A tangled web leading to cutting edge old-time music

Jeff Green | Mar 11, 2020

Ever since Frank and Sandra White started booking shows after they purchased and renovated the Crossing Pub at the Sharbot Lake Country Inn, it has been known as the home away from home for Newfoundland musicians. This first performer in the new space, and this will make for a good trivia question some day, was the legendary songwriter, the late Ron Hynes.

Since then the range of musicians has expanded as the Pub has become established as an acoustic music venue on a regional, even provincial, scale. One of the lost boys from Newfoundland who were given a gig, and refuge, by the Whites, is Tom Powers and his band, the Dardanelles.

Powers is with the CBC in Toronto now, and has been playing duo gigs with virtuoso fiddler John Showman (Lonesome Ace Stringband, New Country Rehab, Foggy Hogtown Boys and many others) at the Cameron House in that city. The two have performed together at the Crossings Pub in the past. Powers is working on a bluegrass podcast, and in doing so, he came across Tatiana Hargreaves and Winnipeg-born Allison de Groot.

Hargreaves (fiddle) and de Groot (clawhammer banjo) are young stars in the bluegrass/old-time music tradition, and have performed with some of the major stars of the genre. They are both immersed in the Appalachian musical tradition, which is one of the prime sources for bluegrass, country and blues music. They put out an eponymous recording this year, and played Sharbot Lake last Friday night, in a double bill with Showman and Powers, as part of a short tour of Ontario and Quebec.

The Showman/Powers set was enjoyable, as Powers provided support on guitar for Showman’s inventive and technically masterful take on tunes from Newfoundland, Appalachia and beyond.

Hargreaves and de Groot played a somewhat more understated set, taken mostly from their album, as the audience leaned in to hear the intricate interplay between de Groot’s skillful and creative banjo and Hargreaves inventive fiddle and vocals. Their music, deeply rooted in history, but with the perspective of a contemporary political, social, and musical sensibility, was remarkable.

For too short a time, the four musicians performed together, and hearing Showman and Hargreaves together, two masters at work while listening and playing off each other, was another treat.

The quality of the sound in the Crossing Pub, even the vibrations from the audiences’ and musicians’ toes tapping on the floors, has made the venue itself part of the magic that happens during many of the shows. It is becoming a storied venue.

Upcoming shows at the Crossings Pub include: Turpin’s Trail on March 14th, a St. Patrick’s Day show that is sold out. On March 21st, Durham County Poets are performing (tickets are $25 – dinner reservations suggested) If you haven’t seen this band, get ready for fine music, and some wicked jokes.