Oh man … Where does one even begin? The story of how this album came to fruition is a journey in itself—filled with twists, turns, and the kind of life lessons you can only learn by living them. This record you bought is all about the roads I’ve traveled, the lessons I’ve learned, and the adventures that shaped me into the person I am today, by coincidence. It was a happenstance of fate, a tale that started without intention but grew into something I never imagined doing for a while.

As I remembered, I wasn’t planning on making a record, let alone dreaming of putting it on vinyl. The process of creating an album is more than a couple of dollars at your local dive bar; it’s having faith that it might sell, and that people like you will like it.

After a summer of jumping around, hopping from honky-tonks to dive bars, and driving across North America, chasing the life I thought I had to live, I found myself back in Alberta. By the end of September, the frost was just bracing itself to lay down with us in the prairies. So, as usual, I thought maybe it was time to cut down on the old vino and take a minute to relax and breathe.

Then, one morning, I awoke with a stomachache that wouldn’t go away. At the age of 32, I decided it was finally time to get a family doctor. To my surprise, I was diagnosed with a stomach ulcer. The doctor asked, “Anything you’ve changed recently?” I laughed and said, “Well, Doc, I quit drinking and decided to start smoking the old herb of the south.” Apparently, going cold turkey on wine and drinking the occasional seltzer was enough to tear up my gut. Who would have thought quitting the red bottle would cause me more trouble than I imagined?

October rolled on, and with my medication in hand and a head full of smoky green grass, the idea for this album arose. I knew I wanted it to be different. I wanted to capture the feeling of being in the room with me—sitting with my wine, my cigars, and the band. But how could I do that and give you the same experience of stories and jokes you might have seen at shows and in person over the years?

I had this wild idea to record the album like it was the 1970s, using reel-to-reel tape. In hindsight, not the best idea. But what came from this was the realization that I wanted to record live, with the band, all in one take. No overdubs, no fixes. Just pure, raw energy. Like a live theater performance—my real stories, my life, captured in one take, in the moment. From Dawson City, Yukon, to Swift Current, Saskatchewan, to a bison ranch in the south, the journey and the songs came together.

As I sat under the prairie night sky, with a mind full of dreams and smoke, the album began to take shape. I called up the band: Keith Rodgers, with his grace and masterful taste, with me from day one; Catherine Robertson, with her potent, graceful, arrow-like notes; and an old friend from out west, with soul and fire, Blake Mackay.

Together, we set out to create something special. I wanted you to feel like you were in the room with us—smoke-filled, wine clinking, and me being the man you know. So the plans were engraved in stone, now were the speeches.

The night before heading into The Nation Music Centre’s studio, I made sure to grab my banjo and take my little “performance-enhancing pills.” Call it exaggeration, but let’s just say it set the stage. Walking into the studio, we set up in a big circle with the 1901 upright piano in the center, and the real magic began. Or it was whatever I had taken, haha.

As we started recording, I cracked open a bottle of wine, lit my smoke, and the room filled with the kind of energy you can only get from a live, one-take recording. The sound engineer, when I sparked up, you could see his face in the window, like, “WTF?” The band paused between songs as I shared stories of how the songs came to be. Some of these songs go back to the start of my musical journey, like “Pallet on the Floor” and “I Saw the Light.”

As the night wore on, with the music flowing, the memories surfacing, and whatever I took coursing through my veins, I picked up my banjo. Keith looked over and was thinking, “This was not in the notes.” As I began to play, it took us to an unexpected place, a place where we found a new sound, and the band, on the fly, followed me on this trek. The most unexpected moment came when I started to remember a poem from my childhood, which then I began to recite: an old Edgar Allan Poe poem, “A Dream within a Dream,” and suddenly, a new song was born. It’s one of my favorites on the album.

As I’m in the glow of the last song, we move on to what I always like to do and give you, and all listeners, a moral of life. As the band improvised, I thought about the message I wanted to leave you with: “If you’re not doing what you want today, and you die tomorrow, what was the point?” The record is done, all in one take, live off the floor—a memoir straight from my diary to yours.

I wouldn’t have done this without you, Alberta.

Tobacco & Tears by Denver Venoit

 

End Credits : 

 

Beautiful Front cover photo by Riley JB on a tintype camera from the 1800's

Engineered by Eric Cinnamon, Nation Music Centre

Arrangements and stand up bass by Keith Rodgers

Arrangements and piano by Blake Mackay

Violin and Fiddle by Catherine Robertson

Pedal Steel Guitar by Scott Smith