Releasing a new record never grows old. Unlike me. I just turned another year older and still felt the rush and buzz of holding a new CD or Vinyl as I unwrapped Back to the Harbour…

I recorded these songs with some of my best friends and musical inspirations around an old upright piano at Joel Plaskett’s amazing New Scotland Yard studio in Dartmouth with Cory Tetford and Kendel Carson. These are songs I love to sing at closing time. You know? When you think the night wants one more brush stroke to make it a perfect painting. They make me feel warm and cozy to sing them. Hope they do the same when you hear them.

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I first heard this song on TV sung by the most influential band I have ever known, Wonderful Grand Band. The voice singing was that of the legendary Ron Hynes though the words he spoke could have been directly from the mouth of any one of my father’s generation in Petty Harbour. They spoke with weary heartbreak to see the way of life their parents lived, with happy, busy days on the waters and in the kitchens, supplanted by shrinking fisheries and one household after the other emptying to flea to the mainland for work in faceless crowds in nameless factories. I hope you love Cody’s short film to accompany Back Home on the Island as much as I do. My hometown, like so many on the coast of our Province is hoping to hold onto some of the best of our traditions and remind everyone, including ourselves, that we come from a rich and beautiful time and place.

Writing this book made me smile or even laugh out loud regularly as I recalled some of the amusing steps and way more of the amusing missteps of my lucky lucky life. I hope it brightens your day.

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