Folk singer John Gogo's latest show celebrates the history of the mid-Island industry through the perspectives of his father, grandfather and great grandfather.
Coal and Wood is a mix of songs and storytelling based on the experiences of his Nanaimo pioneer family that dates back four generations. The one-man show will be hosted at the McMillan Arts Centre in Parksville on May 17.
“I’m interested in historical stuff,” Gogo said. “I’ve just always been drawn towards telling stories and doing it through songs.”
Coal and Wood involves Gogo speaking through the personas of his father, grandfather and great grandfather, with quick, on the fly costume changes, and relevant props such as axes and chainsaws, that has relatives used on the job in decades past.
Gogo has been interested in folk music his whole life, and this show's inspiration dates back to a folk album of the same name released in 1990.
“I found this photo in my dad’s photo album of him sitting in this 1940s truck, it says ‘Gogo and Sons Coal and Wood’."
Twenty-five years later he released Coal and Wood Revisited. When he thought about putting the songs in chronological order, starting with his two coal mining great grandfathers, he realized it could make a good show.
He wrote it in 2018 and performed the show about a dozen times in 2019 and early 2020, before the pandemic shut everything down.
Gogo enjoys performance and grew up in a musical family. His mother was a musician and his father was a singer.
“Ever since I can remember I’ve been in front of audiences so pretty natural and I don’t get nervous about it," he said. "When I was a kid my mom was the director of music at St. Peter’s Church in Nanaimo and this was in the Sixties when there was a sort of folk music boom, so my mom started having folk mass at church and she would get me out there with my guitar, so I’ve always kind of had a soft spot for folk songs.”
His show at the MAC will be the third and last in a short series. Gogo will start with a show at the Beacon House community hall on Protection Island, where he lives, followed by a performance at Intrepid Studio in Victoria.
Gogo recently released a new album called Western Balladeer, which includes a single called "The Morning After", which he recorded as a duet with Valdy. The song is based off a poem written around the year 1900, which was gifted to Gogo by a friend whose father had it in his possession for 70 years.
“I came up with a tune for it pretty quick and realized that the title the 'Morning After' was never actually spoken in the song and I thought it could use a chorus so I wrote little chorus to incorporate the title,” he said. “It’s somebody who’s extremely hung over and a now obvious problem with drinking.”
The songs from Western Balladeer are not part of the Coal and Wood show, but if there is enough time he might play one or two.
The show starts at 7:30 p.m. at the MAC (133 McMillan St.).
Tickets are $32 and are available from the MAC, both online and at the box office.
