Tom Wilson

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Thursday, August 2nd, 2012
8:30 PM to 11:00 PM

When Tom Wilson claims that he�s one of Canada�s last remaining folksingers he�s not indulging in as much hyperbole as you�d think.

From his start as a teenager enamoured of Willie P. Bennett, Stan Rogers and Brent Titcomb through a free-ranging blues, country, rock career that�s touched everywhere and anywhere depending on his moods, Wilson has kept outside the system as much as he�s worked within it, carrying the purest idea of folk music throughout.

He played ferocious blues-rock with Junkhouse, paid dues of love and respect to Bennett by starting Blackie and the Rodeo Kings as a Bennett tribute with Colin Linden and Stephen Fearing, and then went to the outskirts with the ever shifting lineup he puts together for his latest band Lee Harvey Osmond. Throughout he�s zealously guarded his artistic vision, going directly to distributors and promoters, sometimes selling records out of his car, making personal connections the way that your average rock star can�t.

Now he�s on the road for a solo tour in the brief interim before the fall release of Lee Harvey Osmond�s upcoming album, The Folk Sinner, and festival dates with Blackie. He�s performing a mix of Blackie, Junkhouse, Lee Harvey Osmond songs, or whatever he feels like playing at the moment. Wilson is an honest, funny, at times self-deprecating interview; if you ask him nicely, maybe he�ll even take you out to the back of the club after the show and sell you an album from the trunk of his car.

The Journal spoke with Wilson as he was ordering a beverage from what he sardonically calls �The Evil Empire,� his local Starbucks.