauchlan brings his latest songs – and his classics – to Showplace Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $45 at the Showplace box office, 705-7427469 or at showplace.org.
It’s his first solo tour in a while – he took a little break a while back when the grind got to him.
“What I actually like to do is just play music,” he says, explaining that the business side of touring – booking venues and hotels, making travel arrangements – was wearing him down.
Now he’s working with Canadian company Shantero Productions, which takes care of all the details and allows him to just get up onstage and play. He’s looking forward to it, especially when he meets, and plays for, younger fans who’ve been exploring his 40-year catalog of music.
“I’ve noticed a trend with the younger people I come into contact with – they’re looking for an authenticity you can’t get with auto-tuned, super-processed music,” he says. “For me, it’s about stretching out the jams and finding what I need.”