Inside the Emotional Return to the Stage of Buddy Wasisname & The Other Fellers:
To some they’ve been the backdrop to childhood, to others, the soundtrack of road trips, steam cruises out of the harbour, kitchen parties and camping-based shenanigans. To any they meet, Kevin Blackmore, Ray Johnson and Wayne Chaulk are some of Newfoundland and Labrador’s favourite sons and national treasures. To all, they’re known as Buddy Wasisname & The Other Fellers, and after five years away they’re back on the stage.
The much loved and hilarious ensemble suited up for their first proper show in five years this past summer at the Iceberg Alley Performance Tent before a raucous and enthusiastic crowd nearly 3000 strong. There was magic under the big top on that sultry June evening, that much was clear to those in attendance and the legendary entertainer’s stage front.
“Ray, Kevin and I hadn’t played together in five years, except for one little stint last November when MusicNL gave us an award and wanted us to do eight minutes. So we went to town and got together for probably an hour and just tidied up three pieces and did that. But that doesn’t really count. So for five years, we didn’t play. For us to come together on the weekend, and perform to a group like that who was just so enthusiastic and so eager to see us after being out of the picture, it was delightful,” shares Wayne Chaulk in a sit-down with Downhome.
“Over the last few years, I can’t tell you how many emails and texts and messages and everything else (the band has received) people just saying we really miss what you do and we need it. It was good to do this and have at least 3000 people see us. It was really delightful b’y, to connect with the fans and get the reaction that we got, and to prove to ourselves that we’re capable at our age and the absence from it to still be able to do it. It was absolutely wonderful.”
Belting out fan favourites “Is You Happy”, “Chainsaw Earle”, “Sarah” and “Salt Water Joys” in unison with the capacity crowd, the response from the sea of humanity put to bed any doubts that the boys may have lost a step.
“Every performer has doubts about what he’s done and what he’s doing. And when you go so long without playing, you just wonder. We’re playing all those old, some people call them hits, but we’ve always called them misses. These were our greatest misses. So we wondered if they would still stand up. Are people sick of this now? And to walk on stage and know that you can forget a word or you can fumble a chord, it doesn’t matter,” Wayne says proudly.
“You got 2500-3000 people singing your lyrics. What’s really gratifying to me, and I’m sure Kevin and Ray too, is that those weren’t songs that they hear on the radio from Nashville, these were originals. These are basically Newfoundland songs and they were our songs. And to know that all of these people who came could sing all of the lyrics, I mean, it’s just so gratifying.”
Firmly established as a quintessential part of the Newfoundland zeitgeist, Buddy has begun to receive their flowers in recent years, literally and figuratively. The band has been honoured by the East Coast Music Association and MusicNL for their contributions to music and culture, recently receiving the supreme national accolade of being inducted as members of the Order of Canada.
“Sometimes the past becomes a blur,” Wayne acknowledges. “We haven’t been playing a lot in recent years. I’m doing various things, and every once in a while, almost every day I’ll smile because a memory will come back to me from 30 years ago, 35 years ago or a particular theatre, a particular crew member did something or said something, or a family showed up for soundcheck because they couldn’t make it for the show. There are hundreds.
“One would think that our before date would have passed a long time ago, but like you say, it’s a multi- generational thing. And that’s what we aimed at in the beginning. We want families to come out to the show. You wouldn’t believe the number of people now who say that ‘every trip that we went on, you guys were the soundtrack for it. Grandad was singing, dad, mom, kids, everybody singing these songs.’ That becomes ingrained in people’s minds and it becomes a little bit of the soundtrack for their childhood and earlier years. And that’s what makes it so lasting, I think.”
Posed the million-dollar question on the future of Buddy live, and Wayne pumps the breaks on a full-scale return to the road.
The trio, alongside longtime fixture Byron Pardy, have enjoyed a reprieve from decades of travel and gigging, spending much-deserved time with family away from the spotlight. That said, the allure of the crowd is strong, and only growing stronger thanks to the mammoth reception under the Iceberg tent.
“We’ve been enjoying the fact that we get to spend so much time with family and friends and kind of live normal lives because, for 37 years, we spent time at home, but then we also spent probably 100 days of the year on the road, broken up. Your life was compartmentalized and you were on a plane and you were gone. It was just madness. Your schedule was crazy for all these days, and you come home and you’d miss birthdays, you miss special occasions, stuff like that,” Wayne explains.
“So to have an extended period at home, to have a normal life and given our ages too, we reasoned that we would play very, very little and that might even be once a year or twice a year or whatever. It would be only an event all three of us wanted to do, and our families were okay with it. But when we played (at Iceberg Alley) it certainly reignited the old feelings of how good it is to be on stage and to be responded to the way we were. We’ll keep the door open.”
