PLAIN FOLK

by Les Pearson
Persistence Pays Off: Finally, My Interview with Colin Linden!

It's Saturday morning, August 16. I'm at the Regina Folk Festival in downtown Victoria Park. The sun is shining. I have a backstage pass. And Colin Linden is in town! Air Canada's Blackout cancellations have not grounded Blackie.

I'm waiting by the stage gate like a zoo carnivore at morning feeding. Colin Linden has e-mailed to confirm that he will definitely make time for the interview that we did not have in Winnipeg.

Anyone who listens to CKUA understands why this interview is exciting. Colin Linden is an international recording star and music producer. He is first tier in Canada's Pantheon of recording gods. He plays and produces for Bruce Cockburn, Emmylou Harris, Colin James, T-Bone Burnett and an international heavenly host whose names you would know.

I have a new batch of questions that only he can answer. The first concerns his home in Nashville. Why is a Canadian recording in the US, eh? Considering Hollywood's shift North to cheaper production costs, why is it that music recording remains in God blessed America? What about his home and native land?

Colin has an armful of answers. First, it's the lifestyle. Nashville is a friendly "manageable" city of 600,000. A musician can still afford to buy a house there. And, of course, the city has "an amazing music scene." The fire is stoked. Colin throws on another cord which is not the chord I expected.

In Nashville, "The bar is so high in terms of the quality of the musicians, quality of recording studios, people writing songs--literally hundreds, probably thousands, of people writing songs every day. And people recording songs every day. It's a big part of peoples' lives. So all these things combine...."

His fire is just a little too warm. I back away and spritz his growing blaze with my reminder about production costs. With the low Canadian dollar, why doesn't the recording industry shift to a really cool country like Canada? Colin's answer chills me.

"Can't imagine it happening. It almost happened 30 years ago." That was when recording artists could still afford time in Canadian studios. Linden explains that today major Canadian studios cater to jingle and film business. These expensive specialties practically eliminate the riff-rat recording artist. While there are some "real interesting" Canadian studios, they do not "draw" musicians like economical Nashville can.

"Could happen," he speculates. Maybe if one of the small interesting studios provided "some really big records." That might draw artists to those who made the records. I consider. Was he considering too? Linden is the kind of producer who could make it happen. He has that draw. Could this one man become the nuclear core of a renewed Canadian recording industry?

Colin Linden really is a nice guy. I have seen him work the summer festival stages. The other questions and answers fade into embers. And I am left daydreaming about what has been and what may yet be!