folk music

Hollow Twin full of meaning

Emmalee Watts, left, and Rebecca Wosk are Hollow Twin. (photo by Alejandra Samaniego)

“We are constantly writing and working on new material. It’s a never-ending process for us and we love it,” Rebecca Wosk told the Independent about her musical partnership with Emmalee Watts.

“We started working together in 2011,” said Wosk, “a couple months after we met. We formed Chatterton Eve, which was the name of our band, in 2013 before we changed [the name] because no one could pronounce it. We released one EP as Chatterton Eve and three EPs, plus a single, as Hollow Twin.”

As Hollow Twin, the pair has released the EPs Noctuary (2014), Keepers (2015) and The River Saw Everything (2018), as well as the single “Bound By Blood” (2016).

Of the band’s names, Wosk explained, “Hollow is a synonym of ‘valley.’ Both Emmalee and I have deeply embedded roots in the Fraser Valley – we want to honour that wherever we are. Twin is because we feel we were twins in a past life and have been reconnected in this life. Our bond is very strong.

“Chatterton is one of Emmalee’s middle names, Eve is mine. We changed it in 2015 to Hollow Twin.”

The band’s output is more impressive when considering that Wosk and Watts have also been going to school and working.

“We met at Capilano University in 2011,” said Wosk. “We both graduated with diplomas in arts and entertainment management in 2013, and went on to work behind the scenes in the music industry. We also continued our education (we are very in sync) separately, but again, graduated at the same time, both earning diplomas in business this year. I would like to get my undergraduate degree and possibly study law, as well.”

Wosk has had a love for the arts ever since she can remember. “I always wanted to be an actress,” she said, “but I was painfully shy so, whenever I went on auditions, I would completely freeze. I turned to poetry for solace, which turned into song writing. I wrote my first song when I was 11. I still have my lyric journal from back then – they are all terrible!

“I grew up going to performing arts camps, acting classes, and I took singing lessons. This was all before I turned 14. At that point, I moved to Chilliwack. I didn’t know I would be a musician, but I’ve found singing and writing have come naturally to me. I always wanted to do something in the arts. Everything has felt very serendipitous.”

Wosk attended Vancouver Talmud Torah, and went to Point Grey and then Chilliwack Senior Secondary for high school.

For her part, “Emmalee is a Royal Conservatory-trained pianist,” said Wosk. “Her primary instrument is the bass, which also includes upright. Emmalee attended Langley Fine Arts School, which really nurtured her musical talents. Her father is a wonderful musician and had her growing up completely surrounded by music.”

Wosk described her and Watts’ songwriting process as “very balanced and collaborative.”

“We send each other ideas constantly over our phones and get together several times a week to practise or work on new material,” she said. “We let the song naturally progress. I’m constantly writing lyrics and coming up with melodies, while Emmalee is playing guitar or piano. We combine our strengths equally.

“We hire session musicians to play drums, bass and keys live. Emmalee plays bass, guitar and keys during our recording sessions.

“We used to be a five-piece band, with three other permanent members, but we found there were a lot of creative differences in play and we needed to be true to the vision of our music. A producer we worked with in 2015 suggested we become a duo and hire players when we need them. It’s made things a lot more efficient.”

While the musical influences listed on Hollow Twin’s website include Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin and Heart, it describes Hollow Twin as “dark folk rock.” A press release says their songs are about “grieving, the dualities of life, and making the most of your time on earth.”

“We’ve gone through a lot in our lives so far, good and bad,” explained Wosk. “We have chosen to embrace the things that have shaped our character, even if it has caused pain or heartache – that usually creates the best inspiration. I lost my stepfather to cancer last year, I have been battling depression and severe anxiety since I was 10 years old. The darkness comes from those places – worries, insecurities, loss, life.

“There is a catharsis in our process. It’s truly like free therapy. It’s very vulnerable, we are really baring our souls with whoever chooses to listen to what we create. We don’t want to make anyone sad or depressed, we want people to feel something. Our music ranges from more upbeat to slower, darker songs, but they all have depth in their meanings. We hope that meaning can reach into our listener’s soul and connect with them, so they know they aren’t alone.”

About the role, if any, that Judaism, Jewish culture or Jewish community plays in her life, Wosk said, “I find comfort in knowing I belong to such a warm and welcoming tribe. For all my life, I have seen the support and love that surrounds our community, seeing everyone come together for events, and always being there for whatever may be needed…. I feel we have an unspoken, yet palpable bond and loyalty to each other as Jewish people.

“I myself am not religious,” she said. “I consider myself spiritual. I come from a line of strong Jewish men and women who valued their culture and contributed to the community. I carry the values they – and what I’ve witnessed from our community at large – have carried: compassion, education, family, openness, honesty and kindness.”

Hollow Twin will be recording demos at the beginning of next month, so they can apply for some funding. “If we can secure our funding,” said Wosk, “we will be recording a full-length album, touring and releasing a music video.” Regardless, the band will be releasing a new track in October of this year.

To see Hollow Twin play live, head to Guilt & Co. the night of July 29. To keep apprised of other show dates and news, visit hollowtwin.com or follow the band on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Their music is available online via iTunes/Apple Music, Bandcamp and can be streamed on Spotify and Soundcloud.

A life of music and activism

Gary Cristall (photo by Brian Nation)

‘My Jewish identity has always been associated with the struggle for basic human values and rights and freedoms,” said Gary Cristall, co-founder of the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, in conversation with the Jewish Independent. “I thought that was the centre, was the core of being Jewish. That was the way I was raised and the stories that were told. I had two identifications with being Jewish – one was social justice, and the other was culinary. I worshipped at Schwartz’s Deli in Montreal.”

A longtime advocate for both the arts and progressive politics, whose passion was forged in the Canadian left of the 1950s and ’60s, Cristall is a cultural pioneer. He co-founded the Vancouver Folk Music Festival in 1978, later serving as its coordinator and artistic director until 1994.

As well as being an educator, activist and promoter, Cristall has fought for artists, struggling to win them professional respect while also defending their rights to fair fees and copyright ownership. For his range of work, he was awarded an honourary doctorate by the University of British Columbia in 2015 and was recognized as an outstanding alumnus of Simon Fraser University in 2017.

Cristall sees his involvement in activism and folk music as natural outgrowths of the culture in which he was raised. “Jews played a major role in folk music in this country, and in the States,” he said. “There were around 50 Jews who invented folk music. It was a conspiracy that was so successful no one understood what had happened.”

Cristall estimates that about 10,000 people attended the first Vancouver Folk Music Festival in 1978. This year’s festival, which takes place July 13-15, is expected to draw more than 35,000 people to Jericho Beach, where the event has been located since 1979. Seven stages are set up in the park and every available inch of parking space in the neighbourhood disappears. This year’s festival will present more than 50 concerts or workshops by artists from around the world, as well as an artisan market and a range of food vendors.

Beyond the festival, Cristall has served in the Canada Council for the Arts and was the founding president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

“When the CCA hired me, I was getting tired, getting ready to leave the festival, wondering what I would do next,” Cristall said. “When I saw the job ad, I thought, they’ll never hire me, but they’ll interview me and I’ll get a free trip to see my mother in Toronto. But they were looking to make a change, and they were interested in me because I was a shit-disturber and a rabble-rouser. They called my bluff, and said, ‘OK, you want to change things, come work for us.’”

Today, Cristall is at both Douglas College and Capilano University, where he teaches Canadian cultural policy and arts administration. He has spent 18 years working on a history of folk music in English-speaking Canada, which, he joked, is “1,200 pages written so far, a few hundred pages left to go.”

Asked about what he’s looking forward to at the festival year, Cristall reeled off a list of a dozen performers and what’s special about them. Among them, he mentioned Rodney Crowell, “a brilliant songwriter”; Guy Davis, a “great blues player, son of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, left-wing Harlem artists going way back”; Les Poules à Colin, “young people who are the children of that first revival generation of Quebecois folk music”; the Dead South, “Saskatchewan bluegrass”; Dálava, “a Moravian group doing avant-garde classical and folk and jazz music”; Dori Freeman, whose hometown, Galax, Va., “was a centre of old-timey music”; Vancouver’s Gord Grdina, who “plays the oud and is a brilliant guitar player, got a Juno, plays with a 10-piece band”; A Familia Machado, a “great guitar player playing with two members of his family from Brazil”; and Archie Roach “from Australia, a senior aboriginal songwriter.”

As he spoke, the enthusiasm poured off of him. Cristall is clearly still a man who loves music. “They’re the real thing,” he said. “That’s what I like about the folk festival, it’s the real thing.”

In his list of highlights, Cristall notably passed over most of the more well-known acts playing at the festival, names like Art Bergmann, Ry Cooder, the Mariel Buckley Band, Neko Case and indigenous artist and 2018 Juno nominee Iskwé. “What I love about the folk festival is not just seeing the big names, but seeing someone I never heard of before and come home loving,” said Cristall.

How does the world look to a longtime activist like Cristall? What’s his advice to the next generation?

“My hope is very much alive,” he said. “My Zaida was imprisoned for political activism, and he escaped and came to Canada. I’ve been active since 1965. We have to keep on fighting, nothing says we’re going to win quickly. I’m not pessimistic. Every movement has its ups and downs and nobody said that we were going to win fast and easy. My advice to younger people is get involved, educate yourself, learn and fight. That also connects to the kind of music [at the festival], both implicitly and explicitly – the music is a struggle to survive against the behemoth of capitalism and the fact that those artists have survived is a cultural victory. Hey, it’s too late to be pessimistic.”

For the full festival lineup and tickets, visit thefestival.bc.ca.

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He is Pacific correspondent for the CJN, writes regularly for the Forward, Tricycle and the Wisdom Daily, and has been published in Sojourners, Religion Dispatches and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.

Music that entertains, heals

(photo from jaegerreidmusic.com)

An unexpected kindness reignites a passion for music, which offers an outlet for grief, as well as a new career path. A chance meeting turns into a mutually supportive, productive and enduring musical collaboration. We often forget how much of a role luck – fate, destiny, whatever we call it – plays in our lives. For Judi Jaeger, two occurrences stand out, with relation to her singing and songwriting.

From Way Up Here is Jaeger’s first CD with Bob Reid; she has two prior solo recordings. Released last summer, From Way Up Here features original music by both Jaeger and Reid, as well as covers of some of their favourite songs.

While Reid “is a California native and a fourth-generation Californian on his father’s side,” Jaeger told the Independent, he lived in “Calgary for awhile in the ’70s and also hitchhiked across Canada along the Trans Canada Highway in 1969.”

Jaeger, who lives near San Francisco, moved to California more than 20 years ago, after living in Seattle for almost 10 years, she said. “We moved here because of my husband’s job. We settled here and this is where we have raised our two children, our son Nick, who is 19 and a freshman in college (first year), and our daughter Emma, who is a junior in high school (Grade 11).”

But Jaeger was born in Ottawa. And she spent her teen years in Vancouver – “I went to Eric Hamber High School … where I sang in the swing chorus, played the flute in band class and was in some of the musicals” – as well as attending University of British Columbia. “I am still Canadian deep in my soul despite living in the States for many years,” she said.

Jaeger learned to play guitar when she was 15 – her brother, who is five years older, taught her the basic chords. “I played and sang folk songs for myself, and for friends when I went to Young Judaea summer camps,” she said. “When I was 20, and very busy – I was in college (I went to UBC for a few years and Carleton in Ottawa) – I put it away and didn’t touch it for 25 years.

“I picked it up again through some serendipity when a woman who was working for us as a nanny took my guitar, unbeknownst to me, to be restrung and presented it to me saying, ‘Here it is, now you can play it again,’ because I had been making noises about writing a song to deal with the lingering grief over my mother’s passing a few years before.

“So, I started playing it again after many years. And then, I wrote a song about my mother, which is called ‘Greedy Crime.’ I didn’t know anything about songwriting,” she admitted, “I just wrote a song – sat down and wrote the lyrics in one sitting and then, about a week later, sat down with my guitar and wrote a melody.”

One listen to this beautiful and moving song, which was released in 2007, and it’s obvious that Jaeger has natural talent. But she wanted more from herself.

“Once I had written a song,” she said, “I decided to learn something about songwriting, so I began to take a class at a local guitar shop in Palo Alto, Calif. From there, I began going to open mics to sing and play my original songs.”

Jaeger played in a band for a few years and was in another duo for about five years.

“Through my songwriting community, I learned about an acoustic music camp for adults called California Coast Music Camp,” she said. “It is a nirvana experience where about 100 adults attend a one- or two-week camp to study and play acoustic music. You can learn a new instrument or work on the one you play already. There are concerts and workshops and classes. It is collaborative, supportive and educational all at once. It was the best experience. I went about five times.

“That is where I met Bob Reid. He was one of the instructors at the music camp one of the years I went. On the last night of camp, they always have an enormous Beatles jam. Imagine 40 or 50 people sitting around in a large circle, playing guitar, ukulele, banjo, mandolin, bass, etc., and singing songs together. So, I was standing on the outside of the circle, singing, and Bob was walking around the circle singing harmony with people (he is particularly talented at harmony singing, and part of what people love about our duo is our blend) and he just happened to stop next to me and we hit a note that made him look at me and say, ‘wow.’ That was the extent of our meeting at the camp, but we ran into each other a few more times in the Bay Area, always at music camp events and there was always playing and singing at these events, and people kept saying, ‘Your voices sound so good together.’ So, after awhile, we decided to do something about it, and we formed a duo.”

Reid has sung and played guitar and many other instruments for his whole life, said Jaeger. “He grew up in a musical house – his parents owned a record store in Berkeley, Calif., his mother was a singer and songwriter in the ’60s and ’70s, and his father was a gospel music promoter,” she said. “Bob has played music for adults and for children, in schools and in concerts and at festivals all across the United States.”

Jaeger also grew up in a “home that was filled with music,” as well as “the beautiful cultural aspects of being Jewish, like wonderful food, family gatherings and loving extended family,” she said. “I went to Young Judaea summer camps for years, where there was always singing and dancing and plays. My mother played guitar, my brother played guitar, and my father loved music. We had a record player and lots of records. So, while I am not religious, and not even practising any faith, I have very warm feelings about Jewish culture.”

Jaeger is the daughter of Max Roytenberg – an occasional contributing writer to the Jewish Independent, and the proud father who alerted the JI to Jaeger’s latest CD – and Lorraine Davidson, who died in White Rock, in December 2004, at the age of 71. “And she had been declining for at least 10 years,” shared Jaeger. “So the ‘loss’ began when she was very young. She had a degenerative brain disease like Alzheimer’s.

“I felt cheated and thought she was cheated, too, and I felt angry that she didn’t get to enjoy her senior years or her children and grandchildren as she might have – my children were 3 and 6 when she passed away. I carried those feelings around for a couple years. One day, I just started thinking about this idea, that I would write a song about how I was feeling, even though I had never written a song before. I thought about this for a few months. I love music and always have, and I’ve always loved to sing. Then my guitar came back into my life with fresh strings (as I explained) and this gave me my outlet.

“I thought that maybe if I talked about how I was feeling that it might help other people who were dealing with or had dealt with the same problems and feelings,” she explained. “I can’t tell you how many times after a concert when we have sung ‘Greedy Crime’ people have come up to me and told me how much it meant to them, how they had experienced something similar and how moved they were. I had previously recorded ‘Greedy Crime’ and included it on an earlier solo album but that was many years ago and the song was overproduced. Bob is the one who encouraged me to include it, sung our way, on our first album as a duo because he feels it is such a powerful song. And, with his harmony, it is even more powerful.”

Another powerful song on From Way Up Here is Jaeger’s “Love Caught Her,” written for the organization Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse (CORA). Jaeger was a lawyer, until she retired from the profession in 1997.

“As a family law attorney,” she said, “I saw domestic violence in my practice. It was there. I began to support my local domestic violence prevention organization (CORA) and I became friends with the executive director. Many years later, when she learned about my songwriting, she asked if I would consider writing some songs for them, and coming to perform them at a fundraiser they were having. I agreed and I wrote two songs for them in 2011. One of them, ‘Love Caught Her,’ is on our Jaeger & Reid album; the other song has never been recorded.

“Then, a couple years ago, the director asked if Bob and I would come to sing at an event they were having to honour people who had died from domestic violence. It was called Voices Not Forgotten. We agreed. When we couldn’t find just the right song to sing at this event, we decided to write it instead. Bob and I wrote a song called ‘Not Another.’ We have played it for CORA two years in a row at the same event. There is a video of this song on our Jaeger & Reid Facebook page, facebook.com/jaegerreidmusic.”

Jaeger and Reid play “house concerts and listening rooms in many different cities in the United States.” The pair came to Vancouver and Salt Spring Island last August, soon after their CD release, and they are hoping to get back to Canada this year.

From Way Up Here was recorded by multiple-Grammy-nominated producer Cookie Marenco at OTR Studios in Belmont, Calif. The title track, explained Jaeger, “is a song that was written by Malvina Reynolds (who wrote ‘Little Boxes’ and ‘Turn Around’ and some hits for the Seekers) and she gave the lyrics to her friend Pete Seeger, who wrote the melody. Bob, who was close friends with Pete and Toshi Seeger for 25 years, had always wanted to hear that song with harmony. It’s his arrangement on our album and is a powerful song.”

As for the original songs on the CD, Jaeger said, “We picked each for its story and its sound and then we brought in other musicians, all friends of either Bob or me, to add their own touch. We recorded so many songs when we were working in the studio that we have enough extra to almost release our second album. But, we have been writing new songs together for the past couple years now, so we have many new ones to record, as well. It is our goal to get our second album recorded and completed quickly.”

If it at all compares to their first recording, it is an album to eagerly anticipate. For more on Jaeger and Reid, visit jaegerreidmusic.com.