Wilf Carter and Cori Brewster

CORI BREWSTER, BANFF'S BUFFALO STREET AND WILF CARTER

Telegraph Journal column for Jan13, 2011

BUFFALO STREET
I dreamt last night, a Stoney elder was my neighbour here,
Here on Buffalo Street- We talked for hours, sharing stories of what went wrong,
Here on Buffalo Street - (She said) Peace and Holy Water, hope is what they offered,
Stains on our sacred land
We followed the laws of the human heart
Under a big, big sky
Promises broken, broken promises'
Handwritten lies
Under a big, big sky

My biggest music surprise of 2010 blindsided me at Vintage Bistro in Hampton one night in early June.

I had gone to hear Eve Goldberg whose three Borealis CD’s I greatly admire. We’d never met but I had talked with her at times by phone. She asked what I’d been doing since retiring from the Telegraph -Journal beside my Thursday piece .

“Among many things,” I said, “researching Wilf Carter. The years he and his family lived in New Brunswick. I filed a final report recently with the NB Arts branch. I had a research grant from them to help with it.”

“Wilf Carter!” she said. “Then you should talk with Cori Brewster, my opening act,” she said. She’s from Banff and her grandfather and father were promoters of Wilf’s early on.”

Words from my research came flooding back.

‘In 1932, the Brewsters of the Brewster Transport Company, in conjunction with the CPR hired Wilf to join their annual trail rides, a retinue of guides, horse wranglers and entertainers. They chaperoned well heeled US and Canadian summer thrill seekers on five day horseback rides from Banff into the Rockies.’

‘Pat and Bill Brewster heard me sing at the Pallister Hotel,’ Wilf wrote. ‘After the concert Pat came over and said: “How’d you like to come with us to the mountains this year?” “Just tell me what I gotta do,” Wilf replied. “Well, ride a horse and we like the way you play guitar and sing.” he said.

‘But, the CPR’s Montreal publicity man who auditioned the acts hired a duo from Montana, Powder River Jack and Kitty Lee, instead. However, Pat and Bill said: “Regardless, we’re hiring Carter to go along.” And after the crowds reaction to Wilf’s singing and yodeling at their first night’s campfire, Jack and Kitty never came to the fires again. The next year, 1933, Wilf was hired as official entertainer of the Trail Riders of The Canadian Rockies by the CPR. But in the fall of 1934 after his third year with them, he moved to New York to broadcast twice daily weekdays over all 250 stations of the CBS network. And it all came about through the Brewsters faith in Wilf’s singular song writing, singing, yodeling and guitar talents.

Now a Brewster heir is a brilliant light on the Canadian music scene. Born in Banff where the Brewster Family settled over 120 years ago, Cori began singing with her mother and sisters on the Rocky Mountain Trail Rides a half century after Wilf. And Cori got to blend her voice with Wilf’s several times before his trail of life ended in 1996. As a singer, songwriting guitar picker Cori has been garnering honours of her own since then, however.

I've been walking in my sleep, counting trouble instead of counting sheep
Where the years went I can't say, I just turned around and they've gone away
I've been sifting through the layers of dusty books and faded papers
They tell a story I used to know and it was one that happened so long ago

On meeting her I was impressed right away by Cori’s energy. As she says in Take Me As I Am on her 1994 debut CD One More Mountain: “I could run like the wind, before I could crawl; No river too wide, no mountain too tall.” So it is no surprise that Cori majored in it at Red Deer College, then obtained a Bachelor of Physical Education degree from the University of Alberta.

But the pull of music proved too great and she moved to Winnipeg with a portfolio of original songs to record a number of singles. Several proved Canadian chart toppers. Appearances followed on the Tommy Hunter TV Show, Calgary Stampede, Merritt Country and Whistler Roots Festival. Then a tour of Germany, an official CXCW showcase and an Alberta Recording Industry Female Artist Of The Year nomination.

In 1998 Cori released her second CD Stones to enthusiastic reviews Winnipeg’s Connect magazine wrote: ‘an album full of feeling and integrity; a talented singer songwriter with country roots and a folk/bluegrass sound.

Cori then joined two other stellar Canadian talents, Maria Dunn and Jennifer Gibson to form the Sonic Sisters trio and tour Ontario. A resulting cross Canada odyssey of small venues was cut short, however, by the birth of a son. In 1998 Cori toured New Zealand and helped produce a documentary Pretty Ladies, Fast Horses about Alberta cowgirls. And she had a song used in the TV series Dawson Creek.

MY FAMILIAR SKY
I rode to Mount Hector, across the Great Divide
I walked to the rythmn of the ride
Colour, light and shadows, I sketched along the way
Seems the Rockies put on a special day
Just you and I, lying under my familiar sky

A third album Large Bird Leaving debuted in the July 2007, number 7 slot on Canada’s Folk DJ charts to rave reviews. But it is with last year’s Buffalo St. CD that Cori has found her real voice ,writing and recording eight uniquely definitive songs about her family and Banff, the area’s history and personages. In it she has taken her craft far beyond the country love song, crafting golden historic treasures.

Ballad, up-tempo, bluegrass tainted or just a flit-along ditty.      As a writer she’s no slouch either…Brewster            should increase her national standing with this release”.
Walt Grealis RPM Chart Weekly

An effective way to preserve memory of events, people and places, is in the lyrics of songs as Cori has done with her Aunt Pearl Brewster, a woman prominent in turn of the 20th century Banff. Written In My Name, relates: ‘I was born Pearl, eighteen eighty-nine/ Rundle Mountain in my backyard, along the CP line.’ Pearl, the first white girl born in Banff was an excellent horse woman, a rifle crack shot.

William Twin is a song honouring an iconic Stoney/ Nakota man, who hired by John Brewster in 1888, helped with the summer haying for years. He taught the Brewster children woods lore, hunting and crafts. In 1892 the Banff Springs Hotel hired William Twin and some Brewster boys for their first pack trip into Sawback Lake, the beginning of the Trail Rides. Trono perpetuates the legend of Louis Trono, a trombonist who played the Banff Spring Hotel and Chateau Lake Louise for decades, My Familiar Sky is a lyrical story about Peter Whyte, who in 1928 while attending Boston Museum School of Fine Arts met and fell in love with a Boston debutant Catherine Robb. That Was Hell, is the story of local legend Bill Peyto, a guide cited for rescuing many stranded climbers. Diamond Hitch is a salute to the men and women behind those climbers: the cowboys, packers and outfitters. Take Me Back To Ireland, about Cori’s several times removed great grandfather who migrated to Canada from Ireland before the 1840′s famine and other Brewsters who followed. And the title song Buffalo St. is a lament for the Stoney First Nation Peoples betrayed by guns, firewater and broken treaties.

These eight were written or co-written by Cori, who is backed by some very fine musicians, on acoustic guitar (lead, resophonic and rhythm), fiddle, mandolin, bass and accordion. Mandola and trumpet on Trono. Cori rounds out the album of ten with two by others: The Lonesome Kind by Mark Koenig and Kate Wolf’s beautiful lament Across The Great Divide .

Carol and I attended a Cori Brewster concert in Calgary in October. She opened with a stirring Salute to Wilf Carter, saying she hoped to film something like it for video channel play.

Cori’s CDs can be ordered by e-mailing:info@coribrewster.comor visiting www.coribrewster.com or writing Shadow Lake Music, Box 8027, Canmore, Alberta, Canada T1W 2T8.

TAKE ME BACK TO IRELAND

Is it really green as an emerald stone?
Does the sea air soak through your skin?
Raise a glass with me in a Dublin pub
To the sounds of sweet violins
Pains of the past live in their eyes
The fighting, the famine, the war4,
Your passion, your courage, your great resolve, against all odds
Take me back to Ireland (chorus)