By W.T. Edwards
Canada’s award-winning songsmith, Tom Wilson, is back, this time as the guitarist and lead singer of LeE HARVeY OsMOND. Reincarnated from the likes of Blackie and the Rodeo Kings and Junkhouse, Wilson’s new band has surely tapped a previously unheard main line in the folk music scene. LHO’s quiet, cool groove is spinning with a unique brand of fuzzy folk and heartfelt lyrics that lay low in your ears and weigh heavy in your soul.
Wilson, a veteran on the Canadian music scene, started his career in the 1990s and left his mark as a member of Junkhouse when that band was signed to Sony Records. Junkhouse released one album and toured opening for The Waltons and Soul Asylum. Wilson’s next endeavor found him leading Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, a western-folk-rock supergroup that spawned five albums and went on to win Canada’s Juno Award.
Wilson’s newest project, described not so much as a band but more as a music collective, LeE HARVeY OsMOND, was formed in Toronto when members of Junkhouse, Skydiggers, Cowboy Junkies, and a veteran folk great got together to make music that needed to be played and had to be heard.
In a 2009 interview with Paul Cantin for No Depression, a webzine devoted to roots music, Wilson stated: “When I first heard people like Gordon Lightfoot and David Wiffen and Ian Tamblyn, folk music was never ‘fiddly-die-doe’…That belongs to another culture, another country, another economic and social scene. I always felt that I could never wash the working-class grime off of me. As a result, I have always worn it with pride. What we are doing with Lee Harvey Osmond, we are bringing that forward again. It is a little dark.”
LHO’s music is very far from “fiddly-die-doe.” Its ominous, almost menacing tunes include driving bass lines, waning slide guitar, and rustic hand drums. LHO’s horn section offers a cool funk rarely seen in this genre of music. On top of it all, Wilson floats near whispers of cautionary tales and personal reflections. Ultimately what LHO has produced, is nothing short of a no rules exultation of how new music was meant to sound.
A Quiet Evil, released earlier this year from LHO on Latent Recordings, has been met with positive reviews and was even nominated for the Polaris Music Prize, Canadian national critics award for the most creative album of the year. (Other nominees include Tegan and Sara, Broken Social Scene and Crystal Castles.)
The band’s debut album is a melancholy mix of sultry soul lyrics and solid groove. This can be found in the prominent track “Cuckoo’s Nest.” The video is infused with stock audio of J.F.K.’s assassination and the manhunt that shortly ensued. The video culminates with a rich reenactment of the events that led to the demise of Lee Harvey Oswald. This track features Wilson’s almost growl-like vocals where he proclaims who he is not: “I’m no Muhammad, or mother Mary. / I’m not Jesus, or Reverend Jerry.”
Instead he simply touts, “I’m gonna live my life.” A truly poignant statement that rises over the mellow horns that back up Wilson.
The other incredibly remarkable song that appears on LHO’s new album is “I’m Going to Stay That Way,” a beautiful, western ballad sung from the perspective of an imprisoned man and the woman who remained on the outside. The song, which features Margo Timmins, laments on their once lawless love and the actions that led to his imprisonment. She states her side in one verse:
Now I asked you for diamonds, wasted all the while.
Now the ring on my finger is what’s left of an old crime.
And the young man who vanished fast when true love went astray,
Yeah, you drove me crazy and I’m gonna stay that way.
Despite the prisoner’s remorse for his unlawful actions and his present incarceration, a simple statement is made that tells of the gamble one makes in love. Wilson sings:
Some women make men rich in love and faith.
Some women make killers and bring on a life of pain.
I’m just a lonely boy, behind these walls to stay.
Cuz you drove me crazy and I’m gonna stay that way.
“I’m Going to Stay That Way” proves that LHO’s lyrics in duet paint a picture rarely seen in today’s music.
While you enjoy the original tracks appearing on LHO’s A Quiet Evil, peppered in you’ll be pleased to find a couple of solid covers: “Angels in the Wilderness” by Michael Timmins; “Lucifer’s Blues” by David Wiffen; and the amazing interpretation of “I Can’t Stand It” by The Velvet Underground. It doesn’t end there. Keep your ear to the rails for live covers of the greats. A simple search on YouTube yielded a couple of Gordon Lightfoot covers and a real gem: Neil Young’s “Are You Ready for the Country?”
This year’s Philadelphia Folk Festival will be featuring LeE HARVeY OsMOND on the Canadian Stage. Their fellow Canadian folkies will include Treasa Levasseur, Nudie & The Turks, Justin Rutledge, and Amelia Curran. LHO will also be playing other dates around the U.S. and Canada. Be sure to catch them when they pass through your town. Whether LHO performs as a full band or delivers one of its stripped-down acoustic sets, you won’t want to miss them.
