How Live Music Survived the Pandemic: Jon McLurg & Noah St. Amand

Peter Bird | Apr 19, 2023

Jon Mclurg, Singer, Song Writer, Guitarist, and Cajon player

Q. Carol Gilpin (Fan Club Secretary) told me that you have nearly 800 fan club members, mostly in the Maritimes, how did this come about?

A. When I began to do on-line-shows in May of 2020, it was mostly people listening within the Kingston area, with the occasional listener from across Canada and sometimes from another country.

It seems, a mother and daughter singing duo in Twillingate, Newfoundland, named Karen Churchill and her daughter Joanie, shared my on-line-show. I believe a lady in the GTA, picked it up and shared it too. It was then my viewership began to grow. Independently from them, Carol saw my on-line-show. She began helping to forward the requests, messages, and comments, because while you’re playing, you miss a lot of feedback. Then she started coming over and encouraging more people to share the on-line-shows. That’s how it started to snowball. The Fan Club is just about a year old. It’s interesting that Carol used to live about a ten-minute drive from where I grew up near Elginburg. I was in the area for 20 years playing music she didn’t know about. It was only when she moved to Bridgewater, Nova Scotia that the Fan Club began to grow to over 800 members, which is pretty awesome. My music page is five times bigger than it was just before the pandemic started, just from people sharing.

Q. You have been influenced by singers like Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Country Blues singer Mississippi John Hurt, and John Prine.

A. When it comes to guitar playing and folk singing, Mississippi John Hurt, and John Prine are probably my favourites. My dad first mentioned them because he saw them at the Mariposa Folk Festival. The 60’s for Mississippi John Hurt, and 70’s for John Prine. Mississippi John Hurt’s guitar playing was a big part of how I became interested, but also the way he interpreted an old song like Jimmie Rogers’ Waiting for a Train from the 20’s, a yodelling song and make it totally new. His guitar style was very hypnotic, like Piedmont Blues. It’s a variation of ragtime, the guitar’s answer to syncopated piano, I love that way of playing. John Prine’s guitar playing was inspired by Elizabeth Cotton (Freight Train), really simple but supports a song like a ballad very well. I’ve always loved that. Those 2 did have an impact. My dad and I even went down to Peoc, Avalon, Mississippi, where Mississippi John Hurt lived. It’s just a tiny place where you could see the country store where he sat and played guitar. His house, which you could call a shotgun house, named because it’s so long you could shoot a shotgun without hitting any of the walls. We got to see the music festival that honours him, that’s been going on for years. I got to play a few songs on the Sunday morning, kinda the gospel part of the festival.

Q. How much of an influence did Bob Dylan have on you?

A. My dad had a few of his LP’s, The Times They are A-Changin’ is the one I remember most, listening to it over and over again and reading the liner notes. I put it on tape and listened to it in the car. It was very powerful and for many, the gateway into folk music. He had such a repertoire of music, more than 600 songs. Also his knowledge of the music of that generation, 20’s and 30’s old ballads. You can find truths in the music he wrote, or talked about, in interviews. Boy, he was an influence on me for sure.

There was also Pete Seeger who wrote songs that would draw people in. There was a joke that he could sing a song twice at the same time. He would announce the next line out loud to the crowd so they would know what was coming. I had the good fortune to see him twice.

Q. A couple of your songs I recently heard, ‘Away Up On The Mountain’, is supposedly about Division St. and Foley Mountain in Westport. Can you explain the granite fountain?

A. Yes, I took inspiration for that from Foley Mountain, but there’s one line in there about a radio tower, which is actually located south of Glenburnie. The granite fountain…it just fit in with the lyrics. And Agamemnon’s spear probably came from studying Agamemnon in Greek mythology at school.

Q How about ‘Blue Pin Stripes’?

A. This song was inspired by a visit to Value Village. I saw some fabric on display that conjured up the song and the title. “The bells of old St. Mary’s chimed was referenced to St. Mary’s Cathedral, and “went up the hill to the Fort” is, of course, Old Fort Henry.

Q. How many songs have you written?

A. About 120 songs but not all were recorded.

Q I’ve known you for about 10 yrs. How do you feel you’ve improved over that time?

A. Over the last 10 yrs., I’ve been playing a lot more different gigs, and become more confident. I’m freer with phrasing, and more confident in singing, and playing with a lot of groups, Chris Murphy, Jessica Wedden, and Turpin’s Trail. Also my friends Al and Chris. We played around downtown Kingston, and we used to play every Wednesday at the Musiikki Café, downtown Kingston. My guitar playing has become cleaner and more confident. As a member of Turpin’s Trail, we’ve played and sung together, and I concentrated on singing harmonies.

Now I’m trying to focus on more song writing.

Q. You completed a tour of the east coast in 2022, what are you preparing for 2023?

A. My plan is to do about a week in Ontario at the end of March and a couple of weeks in April, and then May is going to be quite busy in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. August will be Newfoundland. Last year, the tour was seven straight weeks, so this year I’ll have a break in the middle.

Q. Do you prefer playing in a band, or playing solo?

A. I enjoy both. When I play solo in public, it has more of a coffee house feel, quieter. I often play in brewpubs or microbreweries. Chris Morris finds me bookings and he knows where all these places are. Microbreweries are between a coffee house and a pub, they can be a little loud, but people aren’t there to drink a lot. Sometimes in the pub situation it gets a bit loud. Turpin’s Trail play more in the places like Cross Roads in Sharbot Lake which is a nice environment. The Tir Nan Og downtown is a bit noisier. The beauty of playing in Turpin’s Trail is the wide range of songs that we collectively know and play together. We can adapt our repertoire to suit the environment. I can also have a different role from playing the guitar. I can play the Cajon (pronounced cohone) while singing. It’s like a drum. I can also switch and play the mandolin. It gives me a chance to try different things. Of course, when it comes to original songs played in the group, you hear them in a different way with a different treatment. When I’m solo on FaceBook, I’m isolated, but still in front of an audience, it’s an internet thing!

Peter. Thank you Jon

Noah St. Amand, Double Bass player

Q. Noah, how did you get into Turpin’s Trail?

A. It’s a bit of a complicated story. My brother-in-law, Matt Baetz had a recording studio in Kingston called Long Shot Records. Matt was recording one of Jon’s albums, I think it was “Time is Tall”, and Chris (Murphy) was playing a pretty prominent role in it. Matt had the idea of having Chris come in and do the backup tracks to make it more upbeat and less folky for Jon’s album. I filled in as bass, but I was also playing in a band called Infotourist at that time. That’s how I came to know Jon and Chris. At this time, Crooked Wood and Turpin’s Trail co-existed and Chris had the idea with Brian Flynn, a former fiddle player with Crooked Wood, to have one band name. So we proceeded from there, and that’s how we became a five-piece Turpin’s Trail.

Q. I believe that you might have been responsible for the name Turpin’s Trail.

A. I think I suggested it. Turpin’s Trail on Fogo island is a place that Chris and I were familiar with, and we had been going through a lot of names for a while. I had quite a lot of experience walking and went to Fogo Island on a family vacation. On the first trip we took, there was a grey and rainy sky. We decided it was too wet to take the kids on a six K hike. My wife had returned to the hotel to get warmed up and dry with the kids so at around five o’clock in the evening I set off on my own. When the trail loops back, you come along the coast and you see some of the most spectacular scenery you can imagine, and at that point, the sun broke through and I was bathed in this golden light and burned this sight into my memory. So subsequent chats with Chris went on from there.

Q. What is your approach when playing bass with Turpin’s Trail?

A. The way I approach playing bass is to make the song better and resist the urge to play too much. I didn’t know Jon was a drummer, so when he started playing the Cajon and playing it extremely well, it was great to have that bass and drum relationship. Jon also plays guitar, so if there is no percussion then there are 2 other guitars that I can use to pick up the rhythm. When Jess Wedden is playing fiddle with us, we can coordinate with Jon playing the Cajon.

Q. Singing harmonies and backup how do you find that?

A. I have been very fortunate in that I was doing that before playing with Chris. His knowledge and understanding and his ability to sing and build harmony lines, is easy to follow. I’ve benefitted from singing in other bands, but Chris has been a big help in that department. When you hear a band that has good harmonies, you know they’ve put in the work.

Q Is there anything else you’d like to add.?

A. Last summer I was watching Chris run the jam sessions on Fogo Island with the people that attend, who are less experienced musicians, but who want to get an idea of how this stuff works, Chris is such an excellent teacher and he’d be teaching stuff that I know, and I’d be thinking that is exactly the way you should be describing it, but sometimes in a way that never would have occurred to me. As to his relationship with Jess; where she is at the present moment, it’s mind-blowing how good she is, and yet she is still benefitting from that mentorship from Chris, because he is such a good teacher.

Peter: Thanks Noah