North Island Concert Society welcomes back to the North Island former resident John Gogo with his Coal and Wood Show on Saturday, May 9 at 7 p.m. at the Port Hardy Civic Centre

Balladeer and actor John Gogo hails from a musical family in Snuneymuxw aka Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island. He’s best known for writing and performing his folk songs about the people and places, the true and the tall tales of the Canadian west coast, the islands in particular. From Haida Gwaii to St. John’s to Old Crow, John has played community halls and big houses, festivals and pubs, theatres and beer parlours with such notable and diverse artists as Willie P. Bennett, Blue Shadows, Valdy, Crash Test Dummies, Australian Paul Kelly and Fred Eaglesmith. John has just produced and released his 6th record ‘Western Balladeer’ featuring the single and video ‘The Morning After’- an unpublished, virtually unknown Robert Service poem written circa 1900 on the back of a bank draft. Service promptly gave it away to his banking colleague. Roughly 120 years later the poem was gifted to John for the express purpose of turning it into a song. After writing the music and a chorus lyric, John asked his brother Paul Gogo (Trooper) to play a barroom style piano track. Ultimately recognizing the song’s great duet potential, John invited Canadian folk music icon Valdy to lend his voice to the song.

‘Western Balladeer’ also includes six new John Gogo songs.  ‘Western Balladeer’ features John’s daughters, singers Jeri Gogo and Jena Gogo along with Jena’s partner Eric Duquette (aka ‘Duke & Goldie’) as well as Tyler Lieb on pedal steel guitar and bassist (and cousin) Brent Gubbels. Other featured performers are David Essig on lap steel, Rick Scott and his dulcimer while Dazy Weymer sang a bass vocal and  Daniel Lapp played some sweet fiddle.  

“One of the most talented singer songwriters this area has ever produced,”  Joseph Blake Victoria Times.

COAL AND WOOD SHOW

This engaging one-man show written and performed by John Gogo revisits the gritty coal mining and logging towns of Vancouver Island on Canada’s rugged western coast. Haunting folk tales told by four generations of a Vancouver Island pioneer family offer a fascinating look beneath the surface of history unfolded from 1895 to 1995. Their songs explore the unique and layered lives of heroes and villains: the visionary Finns of Sointula, the notorious Dunsmuirs, labour martyr Ginger Goodwin, the ghost of Clarence Ballance and the infamous Brother XII of De Courcy Island.

Tickets are available at Cafe Guido, Essentials Refillery, and from Gail Neely in Port Alice as well as at the door. For further information please phone 250-956-067. Tickets are $35 for adults and $10 for students. A concession will be provided by Port Hardy Secondary School. A raffle will be available that evening with prizes of a stay at Telegraph Cove Resort and Prince of Whales Tours and other items.