Like Clockwork 

(reprinted from Penguin Eggs, Canada's Folk and Roots magazine, #16, Winter 2002)

An impressive new voice recently emerged from the flourishing Ottawa folk scene. Tony Turner writes with the same convincing flair expected of Fred Eaglesmith, Garnet Rogers and Ian Tamblyn, reckons Roddy Campbell 

The personable Tony Turner takes perfection far too seriously. A lifetime of spit and polish went into his debut disc - the aptly titled A Matter of Time. 

So what's with these geezers in their late 40s making undeniably impressive first recordings anyway? First David Francey. Now Turner. Truly, A Matter of Time is as equally affecting as Francey's Torn Screen Door, but for different reasons, of course. 

With a warm, engaging voice that falls somewhere between a mellow Tom Russell and a content Bruce Springsteen, Turner covers Canada's rustic backwater beat with the same convincing flair expected of Fred Eaglesmith, Garnet Rogers and Ian Tamblyn. Ample evidence lies between the stubborn determination of a farmer living on the brink of the title track and the tragic tale of the pioneer Emmett Hobbs crippled while loading hay. 

"I think I must have lived on a farm or been a pioneer in another life," says the Ottawa-based Turner. "Rural settings and working people seem more real to me and help frame the human qualities I am trying to relate through song. The ways we fight against, tame and accept the natural world are much like our internal struggles with our own nature. It seems to be fertile territory to explore both kinds of landscape. . . I guess I'm just in love with nature. I'm a real Canadian."

Credit the Junior Forest Rangers who sent him to northern Ontario to plant trees as a teenager.

"That summer, being out there. . .was this whole kind of mystical experience of what Canada is. It really captures one's imagination. I think that is where I really became interested in nature and the wilderness and that sort of thing." 

The panoramic Pacuare River will attest to Turner's maturity. Inspired by a white water raft trip in Costa Rica, it's a gorgeous panoramic look at casual turmoil. More controversial by far, but equally as enthralling, is The Ballad of Ty Conn - a sympathetic look at the bank robber who escaped for 13 days from Ontario's, Kingston Penitentiary in May, 1999. Institutionalized since his early teens, Conn committed suicide when surrounded by police rather than face further time in jail.

"I was a bit caught up in that story when it hit the papers. It was front page news, at least in Ontario, for the two weeks he was on the run. . . .Then the media dropped it after he was killed. But I started reading about him on the Internet and I found there was a really interesting story behind the story. He had a tragic upbringing and he was bounced from foster home to foster home. . .He would escape, steal, and get caught. They would bring him back and try to settle him down. This was just a common thread throughout his life.

"I really wanted to bring out the human being in Ty Conn and express how he was a victim as much as anything else. I think he deserved at least that. . .He had been in jail basically since he was 16 and he had a 47-year sentence by the time he was 32. It just seemed that the system was not working for him. But he never was violent, which was kind of an interesting thing because there were murderers who had gotten lighter sentences than what he got. I guess he did have a gun, and he was holding up people, and that is a violent crime, so they gave him increasingly stiff sentences."

Tony Turner was born in Toronto in 1953. He remembers fondly as a 10-year-old listening to If I Had a Hammer on the pop charts. The fact that a folk song could be popular and have a beat made an indelible impression on young master Turner. In 1965, he moved to Ottawa with his family and there he stayed throughout most of his teenage years. In high school, he formed a folk band that covered the likes of Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young before moving on to the University of Alberta in the '70s to study, what else, geography.

In Edmonton, he would frequently trundle down to the Southside Folk Club to hear the likes of Stan Rogers and Bill Bourne and occasionally play in a duo in local lounges to supplement his student grants. There he would strum the Fraser & DeBolt classic Them Dance Hall Girls, splendidly revived on A Matter of Time. 

"I have always been drawn to the singer-songwriter. There is something about it that speaks to me. There is something about the simplicity and the real focus on lyrics that you don't hear in rock music and other things." 

Returning to Ottawa, he eventually started his own environmental consulting business and spent the odd night at Writers' Block - a loose-knit organization founded by Alex Sinclair of Tamarak and Ian Tamblyn that helped budding songwriters develop their music. 

"Writing can be such a solitary experience and when you can share your progress without having to do it in front of an audience it is a good thing. For people starting out it is an excellent way to get your songs out of the closet and into the open. That is what really got me into song writing. . .I joined in 1994 and I found I started writing seriously just around that same time - I never use to share my songs with other people, but once I started doing that in that supportive environment this sort of dam burst."

Turner eventually became the Writers' Bloc co-ordinator and organized several writing workshops led by Ian Tamblyn. He obviously made a large impression because Turner approached him to produce A Matter of Time.

"He was really big on pre-production. I would go up to his place (in the Gatineau Hills) and I would play him a few songs that I was considering and he would help me work through them. He would ask me the tough questions to make sure that they were internally consistent and that I was expressing the right thing in the right way. So he helped me really refine my songs and got me ready for the studio. So I really appreciated that about him. 

"He did that before I asked him to be the producer. He was just doing that as kind of a helpful thing to a less experience songwriter. Then I decided I was going for the CD. I had other options, but I liked Ian's approach. So he was very encouraging. After it was all said and done I felt that I am a better performer now than I was before I went into the recording studio."