Dee
05-04-2006, 03:39 AM
Unbeatable songwriter, outstanding uncle
by Zev Singer (excerpted from The Ottawa Citizen, 22 January 2002)
He was wearing a cravat the first time I laid eyes on him. Pretty exotic uncle.
And despite the fact that he was 73, and I was 18, he politely declined my offer to take his suitcase. Instead, he, cravat and all, carried it on his head the full length of the train station.
Certainly I remember liking Wade Hemsworth. But at that time I didn't understand who he was. To me, he was just the quirky old guy my aunt, Shirley Singer, married.
It was like finding out his secret identity, the day, maybe a year later, that I learned he had written the Log Driver's Waltz (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zAUbe_7fNA). At school I'd watched the animated short the National Film Board produced to go with his famous song, with the tuqued and bobbing log driver twirling on his log and floating swiftly down the river.
Sung for that recording by Canadian folk music stars Kate and Anna McGarrigle, the song explained that girls prefer to dance with the nimble log drivers.
It wasn't until I made the connection between my aunt's new husband and the cartoon, that I realized what an outstanding avuncular acquisition I'd made. This was the man, it turned out, who had also written The Blackfly Song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAnJjDBwnHU&search=the%20blackfly%20song), it too an NFB cartoon, which was nominated for an Oscar̈ in 1992, though he wrote it in 1949.
Albert Wade Hemsworth, born in Brantford in 1916, was never a professional songwriter. He was a design draftsman for the Canadian National Railways. And in his 85 years, he wrote fewer than 20 songs. But he made the most of them.
Folk legend Pete Seeger, who played The Blackfly Song as part of his regular repertoire, paid the compliment that "the humour and wisdom in Wade's songs are unbeatable."
By day, he designed bridges with pencil and paper. But by night, in the '50s and '60s, he was part of the hopping Montreal folk scene, playing coffee houses and pubs.
By the time I met him, I wasn't the only one who didn't realize who he was. A lot of people had forgotten who had brought songs like The Wild Goose and The Story of the I'm Alone into the world.
It was only in the last dozen years that his star took off. He released a book of his songs in 1990, and put out a CD of his own songs for the first time in 1995, when he was pushing 80 years old. The Governor General, then a journalist, featured him in an hour-long episode of Adrienne Clarkson Presents.
Yesterday Madame Clarkson said his songs "were so much part of our folklore and so familiar to us that we didn't realize anyone had written them."
According to Anna McGarrigle, when she and her sister were just getting started, there was Bob Dylan and there was Wade Hemsworth.
"They were the two people you had to emulate," she said yesterday.
Aunt Shirley says he was "a fierce man and a tender man."
I'll think of him as the uncle who made his own steel guitar picks, rode around the Quebec village of Morin Heights on his bike throughout his retirement, and did Tai Chi before anyone knew what it was.
He died on January 19, 2002, following a stroke on Christmas Day.
by Zev Singer (excerpted from The Ottawa Citizen, 22 January 2002)
He was wearing a cravat the first time I laid eyes on him. Pretty exotic uncle.
And despite the fact that he was 73, and I was 18, he politely declined my offer to take his suitcase. Instead, he, cravat and all, carried it on his head the full length of the train station.
Certainly I remember liking Wade Hemsworth. But at that time I didn't understand who he was. To me, he was just the quirky old guy my aunt, Shirley Singer, married.
It was like finding out his secret identity, the day, maybe a year later, that I learned he had written the Log Driver's Waltz (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zAUbe_7fNA). At school I'd watched the animated short the National Film Board produced to go with his famous song, with the tuqued and bobbing log driver twirling on his log and floating swiftly down the river.
Sung for that recording by Canadian folk music stars Kate and Anna McGarrigle, the song explained that girls prefer to dance with the nimble log drivers.
It wasn't until I made the connection between my aunt's new husband and the cartoon, that I realized what an outstanding avuncular acquisition I'd made. This was the man, it turned out, who had also written The Blackfly Song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAnJjDBwnHU&search=the%20blackfly%20song), it too an NFB cartoon, which was nominated for an Oscar̈ in 1992, though he wrote it in 1949.
Albert Wade Hemsworth, born in Brantford in 1916, was never a professional songwriter. He was a design draftsman for the Canadian National Railways. And in his 85 years, he wrote fewer than 20 songs. But he made the most of them.
Folk legend Pete Seeger, who played The Blackfly Song as part of his regular repertoire, paid the compliment that "the humour and wisdom in Wade's songs are unbeatable."
By day, he designed bridges with pencil and paper. But by night, in the '50s and '60s, he was part of the hopping Montreal folk scene, playing coffee houses and pubs.
By the time I met him, I wasn't the only one who didn't realize who he was. A lot of people had forgotten who had brought songs like The Wild Goose and The Story of the I'm Alone into the world.
It was only in the last dozen years that his star took off. He released a book of his songs in 1990, and put out a CD of his own songs for the first time in 1995, when he was pushing 80 years old. The Governor General, then a journalist, featured him in an hour-long episode of Adrienne Clarkson Presents.
Yesterday Madame Clarkson said his songs "were so much part of our folklore and so familiar to us that we didn't realize anyone had written them."
According to Anna McGarrigle, when she and her sister were just getting started, there was Bob Dylan and there was Wade Hemsworth.
"They were the two people you had to emulate," she said yesterday.
Aunt Shirley says he was "a fierce man and a tender man."
I'll think of him as the uncle who made his own steel guitar picks, rode around the Quebec village of Morin Heights on his bike throughout his retirement, and did Tai Chi before anyone knew what it was.
He died on January 19, 2002, following a stroke on Christmas Day.