Long Haired Country Girl - The Set List
[00:00:00] Blake Melnick: Well, welcome to this week's episode of The Space in Between I'm your host Blake Melnick. And as we mentioned in our last episode, it's now getting time to pass the jam. For the past month or so. We've been playing songs from our current artist in residence, Heather Gemmell for all the intros and outros to our episodes.
[00:00:25] Now we'll be playing all of these songs in their entirety and I get to play DJ. I hope you've enjoyed Heather's music as much as I have. I've loved playing her tunes on the show because they're beautifully suited to establishing the right mood for each of the episodes. Heather is a terrific talent, a multi instrument nuanced player with great vocal range and tonality.
[00:00:48] And the timing for this episode is. Heather is about to release her record in July containing all the tunes we've been playing plus a few more. So we'll let you know when that record is released and provide [00:01:00] you with a link to purchase it through our Facebook show page for what it's worth the podcast series and our show blog for what it's worth podcast.com.
[00:01:08] Heather is also in the running for the CBC's Searchlight talent contest for her song. Northstar is burning about the selfish act of arson that disabled the chairlift at the Kimberly Alpine resort this past winter significantly impacting the economy of the town. Here's your opportunity to really listen to her music.
[00:01:28] So kickback sync your phone or computer to your stereo, your Bluetooth speaker, or just slap on your headphones and have a listen to long haired country girl, the set list,… for what it's worth.
[00:01:41] The first song on our set list is called Black Queen a rocking blues tune. The song was inspired by Annie Duke author and world -famous female poker player. And here's what Heather has to say about Annie Duke and the Black Queen.
[00:01:57] Heather Gemmell: I'm singing it as if she's walking into a [00:02:00] room and I'm observing her, she's very successful in the poker playing world and I always thought it was pretty cool to have a woman at the table cause they're a minority at the final table of the, world series of poker, she influenced that song powerful, strong female role [00:03:00] [00:04:00] [00:05:00] [00:06:00]
[00:06:53] Blake Melnick: that was Black Queen. Next stop is an instrumental track called For Old Time's Sake, [00:07:00] which features Heather on banjo.
[00:07:02] [00:08:00] [00:09:00] [00:10:00] [00:11:00] That was For Old Time's Sake. Next up on our playlist is a song called Departed Son.
[00:11:15] Heather Gemmell: So departed son was going to be our wedding vows song. So the depart of son sounds like somebody that's maybe left this world, but really what it means is my husband and his family grew up in, Cache Creek in Ashcroft.
[00:11:29] So they're a BC born family, but all of his family, have moved to Alberta just close to when he was graduating, and they all ended up staying out in Alberta and Nick was the one that wanted to stay in BC. So he moved back to BC and he's the departed son.
[00:11:44] Blake Melnick: [00:12:00] [00:13:00] [00:14:00] [00:15:00] I really liked departed sun. For me, it had shades of Emmylou Harris from wrecking ball, particularly the song she did with Steve Earl called Goodbye.
[00:15:18] Next on our playlist is a song called Ghost Town. Now I have to say, this may have been my favorite track that we've played on the show. It fits so well with the backstory of Robert Johnson in our series, In the Company of Readers and Writers and the story, “Old Guitar. It was just a beautiful song.
[00:15:37] It complimented that episode so well. So here's what Heather has to say about Ghost Town.
[00:15:42] Heather Gemmell: I was a truck driver laborer, and I spent a lot of time in our graveyard and the parks department, buries people. We dig the hole we fill in the holes, we put the sod back and we just try to make the cemetery look pretty
[00:15:56] I spent a lot of time maintaining a cemetery I did a [00:16:00] lot of the filling in of the cremation graves.
[00:16:02] So anyway, with my genre of music, I figured it was about time to write a grave digging song. Sung through the eyes of somebody digging and filling in the graves.
[00:16:10] Blake Melnick: [00:17:00] [00:18:00] [00:19:00] [00:20:00] That [00:21:00] was Ghost Town. I should point out that on Heather soon to be released new record Ghost Town as an instrumental track. So we'll play that instrumental version on the outro to today's show.
[00:21:11] Next up is One Light Town about life and love in a small mountain village.
[00:21:17] Heather Gemmell: That song was written a long time ago, but I wanted to add in one of my old tunes. it's sung through the eyes of my dog Charlie. It's basically about the story of how we met and Nick and I had just gotten out of two different relationships. So we were both a little delicate at the time, but we couldn't pass each other up at the moment.
[00:21:36] So that's what, One Light Town is about.
[00:21:38] Blake Melnick: [00:22:00] [00:23:00] [00:24:00] [00:25:00] [00:26:00] British Columbia has been plagued by one climate disaster. After another, we had the floods this past fall and winter, the heat dome the summer before, and the constant threat of raging forest fires. Anyone that lives within a community that is threatened by these fires knows just how stressful it can be.
[00:26:24] Evacuation orders, fear of losing one's home. They can't see, they can't breathe. The next song is called Smokey Mountain Blues and expresses the fear and frustration that people have that live within these communities.
[00:26:40] [00:27:00] [00:28:00] [00:29:00] [00:30:00] Our next song is called Resting Place. I love this song. It seems like the juxtaposition Smokey Mountain Blues, whereas Smokey Mountain Blues has that feeling of frustration with the atmosphere, the climate, the claustrophobia resulting from the fire and the smoke resting place seems like quite the [00:31:00] opposite.
[00:31:00] It seems like there's a degree of resignation or at least acceptance that amongst all these horrible things that might go on in the world, that there is a resting place for us all.
[00:31:12] Heather Gemmell: That's right. You nailed it. Yep. So that wrote that during, the 2016 election had already happened and we're just paying a lot of attention to the news, the American news and world news and the geopolitical climate, of the time. I call resting place my apocalyptic love song, so it doesn't matter what's going on in the world, as long as you're going down with the one you love, then everything should be okay. [00:32:00] [00:33:00]
[00:34:00] [00:35:00] the final tune on our set list is called, North star is burning. The song wasn't played on any episodes of, For What it's Worth, so it's a new song to many of you, but it's the song that Heather wrote about the burning of the chairlift at the Kimberly Alpine ski resort. Rumor has it the chairlift was burned by arsonists who also burned down a number of other buildings in town.
[00:35:25] Blake Melnick: They did this out of frustration and anger stemming from restrictions surrounding the Pandemic. The burning of the chairlift had a huge economic impact on the city of Kimberly and on the people that live there. This is also the song that Heather submitted for the CBC Searchlight Talent Contest. And I believe there's at least one day left where you can still vote for the song and for Heather.
[00:35:47] So check out our website and I'll put a link in our show notes. So you can go ahead and vote. I hope you liked this song as much as I did. I think it's really great. Well worth your vote. Here's North Star is Burning[00:36:00]
[00:36:01] [00:37:00] [00:38:00] [00:39:00] This concludes this week's episode of The Space in Between, “Long Haired Country Girl, The Set List with my guest, Heather Gemmell. Heather will be joining me as my c-host next week for the official passing of the jam to an exciting new artist. You're going to love this episode, so make sure you tune in. We're going to wrap up with the instrumental version of Ghost Town by Heather Gemmell …for what it's worth.
