Lily's Rehearsal Room

Allan Fraser dropped in yesterday to spend a couple of days in Toronto - meeting with some record exec about how he might "ressucitate" (his word) his career. We had a happy dinner with Al and his buddy Joel Axler, who I met for the first time. Joel is managing a jazz singer called Terry Cade and played her tape. Then we jammed a little in my basement studio and Joel played rollicking piano while Allan played guitar. His acoustic was being troublesome and hard to tune, but when I got a close-up look, I could see the bridge had raised a quarter of an inch on one side and was held by strands of hardened glue. Allan and I drove to Hamilton to jam and were joined at Lily's by Kim Deschamps. Kim played some haunting dobro on an impromptu version of "Who Paid You (To Give Me The Blues)?" and then in my spaced out enthusiasm I said I wanted to hear what he could do on "Last Time I Saw Lenny" a song I had never sung for anyone before (except Daisy) and probably never will again. Who else would write a tune about a dead musician he had known briefly, and then kept adding verses everytime another musical aquaintance/colleague passes away. There's something sick about this.