Nov 22, 2008 - 04:30 AM

By William McGuirk

"Newfoundlanders have recorded their history in song for over 500 years," says Alan Doyle of the band, Great Big Sea. "It is not the only place in the world to have done so, but in North America it is fairly rare. Many would argue that songs are the most accurate window through which to view the past, and off the top of my head I can think of several aspects of rural Newfoundland and St. John's life that are immortalized in great traditional music."

Earlier this month, Durham Shoestring Performers presented Carol Shields' play, Departures and Arrivals, in which many stories are told and woven as people pass through an airport. The terminal is a metaphor for the crossroads. The travel writer Pico Iyer has used the same imagery in his writings. The Crossroads, of course, features large in the history of the Blues in America with Robert Johnson's tale of trading with the devil. On their latest album, Fortune's Favour, Great Big Sea have their own take on that legend, the rollicking Straight To Hell.

"Standing at the Crossroads/ He offered wine, women and song/ Riches, Fame and Fortune/ In my hands from that day on I was granted there and then/ A life of Rock and Roll."

Canada, too, seems like a terminal with the world's stories crisscrossing, a tower of Babel waiting to be seated. The intersection of cultures gave rise to the Blues. Strangers in a strange land joined together in hope and promise through song. In the simple act of communicating sadness, there is hope. Hope that the story will resonate with another and the one's humanity acknowledged.

In Canada, the Newf is the perennial outsider, physically and socially. The stereotyped Newfie buffoon is a constant in popular culture. Canadian Blues and from it all things hip and cool thus starts in Newfoundland. Traditional-based roots music from the East Coast still finds a huge audience in this country. Like Carol Shields' play, it tells our tales no matter where we come from. It sings of life in this space. The Blues begins in confrontation. It ends in compassion.

The Blues has wide shoulders. It can carry the weight of a weary world. In doing so, it lightens life. It enables happiness. Willie Dixon called the Blues happy music. There is no happier music in Canada than that which spills down the streets of St. John's. It is universal in its irresistible appeal.

The Newfoundlanders created their own language, held onto their heritage, took pride in their roots and banded together to create a culture for themselves. The culture created in the Mississippi Delta has become the de facto culture of the United States. The roots culture of the East Coast is at the base of the Canadian Sound, through Hank Snow through to Neil Young and Blue Rodeo. Great Big Sea are the masters at the moment. Their heritage is confrontation with nature, with land, with sea; but also with another culture, the moneyed mainland.

It's not coincidence that Johnson's tale found favour with these Newfies at all. Survival is struggle on The Rock. Survival depends on making deals with mystery tramps as Bob Dylan sings. Making it through an ordinary day is cause to break out in song. That's the rock on which the Canadian Blues is built.

Great Big Sea play Nov. 22 at the GM Centre. Jeen O'Brien of Bowmanville (once of Lilith) who sings on the latest record may join the band onstage.

William McGuirk is a freelance writer and longtime Oshawa resident. He can be contacted at wmacg@yahoo.com.