By: Dillon Collins
We all have sounds, sights and smells that tether us to the holiday season. The albums that blanket the moments, the lights that brighten the gatherings, the aromas that transport us through space and time. But what would happen if you become a part of that holiday fabric? An underlined etching on the Christmas to-do list?
For Tim Baker, travelling troubadour and longtime frontman to Juno nominated Hey Rosetta! – as well as a self-described Dickens’ A Christmas Carol obsessive and hopeless yuletide romantic – entering the Newfoundland holiday zeitgeist has become a stranger-than-fiction reality.
“What a great thing. I mean, I can’t imagine anything better. It’s so humbling and exciting that someone would want to have something that I’ve done gain that sort of significance. It sort of snowballs memories and emotions into it and it becomes greater than it ever was or ever intended,” Tim says during a sit-down with Downhome, reflecting on the weight of his annual holiday home province performances.
From the Hey Rosetta! days to present-day sold-out performances alongside his Juno-nominated solo group, Tim’s holiday-time showcases – this year taking place in Bonavita, Twillingate, Corner Brook and St. John’s – have become appointment festive fare.
“Christmas is very meaningful to me as it is, I think, to a lot of Newfoundlanders. In the Hey Rosetta! years, we just played our biggest shows of the year (during the holidays). The population of young people, with everyone coming home for Christmas, would blossom and grow. And so we played these big Christmas shows that were much bigger than any shows we did at any time of the year. And it was not just a show. It was like the whole scene of people, like a reunion, people coming back together who hadn’t seen each other,” Tim says reflectively.
“We used to complain sometimes that the crowd would be so loud chatting because of course they’re chatting. It’s like seeing your cousin you haven’t seen all year. It’s a scene. That had an impact for sure. Feeling that energy, that excitement, that feeling of reunion, the joy of being reunited with people you haven’t seen in so long. It’s a powerful feeling. And being at the helm of it, playing the music, they were very powerful shows. And I have continued to do these Christmas shows ever since. It’s a real tradition for me. I read a lot of messages and people say to me that it’s never really Christmas until this show happens. So it’s become a tradition for other people too, I guess. So that’s pretty central to my experience of Christmas and even just like the arc of my year.”
Adding to the merriment, Hey Rosetta!’s 2012 holiday EP A Cup of Kindness Yet has become an annual staple for fans, with the singer-songwriter doubling down on seasonal offerings with his upcoming album Full Rainbow of Light. Truthfully, simply labelling Tim’s latest collection a Christmas album would be an oversimplification of its depth and emotional complexity.
From the overarching trio “Saint Tibb’s Suite” to the infectious and moving lead single “It’s Tonight” and a classically Tim Baker rendition of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”, Full Rainbow of Light is less a shoehorned holiday cash-grab and more capsule of a time, place and feeling, all overflowing with the heart and nostalgic warmth of its architect.
“I didn’t set out to make a Christmas record,” Tim admits, diving into the genesis of his latest work. “When Christmas rolled around two Christmases ago, I had a bit of time. You have a time at Christmas, not as much as you’d like but you get a bit of time. No one’s expecting you to write them back … I spent a lot of time just sitting at the piano at my parent’s house, or sitting in my house taking an afternoon off. If I take any time off, I’m usually writing.
“I ended up writing a bunch of songs at Christmas that just ended up being about Christmas. A lot of big feelings, a lot of nostalgia, thinking about your past, thinking about your childhood, thinking about your future or your future family or what have you. It’s a big marker of time in the year and whether you’re missing people who are no longer around or you’re wishing your Christmas was better, the stakes can be high. Everyone has high expectations. It’s this time of big emotion. It’s like fraught, and whether it’s good or bad it has an impact. I just took to writing about it. You can hang it on the wall at Christmas, you know? Hopefully, it will fit. Some of the songs are just kind of set at Christmas, and some of them are set in winter. It’s kind of a window onto my own Christmases and the time that I cherish, really, of my childhood and now, too.”
The now that is a Tim Baker Christmas consists of food, friends and, of course, music. Alongside Tom Power and The Dardanelles, Tim has been known to journey from house to house in a roaming carolling troupe, where good tunes and great times are expected.
“That’s a tradition that might explain some of my love for Christmas that some people don’t always appreciate or understand because that is an amazing night,” Tim explains.
“I mean, it’s a bit like murmuring. People just welcome you into their house and give you food and drink and everyone’s so jolly, you know? It really does bring out the best in people in these moments. I’m sure they’re all hung off and worried about the credit card the next day, but in the moment it’s beautiful.”
Recently uprooting from St. John’s to Berlin, Germany, Tim’s art is mirroring life when it comes to the Newfoundland expat heading home for the holidays.
“I guess in a way it is sort of full circle. I’m the one who gets to come home now and feel that. Yeah, that’s cool,” Tim remarks, pondering the pull of home, particularly at Christmastime in Newfoundland and Labrador.
“It’s the story of Christmas everywhere, families coming together, people coming together. But I think the extent of it is a uniquely Newfoundland thing, the extent to which we feel it being held apart by opportunities or whatever. It is real. And I think it’s maybe one of the reasons I used a lot of traditional Newfoundland instruments on the record. Most of it, I think was just because it’s kind of a window onto my Christmas. That’s part of it, taking in a session at The Ship or Erin’s or whatever, hanging around with Tom and The Dardanelles and it comes out, listening to The Chieftains record, probably my favourite Christmas record, The Bells of Dublin. It feels right to me. And I think I also wanted to set the album in a setting of tradition in a context of nostalgia. That to me is the context that Christmas really lives in and works in … it’s from another time.”
