Tom Mawhinney - Busking, Choirs, and Community

In this episode of The Kingstonian Podcast, Dave speaks with a Kingston-area musician, Tom Mawhinney - songwriter, and community builder - whose journey began at Queen’s University in Kingston, in the early 1970s.

Over the decades, he has released six albums for adult listeners and three children’s albums, written more than 30 songs for choirs. 

The conversation explores:

• Early musical influences and songwriting
• His 1992 cross-Canada busking tour
• His transition into writing for and working with choirs
• A parallel career as a clinical psychologist working with youth
• His work in farming, environmental stewardship, and community projects

The episode also touches on his newest release, “Living This Day,” and his continuing tradition of house concerts that bring music directly to audiences. 

Read more about his story by connecting to https://www.tmawhinney.ca 

Our theme music is “Stasis Oasis”,  by Tim Aylesworth

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Send comments & suggestions to  thekingstonianpodcast@gmail.com 

Episodes also air weekly on CJAI at 101.3fm (Tue. at 4pm) 

Transcript

Steve 0:08

Welcome to the Kingstonian, a podcast that profiles people who are passionate about what they do for a living, what organization they belong to, or the community they are a part of. Here is your host, Dave Cunningham.

Dave 0:24

On this episode of the Kingstonian Podcast, I connect with someone whose musical journey stretches back to his early days at Queen's University in the 1970s. My guest has built a life shaped by music, storytelling, and community. Along the way, he's released six albums for adult audiences and three for children, composed music for choirs, and spent decades sharing songs in concert halls, classrooms, and even on street corners. In 1992, he set out on what he called the Original Trans-Canada Anti-Commercial Direct Contact Full-Age Spectrum Organic Acoustic Busking Tour, a 10-province journey that brought his music directly to people across the country. But music is only part of the story. Alongside his creative work, he pursued a PhD in clinical psychology, working with children and teens, and often bringing music into the workplace. In more recent years, his path has also included collaborations with choirs, environmental stewardship, farming, and community projects close to home. Today we talk about folk music and storytelling, songwriting, busking, choirs, and the many ways music can connect people, whether on a stage, in a classroom, or around a kitchen table. Here is my conversation with Tom Mawhinney. Tom, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for doing this. Oh, I'm very happy to do it. You and I go way back and haven't seen each other since way back.

Tom 2:01

Would be the 70s, I guess.

Dave 2:03

Like early 70s?

Tom 2:04

Yeah, yeah.

Dave 2:05

Mid-70s, somewhere in there.

Tom 2:06

I'd say mid.

Dave 2:07

Yeah. Yeah. So how you been?

Tom 2:12

Ah well, this it's amazing because well, I had a whole career in psychology, which I just loved, doing uh standard clinical work and music therapy. Uh and um I did the a tour in '92 40 appearance 10 province tour. And in two ...

Dave 2:33

I have this all planned out.

Tom 2:34

Oh, you have to do that. So you're gonna cover some of it.

Dave 2:36

I'm gonna get all of it.

Tom 2:37

Okay, well, holy, so let me just say then that uh I am in a renaissance right now in that um in getting those insults and threats from down south, I started writing music right then again, solo guitar, because I'd only been doing choir music from 2000 on, and I got booted into the creative mode in response, and it it blossomed into this new album that I liked. And um I I got back into better choirs than I've ever been into. So right now, I just joined the Martello Alley Cats a year and a half ago, but boy, I I'm I love singing with them. It's really good music and really good singers.

Dave 3:21

When I was going through your website, which is fairly new, and we'll put the URL for that website in the liner notes to the podcast so people can visit it. But I found the most succinct resume that I have read in a long while on that website, and I'm going to read it here. Six albums of adult material, three for children, ten province, forty appearance solo tour in 1992 called The Original Trans-Canada Anti-Commercial Direct Contact Full Age Spectrum Organic Acoustic Busking Tour. More than 30 songs composed for choirs, published as We'll Sing for Pleasure, We'll Sing to Please in 2020, and still going. I love that. I don't know that now do you know that off by heart, that whole new tour?

Tom 4:15

Yes, I can. The original, anyway, I don't need to say it, but I have it. Yeah.

Dave 4:20

Before we get into the albums and the tour, let's talk about folk music. Do you call it folk music? People don't like to be pigeonholed, but ...

Tom 4:28

Well, no, I do call it folk music.

Dave 4:30

Okay.

Tom 4:30

Well, and uh traditional folk, pretty much. So message laden. And well, the thing from the choir book, too, it I want it to be pleasing. So it's within the bounds of normal traditional songs. Yeah. Verse chorus verse chorus usually and with pleasing melodies and harmonies.

Dave 4:52

In your long experience doing music, do you think that people still listen to lyrics in a song?

Tom 5:00

I'm I'm I think that decays under the influence of the commercial pressure to produce, produce, produce because audiences expect it less and are listening more to the beat and the blair. And um so I don't think it's I mean, it was very alive in the sixties and Bob Dylan flourishing and other people I can think of sometimes. But really, Neil Young is always writing lyrics and

Dave 5:35

Gordon Lightfoot. Gordon Lightfoot. Bruce Coburn, people like that on the Canadian side.

Tom 5:39

Yeah, so those are yeah, those are really and Leonard Cohen, you know, he doesn't write junk, he writes things that are good sense. And and I'm sorry that's drummed out of commercial music because it's very rare in commercial music. So I do think uh the other part that figures in that is the uh catering to young tastes constantly. So, you know, you get a generation of four or five or six years that have one sound, whether it's garage punk or whatever, and then they have the commercial forces make you shift, and then the younger people then identify with the new form, whatever it is. And it kind of seems to me that it gets less and less form, more formless over time too. So that now it's just a drumbeat and chanting words. Yeah, so uh less less real sense in it.

Dave 6:33

When you're talking about judging uh how many people are listening to your music, I mean when you were making actual physical records or CDs or whatever, you would be able to judge based upon who was buying your units. And now a lot of it is who's downloading your uh uh uh material that's being streamed. Now you are on from what I can gather most of the streaming services that offer music. Do you get some sense as to whether you're being listened to more uh that way or by the old days when it was a record.

Tom 7:11

Well I am assuming that uh I'm only playing to the people I see. Because I do having joined oh, jumping through all those hoops for to get it up on Apple Music and so on Spotify, all those things, lots of hoops, and no return. I get no return. But no one knows. I don't I've had a low you know, that 20-year choir period, I wasn't involved in the folk scene whatsoever. I did a few house concerts, but that that's what I've evolved to now, so that my my standard audience is 20 or less, and I just love it, and and people are very responsive. And uh uh I played to an audience of 16 in Napanee about five, six weeks ago. I didn't know a single soul. They were super supportive and you know, enjoyed it a lot. It was a lot of fun, and then in Kingston I did one a month ago for 18 people, the same thing, but most of those people I knew. Yeah, so it didn't you know I felt really the same about both. The audience really enjoyed the concert, so that's the meaningful part to me. You noticed in the um original Trans Canada anti-commercial, anti-commercial direct contact, so that's 92. So I have a very strong anti-commercial stance because I think it's a destructive force that suppresses creativity. So yeah. I I the face-to-face is best for me and not mass audiences.

Dave 8:44

One of the things that I noticed in talking to a couple of other people who perform uh music that they have written, and I can think of one at the top of my head who has written a lot of music and puts it up on Facebook or some of the other sites. And he has recorded some material and submitted it for listening to what's called Americana music. And I don't know if you've heard that particular phrase before.

Tom 9:10

No, I haven't. No.

Dave 9:11

It's it's almost like a folk um quiet country kind of format that um seems to be appealing to people. And I'd and I don't know if it's that popular out in the mainstream you know, in the in the bigger populace. I don't know why they call it Americana music, but that's what it's called. Um was this the folk music style, was this something that you always wanted to do, the approach you always wanted to take? Um back to the early days when you first got the bug for music?

Tom 9:40

Well, when I was in my I started writing at a I played guitar and banjo when I was in high school with friends. And then um at around age twenty I started writing stuff. And I did take it, I sent it to some manager slash producer slash something, thinking, you know, wow, maybe you know I can be a star. That was never a big notion for me, but I did submit it, but I'm very cynical about it. I think um yeah, uh I'm glad that I've that I didn't kind of go commercial and I kept my independence in terms of my writing and what I can produce that is creative, because I'm super confident in my material. I really like it. And I say things um I use a quotation from Thomas Macaulay from around 1800 in one of the best songs on the new album. Uh it's the fin the last line of a song. It says, Your life is a bridge between two eternities. And for me to be able to put that into a song, that's a bit of a I'm mirroring what I have done in my choir writing there because I've got some quotes from Don Quixote in some songs, and I got I I I I do that repetitively anyway. I find a line that's very meaningful for me, and I find a way to embed it in a song. And I just love doing that, and it will never go commercial. You know, that isn't well, that particular song is called Terra Firma, and it's a response to James Taylor's song Terra Nova, because he writes about discovering the new world in a very nice, very nice frame, musical, and you know, he's incredibly uh creative. He does some good stuff, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But um mine uh mine is talking about our path in space as a planet, and then where we are in the galaxy. Believe it or not, this is what the story of the song tells says. And at the end, the stars speak. And I mean, that sounds wildly unlikely as a descriptor, but I love the song. And I have um I have a very good friend, it's her favorite song in the whole album. So um that you wouldn't do that in a commercial frame. No.

Dave 11:56

A lot of people who live in this area, and that were in the Kingston and Ontario area, would probably know you historically, if you will, from busking downtown. In the market, yeah. Now, for those people who have never heard the word before, describe what busking is.

Tom 12:12

Well, it's street singing, and um I I took a year off when I was about 22 and played in on the streets of Vancouver uh and supported myself for a whole year that way. Came back from there and started playing in the Kingston market. So it's just open-air playing. I would borrow a crate from one of the vendors in the Kingston market and sit on it with my hat in front of me and just play and sing on the auto harp. So it was it that was good because it was an unusual instrument. That's a pleasing instrument. But I didn't ex I might have written a couple of songs, but mostly I did traditional songs there. So again, that's a anchor of mine in the traditional stuff. But I did that for 20 summers and eventually just uh decided that was a good career in but street singing, you know, amazing things happen. People come sit in your lap, children dance in front of you. Uh people throw in a big bill sometimes. It's pretty amazing. It's quite amazing.

Dave 13:07

People sitting in your lap?

Tom 13:09

It happened once. Half of once, yeah. Think it was someone who was under the influence of something.

Dave 13:15

So talk about songwriting. So you mentioned that around that particular time when you were busking, you were thinking about ideas and putting them into some form. Um how did you decide on some of the early stuff that you would write about topics?

Tom 13:33

Um Well, I I it's you write about what's alive in your life. So my early songs are about love affairs and wishing to, you know, whatever, find your perfect partner and on and on. I think for people in their twenties, that's the standard theme. And it never stops appealing to younger listeners than that. So that's where the commercial forces drive, as I see it. Um so I was in that, but I also tried to put my own less shallow thoughts out as well. And I did write some good lines. There's a song, uh, a line of a song that I really love. Now, is this the this is the song that foretold what I would be doing later. It's called Seeds, and it's probably it's from the mid-80s, so that's a little later. I was in my 30s by that time. But um, one of the lines in that song is we've gone off the map in our hurry to lay down a road. So that again is a theme of mine, which comes out other songs, other places, that we're really not in control of how we're molding our world. And we're just in such a hurry. And anyway, that occurs in a couple of other songs, too, of that period. And I still believe it. I think you know, we need to slow down. That that the forecast from that song, it's called Seeds, and the uh there's a repeating line. I think what I need is to sow s sow me some seeds in the ground, and now I grow a ton of vegetables for the food bank every year, you know. So yeah.

Dave 15:10

Were you planning on becoming a farmer at that particular time in your life?

Tom 15:14

It never I worked on farms a lot through through my young years and even into a little bit older. And I knew I would like to live in the country, but I never had a plan. And the year I retired in 2008, um, within six months I I own the place we're on right now, 150 acres of beautiful, beautiful property, woods and everything. So yeah.

Dave 15:37

We talked a little bit about it uh at the beginning of this uh episode, and that's your career at university, the skills that you learned there in terms of uh the PhD in clinical psychology. Now you worked with a lot of kids.

Tom 15:51

Yeah.

Dave 15:52

Talk about that experience.

Tom 15:53

Originally, uh well, in fact, my favorite uh cohort of uh people to work with uh uh i i it I started with my first group to work with was preschoolers. And they were my favorites because they're really open, you know, and they don't they don't hide anything. They don't have protective ego type things. Then I worked with uh school age kids and and adolescents and that was at um residential service and I had a music group each week with each of the two residents as they kept the younger kids from the older kids. And they were that was really a joy musically and it was it really a success psychologically because I had got them to earn things like these were kids who were behaviorally out of control living in a residence. Their families were coming in to train on how to work things out so that it was better for the kids and everyone. But the kids almost without exception just loved music group. It was an hour and they could earn being the host or choosing the order of songs or doing a solo, uh, and uh by their good behavior. So it was a phenomenal behavioral manipulative thing. Manipulative, well, it's a treatment, really. And uh so that was that was really rewarding. Um I then I worked in uh the pediatric oncology uh clinic at KGH, our Kingston local hospital, um for five years as well. And the same thing applied, although it was working with kids individually or kids in their f and their families, singing with them. And if they would get involved in the music, they would be lifted right out of their frame of being ill. And uh that's a remarkable thing. There's not there aren't many things you can do that do that. So it was it was very rewarding.

Dave 17:49

Now, did you do that kind of thing up until you retired in 2008?

Tom 17:53

I think I finished at the hospital in 06, and then I had a small private clinic to wind down because I knew I was near the end of my of my practicing. Um and so I did. I kept doing a little bit of the music in the end, but not very much. Yeah. Not so much.

Dave 18:14

Let's go to that infamous tour in 1992. And let me uh give you the details or give our listeners the details. 10 Province, 40 appearance solo tour. So uh how big was the tour bus?

Tom 18:28

Oh, it was my car. Yeah. I drove I had a Mazda, a blue Mazda. I drove it, started in Quebec. I did a house concert there in my very first appearance. I then did a I then drove to New Brunswick and was one of the only two places on the whole tour where I stayed with someone I didn't have a link with. And darn, I uh they had me sleep in the basement, and I don't think the water tap had been turned on in 10 years. And I was very thirsty on arrival. I drank a whole lot of water and got fabulously sick right away. The next day I had to play on a CBC local show, and it was Touch and Go. I didn't tell them that I was I might throw up any second because it'd been throwing up right up until. But I did the interview and sang one or two songs and it went okay, and then uh Halifax and then um Newfoundland, St. John's, and I I um the power went out in one of my shows in St. John's. The other one that they went until three o'clock in the morning, I think it was just crazy. Then I came back via Ontario, did some stop. I played in Toronto and Ottawa at big clubs, those are the big appearances. I played in Sioux Lookout at the school, like the whole school came to a a concert, and it was really great. It was like 250 kids, and they were great. I my my kids' material is very strong, though I don't lean on it much now. Played in Winnipeg, played in my all my sound system was stolen when I was in Edmonton, replaced that in time to make the next um in BC and uh the very the 40th appearance was at a preschool called The Toad School, which I just loved. And they were fantastic because I just I wrote a 40-page whatever record of the tour typed, and I only I I ignored it until about maybe four months ago when I read through it and I had no memory of this, but I thought I would arrived late for that appearance at the at the preschool or the the Toad School, and uh it isn't true. I arrived right on the dot, but I had been driving for an hour out of Victoria and the roads were just crazy with traffic, and I was really stressed. But anyway, it w there I guess preschools are are pretty flexible, and they were just totally relaxed. It was really amazing. Anyway.

Dave 20:58

Now I t I heard you tell the story of this tour somewhere else. And there's one particular aspect of this tour that I like, and that's uh for those who may not know you, you tend to play with just your hands. You don't have any picks, I gather, when you're playing with

Tom 21:13

I finger pick. I finger pick.

Dave 21:15

So you you broke a f thumbnail.

Tom 21:17

Oh yeah. So the first the first uh appearance was a a house concert um way the other side of Quebec, uh, friend, uh at Saint Fidel, and he had built his home there, a really, really beautiful home, really skilled carpenter friend. And um he was opening this new room. It was sort of like a I don't know what you would call up anyway, quite spacious. Uh and it's look with a view of the St. Lawrence down the mountain. Oh, it was gorgeous. Anyway, I think I was helping him carry firewood in, and I broke the one the one nail that's the most important is your thumbnail. I broke the end off it. I've never done that before. And here I am just before. The first appearance. And so anyway, uh I I do strum too, though, so I'm likely I can't really remember, but there's every chance that I'd strummed everything that I performed there. But then the first stop in New Brunswick had got my thumbnail built up again. And I'd never had that done. I know that I think Scott Merritt used to do that with all of his fingers, because he was a finger picker too, but um it it I'd never experienced it, but it was just great. It was as strong as anything, and it lasted right the way to, I think it was Edmonton, where I had to get it redone, because it would hadn't, you know, it wouldn't have grown in by then. So anyway. But imagine it's a little bit, it reminds me of what happened at my house concert just six, seven weeks ago. It was it happened that Ontario Hydro decided to cut off my power that morning, and I didn't know it. So did they alert me with a half hour to go or something at eight o'clock in the morning? Anyway, I just got my coffee in me, and it was a I think it was a one o'clock appearance. But anyway, no power that morning. And so I don't know if it makes a big difference, but then I, driving over to Napanee, it's 20 clicks away or 30. There I run across the stop traffic because the because they're addressing the power lines right on my route. So, you know, I I wasn't I was getting frazzled, but I I was managed to settle before we did that. But anyway, fantastic things happen, you know, that get in your way. That thing at the beginning of the tour, national oh my lord, you know.

Dave 23:34

You talked about performing with kids, and you have done what, three kids' albums. Yes. Talk about how those materialized. They weren't all done in the same place, I gather.

Tom 23:43

No, I did one with a group in Toronto, one with a group in Elginburg, which is again about twenty clicks from here, a school, a public school, and then I did one with a c uh group from Ottawa. And in and what I did was rehearse with the kids maybe eight or ten times to do eight or ten songs. And of course they're really enthused and they learn fast. And so um each one was sort of the same. We'd get prepped with eight or ten rehearsals and go in the studio and lay it down and good spontaneity uh, you know, with the kids uh and they liked the material. My kids' material is super strong too, about recycling and uh the history of Kingston area and um and a lot of joking. Um what's the weirdest thing you've ever you've ever eaten? That's a good, good song. Uh some self-esteem songs, Be Who You Are. Very strong. I did one concert last summer for a Queen's um young group, I think 12 and under. I really enjoyed it. And it was a bit of a struggle to remember my there's a good song, The Breakfast Song, lists everything you can imagine eating for breakfast. And uh I didn't do that one because I couldn't remember I didn't learn it. I had not enough time to r re establish it in my memory. But there oh, there's a really good song. The old-fashioned troll living under a bridge. There's a very good song about a troll. So anyway, there's lots. I'm happy with that material, and in a curious way, I wish I could I'll likely do one again this summer, I imagine, at the same place. But I don't want to play that much either. So now I'm really focused on trying to do house concerts, small audience house concerts that I'm singing with my choir. I mean two choirs now, because I'm in Melodia as well, and I do love those appearances. But uh for the for the performing, I don't want to do too many. I wish I could do six a year or something of the house concert frame. Uh that's my that's what I'm targeting right now. And I don't want to expand.

Dave 25:51

You mentioned choirs, and for the uninitiated, thinking about a solo folk artist and working with a choir, that doesn't seem to match in my mind at first glance. But it's something that you obviously uh very much enjoy.

Tom 26:07

Well, it's wild. Um I don't go to concerts. It's it's curious, and it may be seen as being arrogant or something, but if I can play as well as the people performing, I'm less interested. And normally this is I I I I don't think it's a conceit. I really believe my material is strong, it's meaningful, it does reach people who are important to me. And um so I I had this choir, the Martello Alley Cats, and uh 12 12 singers and two instruments. Um the the director, I'd had them do some videos of my choir songs, the director, with most of the cohort that's there now. So I knew them through that, and the director said to me, um, Steph Lind, her name is Dr. Steph Lind, she's a Queen's Prof in music. So she said, Well, we're doing a concert at St. George's. I said, You know, I don't go to concerts. So anyway, I went and they blew me away because it was so positive, spirited, energetic. It was Java Jive, I love coffee, I love tea, that they did that that sold me on them. And so, two days later, I wrote a song that's on my new album. Uh uh, it's called Two Things, and it's a spoof. And I've written two other songs about the choir, one of which is the one I was mentioning for James Taylor. That I wrote for the choir. Um uh that's terra firma. And then there's another one that I that uh we're doing at a concert. I'm celebrating the release of my album in two weeks' time, and um we'll be singing this song called They Only Want to Sing. So I I did a tongue-in-cheek spoof song that's very good, I think. It's it's one of the best on the album. So um that's three songs that have come in one year and a bit uh out of this choir stimulating my creativity. It's fantastic. It's really unbelievable to me. I wouldn't have thought to keep writing at that pace. I don't know if I've ever written at that pace. Anyway.

Dave 28:15

I'm gonna sidetrack you here because something just popped into my mind that I was going to try and get someone's opinion on who was in the business. So when you go out and you do shows, you don't do a lot of shows, but I would imagine that from time to time you will play the same songs at different shows. Yeah. Depending upon the kind of show. My question is is that uh I went to a concert in Ottawa last week from one of these major rock bands that has been around for a long time, and they get up on stage and they are doing the same music because for the most part the people in the audience want to listen to the songs that they know. So from the perspective of a performer, when you're doing that, in their case, they've been playing for 40 years, playing the same song. They understand the dollars and cents of having to do those songs, but from there, can you sort of put yourself in their place and say, I'm tired of doing this song because I've done it for 40 years?

Tom 29:14

That's a funny thing because um I haven't performed enough to geeze some of the songs I've written recently, I don't even really know it when I'm performing it for the first few times. I'm having to practice the one I just described so that I'm sure to get all the words out. It's it's really um but I think uh you know, yeah, I've reflected on that, and I don't envy the people who go on the road and do show after show after show after show that's the same, and it may be fantastic, but I think well, there was a one of the guys in the band in uh the last waltz um comments on that. He says it's just a he it's a an impossible way of life. That's what he says. So I never really aspired to doing that. The tour was wonderful. I mean it was just you know, it was it was very stimulating. But uh well now I've got a list of a hundred songs that's my active repertoire for solo guitar singing, and um

Dave 30:17

And they're all yours?

Tom 30:18

No, okay. Maybe twenty of them are mine.

Dave 30:21

Yeah.

Tom 30:21

And then I but I do love, I mean, there's nothing better than Robert Burns um A Man's a Man. And if I do that one, it's an amazing song. And you have to say, listen, this isn't something against women that they're not named in the song. And it's about it's singing about equality and um and brilliantly. I mean, it is thick with metaphors and just so smart. Anyway, there are others of that's one of the peak songs, but I do a couple Leonard Cohen songs that are really potent, and James Taylor songs and Neil Young songs and Stan Rogers songs, all of those, you know. I have um songs that I think are among their best that are on my active repertoire, and I would never hesitate to bring them out, you know. And even some of the obscure songs, like I don't think lots of people would know Leonard Cohen's um song of Bernadette, but it's very powerful, very powerful and simple, but I love doing it, you know, and the same with that Robbie Byrne's traditional song, there's another Scottish one that's just so heart-wrenching. It's amazing, it's super simple, but it's a woman, it's a fellow saying goodbye to his wife, and it's it just there's it's minimal words to convey really rich meaning. Really, and that's a traditional song written 300 years ago, you know. I love doing that. And um then, you know, cherry picking from all the Joni Mitchell too, and uh I'd like to be able to do a Farron song, testimony I haven't got it down, but you know, you I'm I I'm scoping out all the time to try and find new things that I'd like to present. But I never even get through the hundred, you know. Right.

Dave 32:14

Exactly. So the difference between you and the band that I saw the other day was the fact that they are playing what and I can't remember the words that you use before we started recording to describe the kind of popular music that's out there. Fist and gist.

Tom 32:30

It's derivative. Oh, so yeah, pith and gist and gist is what I choose over froth and gloss. Okay.

Dave 32:38

So basically what you're offering is a wide selection of songs that people actually have to sit down and listen to the words.

Tom 32:46

Well, if they do, they get something out of it. So the music is always pretty good too. Yeah. And you know, people are listening with different moods of their day and whatever, you know. Uh that is a good thing about the small audience, live acoustic, because everybody is attuned. And you know it. No one's talking, no one's, you know, people stay focused. And that communication is the best thing about performing my own songs. But I love presenting songs that people haven't heard before, uh, and um yeah, opening their eyes kind of And not in a way, you know, there's so much on the on I'm on Facebook now because I'm old, but you know, even there you see over and over again, wow, you've never seen anything like this before. And it's well, I think whatever the name of that other short video thing of people doing things utterly stupid, you know. TikTok. No, I've never seen it before, but it is so trivial and meaningless, and it's a waste of time to look at it, you know. Um but um the kind of so the sitting in the room with the artist with that material, that's a that's a uh there's a wealth of that's a treasure. That's what I say. It's a treasure.

Dave 34:04

So we also talked about this before earlier on in the episode, and that's the uh the business of you being a farmer these days. Right. So how did that evolve? Was it a case of wanting to buy some property out in the country which led to being a farmer?

Tom 34:19

Well, I've um I've grown vegetables for myself my whole adult life. So I started at a co-op that I used to bicycle twenty minutes to get to in the city. And um so I've been interested in because I don't darn we don't look closely enough at how our food is produced, uh and I don't trust normal grocery store food uh for additives and pesticides. So I mean and I'm not a fanatic, but if you do grow your own, then you know where it comes from and it's safe. So that's was sort of the initial impetus. And when I so all through my my career I had a vegetable garden, but when I retired, I knew I wanted to do more. And uh so now I now have well, I have 2,000 square feet right now that I run with hand tools by myself, and uh it produces like crazy so a ton of untreated vegetables to the food bank each year for the last four years. And um and I eat, I eat what I say I call the dents and the scratches, but they're just as tasty as you know, I like taking perfect food in uh to the food bank. The the one place Martha's table is very appreciative, and they say I'm their best, you know. So that's really something that uh and and what could be healthier uh than to be you know, f I'm getting elderly and I'm very physically active and staying fit by doing that too. So exactly it's super rewarding. Super rewarding.

Dave 35:53

That's what we all have to do as we get older is find stuff to keep ourselves active.

Tom 35:58

Right. Yep.

Dave 35:59

I'm going to wrap up with uh a a bit of a conversation about the new album. Yeah. Because you've already mentioned it, you're obviously very proud of it, and it seems to be, like you said, a renaissance in your career. And uh this how did the the business of deciding to record this album come about? Like you were working with choirs and doing house concerts.

Tom 36:22

Right. So it's a discrete event, and it was um that ridiculous guy in the White House threatening Canada, you know? And so I I started a um a group in Facebook of all the musical responses to that. But I wrote one in English and one in French. Um Elbows Up is uh the English one, or no, Heads Up Canada, I call it, and Elbows Up is in the chorus, and then uh Attention Canada is the French one. Uh it's a bit harder hitting the French one. Most people I'm not sure if it'll get any exposure anywhere, because I'm in Ontario and I'm not I'm not frantically trying to get exposure everywhere. I'd love it if people could hear, but yeah, what can you do? Anyway, that that happened, and then I wrote two things because of the Martello Alley Cats, and I pulled a couple of other songs that I was working on, and uh I'm not sure how the others came up, but anyway, I realized I I wanted a good version of the uh um elbows up songs, so I went to the studio, and once I was in the studio, I realized I had enough to do an album, and it was kind of I I really enjoyed all the time in the studio. We had to redo things quite a lot. I mean, I'm older and don't have the agility, and my voice isn't what it used to be. It's not bad still. I'm singing well, but uh it's in old voice now. But uh anyway, when I realized I could do it, I just jumped in and and uh and we did it over a few months. A few months.

Dave 38:00

Now uh we are recording this episode in the first half of March of 2026, and the album will be officially released at the end of March, towards the end of March, the 22nd, correct?

Tom 38:13

Well, that's the celebration. So I released it last Friday, whatever I think that was the anyway, whatever. 6/3, it was the third sixth day of the third month, I believe. Okay. Yeah. The 6th of March. Uh it's it's now alive at the uh it's on Bandcamp. I decided to go Bandcamp instead of whatever the heck the other one was uh DistroKid. Because it just seems a fair whenever you sell something on Bandcamp, you get the money within 48 hours. Okay. And and the other one, I haven't had a payment yet, and it's been a year and a half. Although I don't I don't think they're cheating me really. It's just that no one knows who I am. And you know, it's it's I I did I think everybody in Kingston knew me from the market. You know, 80% of the people of Kingston would know my profile or whatever. But then I disappeared for 25 years. And so I don't really have a following of, you know, I'm not familiar to people now.

Dave 39:06

So But even when your name gets mentioned, I know in my experience, they'll know the name and they'll know where they know the name from. But they're going, okay, so what's he doing now?

Tom 39:15

Well, see, that's an interesting thing. I thought of this 10 minutes ago and wanted to say it. I noticed that the people uh this is this is n normal from a number of perspectives. My audiences now are kind of elderly audiences, so the younger people are into their own whatever era, whatever the music was of their era. They're in they're lit streaming that to their earbuds. Um and I'm playing now for people who were in the era that me was meaningful for me. You know, this the folk movement in the seven sixties, seventies is where I still am. So it makes sense that I have people of my own age and stage.

Dave 39:58

And going back to the concert that I went to in Ottawa, just to build upon your point, we're sitting there waiting for the songs to come on that we know, and the band is playing all sorts of material we just don't recognize. And a lot of the people in the audience were politely clapping at the end of the song, but when the song came on that they recognized, I mean they went crazy.

Tom 40:19

Right.

Dave 40:19

They know the song. And that's from their area, which is basically speaking, but in reverse, because you're playing what you're familiar with based upon an era that you started and continue. Right.

Tom 40:30

I've kept the form. I've kept the form. And uh I advocate for the form too, because I think the from a psychology point of view, singing together and listening to meaningful things together those are emotionally healthy. Um they are health promoting. And I suppose they could make a case for the mass audiences waving their arms and jumping up and down. That's an exhilarating thing, but I kind of feel that the closeness in a smaller audience is meaningful too. It is to me, when I know everyone is listening and then I know they like it, that's that that's again, I think I said it was a treasure and it is. Yeah.

Dave 41:16

When you do this celebration of the release of the album at the end of the month, I gather that you it's by invitation only, but there is an admission charge.

Tom 41:26

Well, the um I'm told. We're fundraising for Martha's table. That's so there's it's it's not there's nothing uh obligatory, but there will be a donation jar for Martha's table. So that's how I've done my last two I've promised Martha's Table four concerts. So this is the third in the series. And uh so there isn't, there's it's not obligatory at all. You can um and it isn't really by invitation. I'm gonna put it on Facebook, but I'm gonna say if you like my music, you're invited. So it isn't I'm not trying, you know, the point is not to get a big crowd. And I think I've I've invited about 30 people who have said they'll come, so that means 24, 25. I would like 30 to 40 in order to have a nice audience for the choir, but we could do it for 25. It's not a we've sung for smaller audiences than that. But uh that um I'm going to put a note I'm finding out first from my new choir, the 28-member choir, if some of those people are coming, because if a half a dozen of them come, we could take up to 60 in the hall. It's the little community hall in Moscow where we have a I'm I'm deeply involved in that too. I'm the coordinator of a breakfast a month there, and we serve a hundred on Saturday last we served 154 people breakfast at our little crossroads community hall. So anyhow, I don't think the pe I don't know about Facebook people. I think, you know, I have like 150 friends or something, Facebook friends. I th I n lots of them I think wouldn't be that keen on coming. So I want to get a people who will enjoy the three songs that I do and the seven songs that the choir does. Because that's it's mixed. It's not just me. Um it's the Martello Alleycats singing too.

Dave 43:13

So I heard though that in addition to donations to Martha's table at this particular event, there's also a request for people to bring something else, if they so choose.

Tom 43:25

I don't know what you're saying. That I d I don't know

Dave 43:28

I thought cookies was in there.

Tom 43:30

Oh, for heaven's sake. Well that isn't Oh my goodness. What in the world? How did you hear So one friend from the one friend from the breakfast is bringing cookies. But here's what I think you came across. Before I did my first house concert, I was well, I've done that was my second or third. Um when I established the link with Martha's table, I uh that that became the the the driver of of the of the show. The two I did before that, or maybe three, I was offering to do a concert for uh two packaged dinners and two pies. And that was the charge for and there was no money to change hands. It was just so one I did I I did two of those. I did two of those. So but I was this is I'm working from a position of I think I have a really good show. Nobody knows who I am. So I I was trying to make it tempting for people to bring me into their home. And it's still I'm still looking for hosts if I can find them. But it's now at the it's now and it I've talked to the people at the United Way too because I've got a uh I'm a strong supporter of United Way and they're they'd be keen for me to do some more house concerts in for their benefit too. Uh but no you caught me. That's how that was I was trying to drum up business by I you might have found something on Facebook about that because I did offer to do it for two box dinners and two pies. Yeah.

Dave 45:07

Well actually it was from an interview you did with this fellow from Texas. Oh and you said that the cookies were for you because you enjoyed eating the cookies now you were eating a cookie a day but you don't do that anymore.

Tom 45:21

Oh no I do. Oh and in fact so I just finished the one see at the second of my ones for Martha's table Martha's table brought the refreshments and that was the group of eighteen and they didn't eat everything. So I brought home quite a lot of cookies and quite a lot of um nanaimo bars. That I still have maybe eight nanaimo bars that I don't even eat one a day because I can't but uh that was that I you know I got they they came and brought all the stuff and then I brought it home. So I ha there will be a cake at this celebration a week from Sunday and I'm hoping everyone eats the cake but there are some cookies coming too and I I've been imagining this is so bizarre. I had my internal dialogue saying well I hope Marion will leave the ones that she brings that don't get eaten but she might take them home and that's okay.

Dave 46:11

Oh a good well good luck with the celebration of the album and I thank you very much for the time you've given me today and I really enjoyed the conversation

Tom 46:19

That's great Dave. I enjoyed it too thanks for having me.

Tom 46:29

Thanks to Tom Mawhinney for sharing stories from a lifetime in music from busking and touring across Canada to writing songs for choirs and building community through music. You can learn more about his recordings, choir music and upcoming house concerts online, including details about his newest LP, Living This Day, by heading over to his website tmawhinney.ca that's spelt t-m-a-w, h-i-n-n-e-y.ca. If you enjoyed this episode please consider following the Kingston Podcast, sharing it with a friend, or leaving a review wherever you listen. It really helps others discover the stories we're telling. Thanks for listening and I'll be back soon with another conversation.

Steve 47:18

The theme music for the podcast is Stasis Oasis written and performed by Kingston musician Tim Aylesworth. If you have any questions comments or suggestions about any of the episodes please send a note to the kingstonianpodcast@ gmail.com. For details on upcoming guests follow us on Facebook. The Kingstonian Podcast is hosted by Dave Cunningham and produced in Kingston Ontario Canada