I'm up in Canada here, eh, just outside of the megacity -they actually call it that-
Toronto, and I'm wondering if anyone who knew the Riverboat back in the old folkie
days when it was rocking in the rain, remembers a tall (over six foot) girl named
Barbara Bonnell, who used to frequent the coffeehouses and blues bars with her mother.
The mother was shorter, kind of looked like Ma Kettle. Characters. They had a farm
north of T.O. where they raised dogs, horses, had a Barbary goat......a big old house.
Ian Tyson, Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot, John Prine, Ronny Hawkins, Sonny Terry and
Brownie Mcgee, that ilk used to party there.....I was too young. I missed it. I knew
Barbara only the last twenty odd years.
This does have a Joni connection. Bear with me. Barbara hated Joni Mitchell and her
music with a passion that seemed unreasonable......more based on social crap in the
little city that was Toronto not so very long ago. Joni's music was one of the few
things Barb and I disagreed on in a long rather drunken friendship that meant the
world to me. Barb passed away last year, in great style and surprisingly good
humour....I 'm sorry if this is new sadness to anyone who knew her.....I ended up
tidying her estate, sitting in an amazingly dirty house full of ghosts, finding jokes
she'd written down -she was famous for her jokes here- among letters, poetry, photos,
playing her guitar....it was worn down in open tunings and worn down with the
blues....I could feel my thumb fall into place in the dark, on the third, on the
seventh, on the fifth.....literally playing to ashes. They were in her mother's
writing desk under the cowboy hat, beside the bottle of Jack for toasting her...A
stran!
ge time. Like something from "Other Voices, Other Rooms". Barb's family were more
embarrassed by her wildness than proud of it, shall we say. So there was an element
of urgency in going through her letters, her memorabilia....there still is, for me.
Anyway, for all her Joni- hating, at the bottom of a box Barb set aside for me I found
an old, small, poster advertising a week at the Riverboat. There, with John Prine, and
Oddetta, was a little picture of a very pretty, heartbreaker Joni....and a little
further down in the box, under pictures of drunken celebrities, was an earlier item, a
gestetner print on cheap stock advertising a beginner's songwriting workshop on a
Wednesday night....conducted by newcomers Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell.
Jeez...that's when I broke down.
Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone has memories of Barbara....I have some of her
journals, Riding club stuff, a novel, some poetry, many pictures, and I'm putting
together a memorial, slowly, carefully.... she knew so many folks and I'd like to be
more comprehensive than I'm being. I'm too close to it. Sorry for being longwinded
here, and for this being not really Joni-related, but I see occasionally people
mention the old places in this forum, see names familiar from yellowed correspondence,
and I'm fishing. Thankyou. This is my first participation here. I was rather isolated
at the farm and you've all been company. Take care.
rocky, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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