LUCID FORGE

Prior to last week’s concert, the last time I’d seen Ron Sexsmith was outside a popular brunch spot, holding an umbrella, glumly observing the Sunday morning masses waiting for a table. It was a cool, wet morning in early fall, and the thought of a warm spot with welcoming plates of eggs, bacon, and toast seemed like a good idea to many Torontonians, including the acclaimed singer-songwriter. I approached him carefully, not sure how I’d be greeted. Sexsmith is friendly, certainly, but he’s also extremely shy, and deeply weary of public attention. Weeks before, Sexsmith and I had met in a Toronto coffee shop to discuss his career, his album, and the fact that fame has been, for him, a long time coming. Though initially shy, he warmed up chatting about his recent gig at the famed Glastonbury festival, even as he admitted that doing promotional touring can sometimes make him “grumpy”.

Though not grumpy, he didn’t seem especially thrilled about his prospects for having brunch that September morning. We chatted, and I suggested he might want to join my group if he really wanted to get in; single diners don’t tend to get priority in busy restaurants, after all.  “I don’t know…” he said, looking at his shuffling feet, “maybe. There’s always a line when I come here.”

“Of all the virtues known to man, patience is one I understand,” he sings in “Poor Helpless Dreams”, a track from his latest album, Exit Strategy of the Soul, released this past July. Patience wasn’t apparently a virtue he cared to embrace that rainy Sunday morning; he took off shortly after little chat. Regardless, Sexsmith has come to know patience through years of hard work and perseverance that has seen him write, record, and tour for close to twenty years.



Over a grande bold one sunny July afternoon, he reminisced about growing up in St. Catharines, and going to concerts in Buffalo put on by Elton John and The Rolling Stones. With a slightly furrowed brow, he remarked at how different live shows were then, before the advent of screens or special effects. “They looked like ants, but it was really cool. They came on a bare stage. Now you see them, and they’re using all these inflatables and screens and stuff. It was really better before.” An organic approach is one he himself favours; his recent Massey Hall concert featured Sexsmith’s four-man band, plus two horn players, and a four-member string section. Lush, meditative, and with musical chops aplenty, it was an evening to be savoured, as much for its musical integrity as for its variation in sound. Despite the number of people onstage, and the incredible number of tracks (twenty-five in total), there was something about the whole affair that was refreshingly plain, and lovingly simple.

Then again, elegant musical simplicity is something that comes naturally to Sexsmith. The much-loved “Gold in Them Hills”, taken from the 2002 album Cobblestone Runway, features Coldplay’s Chris Martin, and is based around a simple melody line echoed by a piano. “All in Good Time”, from 2006’s Time Being, features a lush arrangement that is balanced by a melodically simple plea for patience in its chorus. The patience that runs like a vein through much of his work has basis in real life:  Sexsmith was only signed as an independent artist at the age of 30, an age when many other artists are well-established. Exit Strategy of the Soul is Sexsmith’s tenth album, and features beautiful assertions of faith (“This is How I Know”) and dour contemplations of doom (“Ghost of a Chance”). It’s perhaps his most musically inspired album, featuring both heavy arrangements (with horns used at points) and simple ones (a solo piano track opens the album), as well as observations about contemporary society’s relentless drive toward destruction: “And it's the children who have yet to come / Who'll have to pay our tab / What kind of world will we have left for them? / The odds now will be stacked.” As befits a major artist, he’s been touring the album since its release, with appearances internationally (including at this year’s famed Glastonbury Festival, and upcoming European dates) as well as nationally, with gigs at the Elora and Edmonton Folk Festivals. While he understands the necessity of promotion, he confessed he wasn’t a fan –of either touring, or of airplanes. “I’m a nervous flyer. I hate airports even more –they’re just so … horrible. When I was younger, I was really eager to go (on promotional trips), now I don’t feel that way. I go all grumpy. I don’t mind going to do interviews, but when they got you doing morning shows and radio stations, they all want you to sing. Well, just play the record on your station regularly.”



Finding fans, however, never seems to be a problem, with Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney counted as such, along with the near-sold-out crowd at Toronto’s Massey Hall recently. He confessed during our summertime chat that his greatest ambition as a struggling musician was to play the famed Toronto music space. “That’s kind of… to me, that’s the tops in Canada… it’s that and the Orpheum in Vancouver. I’ve played in various halls, opening for others, but Massey Hall is the one place where I felt I wanted to do it on my own. Over the years, I’ve had so many opportunities to open for others there, and I turned them all down. I really wanted to do it solo. It sort of became an obsession.” The first time he played there in 2006 was “crazy, I couldn’t believe it was happening. I love playing there… I’m getting less nervous each time I do it.”

Nerves, along with delight, were on display in equal amounts last week. Seeing Sexsmith perform, there is a discernible mix of awkward and charm, along with a torrent of musical passion and ability. Opening with “Hard Bargain”, Sexsmith blazed through hits new and old, mixing favourites like “Secret Heart”, “Not About To Lose” and “These Days”, with several selections from the new album, including the co-Feist-penned “Brandy Alexander”, and the groovy, lush, Stevie Wonder-esque  “This Is How I Know. And yes, the country stylings of “Poor Helpless Dreams”, with its line about patience and perseverance, was given a solid treatment; Sexsmith let the crowd know that the song had actually been kicking around since 1989, but had just now found a home in his regular repertoire. Moving between guitar and keyboard, the mop-topped singer-songwriter wore a smashing, sparkly-gold jacket; it was an interesting juxtaposition of Vegas-dazzle and Canadian aw-shucks-ness that was entirely charming.



That jacket, I’d recalled, was a point of conversation over coffee months before, when Sexsmith, flitting between subjects, had extolled the virtues of finding a good tailor. “I met this woman, a designer. She’s a custom tailor,” he’d said, “and I bought a jacket that I really love that didn’t fit me –it’s this crazy gold, sparkly jacket that I’m going to wait for a special gig to wear. She asked me to bring it by –it doesn’t quite fit. You always have to adjust things a bit.” That could be the metaphor for Sexsmith’s entire career, but at onstage at Massey Hall, sharing songs new and old, with a beautiful lilting voice and excellent musical chops, it would seem he’s found the perfect fit –both literally and figuratively.

Coming out for two encores, sans jacket, Sexsmith seemed more and more comfortable. He did a riveting solo-piano version of “You Were There”, before closing with “Former Glory”, and then stood, hands on hips, awkwardly swiveling, surveying the adoring masses. A quick bow, and one could see a small smile on his face. Ron, you’ve waited long enough. Your time has come.