Matthew Byrne – telling tales at the Crossing Pub

Oct 04, 2017

Matthew Byrne was not exactly a stranger to Sharbot Lake when he came to perform as a solo act at the Crossings Pub at the Sharbot Lake Country Inn last Sunday Night (October 1). He has appeared on several occasions, as a member of the Dardanelles, a group which is on hiatus this year but could be performing occasionally in 2018. He was also a member of the Sherman Downey and the Ambiguous Case, which played the Crossings a few times.

That makes him one of the Newfoundland wandering musicians offered refuge in Ontario by Frank and Sandra White of the Inn whenever he needs a bed and warm meal.
A good crowd of locals and fans from Perth and Kingston came out for an intimate concert on Sunday Night.

Matthew Byrne is fascinated by traditional songs and storytelling. In fact the songs he writes resemble traditional songs. During his performance on Sunday night he talked about his efforts to contact songwriters of songs that he intends to record in order to get a stronger sense of the meaning and feel of the song.
“It has not only helped me understand the songs that I am recording, I have also met some great people that way,” he said.

He is touring Ontario in support of his recently released 4th solo album, Horizon Lines. One of the original songs on the record is particularly poignant and is based on a family story. There was a small personal ad in the St. John’s newspaper in 1989. A man from New Zealand was looking for information about a woman named Adelaide, who he had last seen when he was a sailor on shore leave in St. John’s in 1947. The woman’s last name was Byrne so someone pointed the article out to Matthew’s father. It turned out that Adelaide was Matthew’s dad’s older sister, but she died in 1949 of tuberculosis before his dad was even born.
It turned out Adelaide and the sailor fell in love during his leave in 1947 and corresponded by mail for two years until the letters stopped. The man never knew what happened. The entire story of the romance was revealed in letters back and forth between Matthew’s Dad and his aunt’s love from 1947.
“I figured if I can’t make a song out of that story, I might as well take up another line of work,” he said before launching into Adelaide, one of the sweetest songs of the night.
He then said that before he released the album he thought he should contact the man behind the song, who would now be in his eighties.

“I found out that he died last November, right around the time I was recording Adelaide”.

The next scheduled musical event at the Crossing Pub is a dinner concert on October 28th with Sweet Alibi, a roots/pop trio, winners of a Western Canada Music Award. Tickets are $65 (dinner included) Call 613-279-2198.