Fred Eaglesmith’s blue-collar rock
By Seth Rogovoy

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass., March 27, 2001) - For Fred Eaglesmith, writing songs and performing them were a way out of a dead-end life that, as it so happens, he hasn't left very far behind.

For one, the small-town, blue-collar characters that Eaglesmith grew up with in rural Ontario vividly populate his songs, so they're never far away from his consciousness. For another, when he's not touring North America 10 months out of the year, Eaglesmith still calls small-town Canada home. But more than even that, Eaglesmith brings a blue-collar approach - call it a work ethic if you will - to the business of rock 'n' roll. "I make a good living, but I run a business," said Eaglesmith, who performs tonight with his six-piece band at Club Helsinki, in a recent phone interview.

And indeed, to hear Eaglesmith describe a typical day in the life of the folk-rock troubadour, it's easy to conclude that he has more in common with, say, a general contractor than Rod Stewart.

"I don't live like those guys do -- I don't hang around the latte shop," said Eaglesmith. "I have to phone the manager, the agent, the business manager, everybody, and make sure everybody's got their job done. There's already been five phone calls made this morning, and there's five more to make before I can go on doing what I want to do." To be sure, Eaglesmith is not complaining. In fact, peers who whine about the rigors of life on the road exasperate him. "I mean, nobody asked us to do this," said Eaglesmith, with typical understatement. "We sort of said we want to do this, and because of that we have to go to them. We can't expect them all to come to us. And it takes a tremendous amount of will power. It's exactly what these other guys do in business -- it's this positive thinking stuff. It's really setting your mind to it and saying I'm going to do this by hook or by crook."

Perhaps it's by staying so grounded to the everyday business aspect of his work that Eaglesmith is able to churn out the sort of detailed portraits of blue-collar life that Bruce Springsteen supposedly does. Hardly a line goes by in an Eaglesmith song without mention of a car, a truck, a train, a beer, or a gun. Horses and dogs make frequent appearances, as do girlfriends and more cars.

But even being as grounded and as in touch with the common man as he is, Eaglesmith -- who began working the fields of the family farm at age 8 and who left home by age 15 - says there has always been some sort of distance between him and the other guys down at the corner store.

"I can go down there and wear my orange pants, hang around the coffee shop all morning, and they'll talk to me," he said. "And they like me. But I can never be one of them. And it's been that way since I was very young. "But I'd rather be with those guys than with the artists. I hate the latte set. But when you're the writer, the observer, you don't fit in. I had this gift. I was born to observe. I had no choice. I couldn't even help it. I was weird. And when I was younger and hadn't found my feet yet, I was insecure about it.

"But when I found my feet it was like, well, f--- you guys. I know what you're doing. And it's as much bull--- as what I do. "That's when I wrote my best stuff, when I started hitting that stride. And that's actually when they began grudgingly respecting me." Eaglesmith's newest album, to be released next month, is "Ralph's Last Show," a double-CD live album featuring backup by his former acoustic rock trio, the Flying Squirrels. The album includes rootsy versions of Eaglesmith classics like "Freight Train," "Mighty Big Car," "Time to Get a Gun" and "White Trash," in bluegrass- and country-influenced rock arrangements that harken back to the pre-Beatles era - sort of Elvis Presley meets Warren Zevon.

The album is a great entry into Eaglesmith's quirky, hyperrealistic tales of regular folk who drive pickups, obsess about trains, and fix their neighbor's cars. For every song that seemingly pokes good-natured fun at his subjects -- songs like "White Trash" that ask "When did we become white trash" and "I Like Trains" that portrays a tragic figure with a psychic attachment to diesel engines - Eaglesmith invests tenderness and sympathy in characters like those in "Pretty Good Guy" and "He's a Good Dog." If at times he straddles the line between sympathy and sarcasm, it's with the artful songcraft of a Randy Newman.

Eaglesmith's other albums include "Lipstick Lies and Gasoline" and "50-Odd Dollars." Eaglesmith says that he thinks of himself more as a writer than a musician. "God never wanted me to be a musician," he said. "And then finally after twenty years he said OK, I'm gonna let you be one because you're so bad. You can't sing, you can't do this, blah blah blah. He said, OK, I'm gonna let you sing in tune.

"I don't know if I was every really meant to be a musician. That's the thing that I disciplined myself in. And you discipline yourself in anything eventually you'll be good at it. And my ego wanted me to be a star. That's why I didn't become a book writer or a poet.

"I was trapped in poverty, in a rural situation, and I just saw a way out. So how was I going to do it? You couldn't do it through a regular job. I had to have grandiose dreams. "It's a very classic story. But it doesn't end the right way, because now I live really normally. I have no aspirations to be a star. Now I do everything I can to let my work get out there but not have myself get out there. I don't need that."

Next month looks to bring another eclectic array of performers to Club Helsinki, including blues artists, party bands, folksingers and a few ringers including modern-jazz ensemble Living Daylights (April 19) and guitarist Gary Lucas (April 20). But the big names on April's schedule include country-swing artist Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks (April 21) and venerable jazz-blues singer Mose Allison (April 28).

Also featured next month at Helsinki are singer-songwriter Vance Gilbert (April 5), Grammy-nominated blues belter Shemekia Copeland (April 6), singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier (April 7), blues keyboardist Ron Levy (April 12), zydeco artist Chris Ardoin (April 25), and Vikki True and Bobby Sweet (April 26). More performers are expected to be announced soon.

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on March 30, 2001. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2001. All rights reserved.]