By Bob

Tips for folkies

How to Raise $25,000 for Your CD - When I went back into the recording studio for the first time in 15 years, I felt like an old gunslinger digging in the feed bin for the six-gun he stashed years before... (Read more)

How to Put On the Perfect House Concert by Martha Stewart and Me - Despite the juggernaut of mass marketing and mass media, folk music has remained, effectively, a regional business. There is something nice about that. Nice, that is, until a performer wants to play a new town, or a fan wants to hear, live, the maker of a favourite obscure disk... (Read more)

Politics and Environment

How I saved Clayoquot - When I first saw a rough cut of Sulphur Passage, it brought a lump to my cynical, old throat. Since then it has had that effect on hundreds, maybe even thousands, of others. But... (Read more)

The Clayoquot Women - It would take a book to do justice to the 20-year campaign to save the ancient forest of Clayoquot Sound. But this is a pretty good shot at capturing the highlights in 3500 words. It was published in slightly different form in Homemakers' Magazine in September '99... (Read more)

10 things you can do to save the world - Diane Rinehart, then the editor of Homemaker's Magazine, called me and asked me to write an article on what her readers could do to make a difference to the earth's deteriorating environment. It was an intriguing challenge: what is most important? what is just symbolic? what are people most likely to actually do?... (Read more)

People

Marcia Bossin, 1912 - 2006 - Marcia Bossin, my mother, lived two lives. In one, she was exquisitely mannered, elegantly dressed and convivial. She kept a small but beautiful home, remained married to my father until his death, raised me through college. She served on charity committees. She didn't rock the boat. But her still waters ran deep... (Read more)

Dief & Me - John Diefenbaker was Prime Minister of Canada in the mid-1960s, the first westerner to hold the job. He was an old-fashioned, thundering, Tory populist. I wrote this piece for what would have been his 100th birthday... (Read more)

Sam Jethroe and Me - I was tickled to see Sam Jethroe's name in the news last week. The last time before that might have been 20 years ago, maybe even 30. Jethroe is an old (he must be near 80 now) black baseball player who finally, after considerable legal wrangling, wrestled a pension out of Major League Baseball... (Read more)

Farrell Toombs - Farrell Toombs died on October 21, 1997, his 85th birthday. I probably live in one of the few places in the country where there is not a community to drink share stories about him... (Read more)