Tri Continental, Tri Continental

Tri Continental is the name used by three Canadian songwriter/guitarists when they get together to record or perform.  Lester Quitzau, Bill Bourne, and Randriamananjara Radofa Besata Jean Longin who, thankfully goes by Madigascar Slim.  While all these guys had great things going on before Tri Continental and continue to produce a ton of great music. This, the first collaboration of the three continues to be a favourite of mine.

I first encountered these guys at the Regina Folk Music Festival about 10 years ago.  They were headlining one night of the festival and took the stage as the summer sun set. The festival itself took place in a park downtown but you could still see the lightning from a storm forming well to the north of the city behind the stage.

I was astounded by the depth of sound that three guitars and a stomping foot could generate, the energy of that performance set me dreaming about early CSNY shows.... It has fun and interactive, spititual and still one of my most vivid concert memories.... right up there with Aerosmith, Van Halen, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and a lot of others.

The album is a sort of round table, with the players taking turns leading the other 2 through songs from their catalog. The other 2 filling in harmonies, tasty guitar licks,  pizzicota violin and foot stomps to great success.  A few songs really stood out to me... The opening track "Waiting" is a Lester Quitzau original, a haunting slide guitar piece with one of the best blues lyrics one could imagine "Maybe nobody loves me but Jesus, maybe nobody loves me but myself". The loneliness expressed in the song is inescapable...

There is a great goldrush ballad called Bill Miner, filling the listener with the fantasy of escaping to the mountains, fresh air and fortune... even if train robbing is part of the plan.

One of the things that captured me about the live show and the album was the groove.  Songs extend into long jams with vocal adlibs... not the calculated "Oh Yeah, West Coast in the house" adlibs we get today but you get a sense that these vocalizations were guttural and natural... inspired by the music. 

The guitar work too, I have a Gibson Les Paul that I've been fortunate to have signed by some of Canada's finest guitarists. Lester Quitzau's signature sits along-side Gordie Johnson, Randy Bachman and others.

Madagascar Slim's contributions are a little tougher for me to describe, some are in Madagas which is not a language I possess.  I am a huge fan of his playing. Complex at times and appropriately sparse at others.

So who is the album for? For me it's an album to listen to by candlelight... with a glass of wine. Some songs are deep accoustic blues, some pioneer ballads and some sing-along good-times folk.

Get the album here

Thanks for readin and happy listening, Geoff