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in the South back in the 70s with the group. You try and explore those different influences, and,
you know, it may be that all these different songs, like these last ten songs that I've written, might
seem a little disparate in their styles, but I kind of hear the blues in all of them and that's what's
kind of common to them. So yes, I was thinking ‘Solitaire’ was kind of an interesting one just
because it was quite different.

BiTS: ‘Solitaire’, of course, the only track on the album with a lady's voice on it, Rita McDade.
TM: Oh yes, good point. Good point and our first Bluesland album, you know, had a female singer,

Pat Hatherley, and she was a great singer. So we started with a female, but you're right, maybe
I just haven't gotten to know enough female singers out here [laughs]. Yes, but of course, a lot of
old friends from the prairies drift out to Vancouver Island and such, so a lot of old friends are
out here.

BiTS: Terry, tell me about the rest of the band. Have you known them all for a long time?

TM: Yes, we worked together in Calgary, and I went back to Calgary to launch the record in the
local blues club there two weeks ago, and we just had a great time getting back together. We're
going to do it again in October. It's a challenge keeping an eight-piece group together, but we
have a real deep love of the music, so that really binds us and everybody makes themselves
available for that fortunately, because logistics can be tricky with that. So they're located back
in Calgary and so I'll go back there and get that
group playing once again and we just have a ball
at the local blues club there.

BiTS: I think you have access to about eight
musicians, if my count is right, how do you manage
it all? Do you keep in touch with them by telephone
or email or whatever?

TM: Well, thankfully for email, you remember the

days in trying to keep bands together, especially
large bands, when you had to do it all by phone and
you get to the eighth guy and he can't do the gig
and oh, you know, you’ve got to go and call
everybody else back again. Nowadays, with the
email, it’s so much more convenient.

BiTS: How representative of a live performance
by the band is this album? I'm asking most
particularly because the last track is called ‘So
Long, Goodbye’, which sounds as though it might be a closer for a show.

TM: [Laughing] Yes, that's pretty close. I sit in regularly with the groups out here and there's a
blues club in Victoria I was playing last night. We were just having a ball and with the fellow
who's singing and playing bass on it. That's his group and the drummer is the same and so yes,
that's pretty representative of what we were doing last night. The other instrumental that's on
there – let’s see, there's actually two, ‘Shuffle In The Attic’ and the ‘Alley Shuffle’. ‘Alley Shuffle’
would be really close to our live blues sound. We did a live cut on our second album, I think,
down in New Orleans, a song called ‘Bon Ton Roula’ and that was live off the floor. So yes, we try
and keep it real. We don't mind if there's a little bit of hair on it, you know, in terms of we like it
to sound like it's organic, like it's made by people, not machines. And I mean, that's why I insist
on the three-piece horn section. It's so lovely to have that baritone in the bottom with the tenor