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The Co-dependents “Live Recording Event”
Recorded “live” at the Mecca Café
Trans-Canada Highway at Stoney Trail
Calgary, Alberta
June 27, 29, 30 / 2001
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“It’s about time. There’s going to be a lot of people wanting to hear that”
Those were the words of respected west-coast guitarist Gaye Delorme, after he found out an album featuring the voice of Billy Cowsill, in a crack little band called the Co-Dependents, was finally going to be released to the public.
To say that a project like this is long overdue is just a bit of an understatement, as Cowsill’s golden tones have been stopping audiences dead in their tracks for the better part of two decades in this part of the world. Delorme, of course, is right, as Cowsill has an incredibly loyal fan base. From Vancouver, where those who still swoon to the sound of his singing may have first heard him as a member of Blue Northern in the late seventies, to Calgary, the city he has called home for a few years now, the man simply packs rooms with rabid fans who want to hear his brilliant interpretations of classic rock and roll tunes. So many of us have considered this music a major part of our musical diet, for so long, it almost seems absurd that at this point in time, an actual recording of one of his performances is just now surfacing in the conventional manner.
Why not ten or fifteen years ago? There are any number of reasons, too many to list.
While this fan listens to the pure emotion, deadly pitch and exacting turns of phrase, as the frontman so comfortably and confidently steps into Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”, a flood of memories of gigs past surface so quickly, it’s almost unnerving.
I can still see the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth while he vigorously attacks his acoustic six string, like a drummer attacking a snare drum, as he waited to step up to the microphone for the start of another verse. It’s also no problem envisioning specific audiences lip-syncing along to Arthur Alexander’s “Anna (Go To Him), where Cowsill captures the spirit of both the songwriter, and John Lennon, who first latched on to it in the early days of the Beatles.
This great music was always happening in venues that were justifiably called “joints”.
It was debatable whether or not the performance spaces were the hottest hangouts in any given town, but if Cowsill and company were on stage, they certainly were.
Places like the Lakeside Inn on the edge of the water in Invermere, a cozy Mexican restaurant in Edmonton called Banditos, the funky Spinning Wheel cabaret in Vancouver’s Gastown, or the tiny hole-in-the-wall café called Slack Alice’s in Calgary were a few of those haunts. All would be bursting at the seams with the same kind of energy one could expect to find in concert halls when Billy C. took charge.
It’s not that renditions of sparkling gems of songs written by everyone from Hank Sr., Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins didn’t pin everyone in those places, one way or another, over and over again. By the same token, it’s not that this exceptional singer didn’t, over the years, share the stage with players who could drive home the tunes with comparable passion and skill. The tape was just never rolling.
Great memories for sure, but now, we finally have in our possession a recorded document of some of that magic.
All the necessary variables lined up around this particular group dubbed the Co-Dependents. Ten, even fifteen years ago, the three other members of the Co’d’s, Steve Pineo, Tim Leacock and Ross Watson could often be found sitting at Cowsill gigs in Calgary, soaking up everything they could. At some point in time this trio of players, who have worked together in numerous configurations, went from being students of this veteran musician to his full-fledged collaborators.
It doesn’t take long to hear on this “oh so live” batch of tunes, so expertly captured by veteran producer and Grammy-nominated engineer Miles Wilkinson, that the Co-Dependents is one extremely tight unit on all levels. All the participants shine, and it seems very appropriate that the show was recorded over a few nights at a place called the Mecca Café (www.meccacafe.ca/photos.htm) on the western outskirts of Calgary. For many of us, hearing the renditions of these songs, with a few originals by Pineo and Cowsill mixed in for good measure, continues to be a heavenly experience. The venue itself is almost a composite of all the aforementioned places Cowsill has sung his heart out in over the years he has called Western Canada home.
Yes it was worth the wait, but now has come that moment to make up for lost time.
The Co-dependents on command, I like that.
Gaye Delorme is right. It is about time. A lot of people are going to be wanting to hear this.
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