No other musical genre is harder to define than folk. Depending on the country, personal history or musical taste, it can mean hundreds of different things.
Perhaps then, there is no other true folk artist than Tom Wilson. Always evolving, hard to define and seemingly indestructible – having been in the music industry since the late ‘70s playing with bands Junkhouse and Blackie and the Rodeo Kings.
His project LeE HARVeY OsMOND is a perfect example of the changing nature of folk music, with it being described regularly as the new generation of folk or acid folk.
“I am a folk music vandal,” said Wilson on the phone from Hamilton. He had just arrived back from playing a festival in San Francisco and is enjoying lunch with his girlfriend before he headed out on the road again.
Wilson compared his music to a new art movement, where people vandalize classic art, taking a classic painting and painting over it. He said this movement claims they are giving this art a new birth and helping it evolve.
“Theoretically, it is what I do with folk music. I take what’s there and I evolve it to another level,” he explained. “Whether it is judged as being better or worse – I don’t care. I am in fact vandalizing what is there for the better I believe. Or at least making it interesting.”
And fans and critics of his music seem to agree.
LeE HARVeY OsMOND’s first album, A Quiet Evil, was a long-list nominee for the 2010 Polaris Music Prize and the last album, Folk Sinner, was nominated Roots and Traditional Album of the Year at the 2014 Juno Awards.
“It’s folk music written in tones instead of trying to come up with a catchy melody. It is probably the most pure folk music that is being written and performed in Canada,” said Wilson, going on to describe the influence of listening to classic Canadian folk legends such as Stan Rogers, Willie P. Bennet and David Wiffen.
Wilson continued to stress the importance of evolving in his work, something he is in the process of doing, writing and recording for a new LeE HARVeY OsMOND record. He said it should be released in January 2015, and although he couldn’t say a definite title, he said ‘folk vandal’ was starting to sound pretty good.
But that isn’t the only place Wilson had been evolving.
His Sept. 27 appearance on CBC Radio’s Definitely Not the Opera has had a huge response and an outpouring from fans and fellow artists.
On that program, Wilson revealed that at 52 years old he found out that he had been adopted, a moment he said changed his life.
Earlier this year he asked his cousin, whom he had always been close to, to help him find his birth mother. She broke down crying and revealed that she was in fact his mother. This meant that Wilson, who had always though he was Irish and French, discovered he is actually Mohawk.
“For me, it’s my life and in a way, who I am has been vandalized really if we stick on that theme. As a human being I don’t feel worse, I feel like I’m evolving. It’s part of my story,” said Wilson. “I’ve been wondering where this has been coming from all of my life. My writing is more authentic and belongs here. I think I have a free reign to vandalize.”
You can catch Tom Wilson performing a solo show at Legacy Guitar and Coffee House Friday, Oct. 17.
