GREG REESE
Arts Editor
It’s laid-back and groovy like the great country music of the past.
One Hundred Dollars is undoubtedly one of Toronto’s best folk-country acts. Presently, they are making their way across this country, touring through to Western Canada for the first time.
One Hundred Dollars first began as a side-project for Ian Russel, jamming with his good friend Simone Schmidt. At that time, Russel was playing bass for Jon Rae and the River. But One Hundred Dollars’s story doesn’t begin as sweetly as it ends up being.
When the River broke up and Jon Rae split for the West Coast, Russel was diagnosed with leukemia, leaving Russel and Schmidt to focus their efforts on writing and jamming, crafting many of the songs for their first record.
“It was just Ian and me sitting around while he went and did chemo and suffered for a long while. We wrote an album during that time and started playing as much as we could to try to make some joy in life,” said Schmidt.
Later, playing a show with the legendary Rick White (of Elevator and Eric’s Trip), opportunity knocked: White said he wanted to work with the band.
“Rick White offered to record an album with us, so we decided to ask Ian’s former band mates (from the River) to become his band again. We cut a record in 13 hours, after practicing together 12 times. The guys already had musical relationships, so they had good musical intuition for the tunes. It was awesome,” said Schmidt.
The result is an authentic sound, harkening back to times when country music had a bittersweet edge. Swinging pedal-steel guitar meets crunching acoustic, backed by brushes smacking the drums. The ghosts of hippie-country stars meet in their tunes — Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Loretta Lynn and Jerry Jeff Walker are there in the hard-times lyrics, the vocal presence and the song structures.
“(Country music) gave me the comfort to know someone felt the way I was feeling and could make it into something beautiful to share with other people. Eventually I moved on from Hank Williams and discovered so much music with a wider range of topics and feelings,” said Russel on his love for the country sound.
Schimdt’s passion for country came upon her more suddenly, while listening to tunes and chilling out in a shack in Hubbards, Nova Scotia.
“The Essential George Jones came on, the tune was ”˜One Drink,’ and his voice floored me. After that I went and bought all his albums. He is so old and lived through so many different times in country. I learned to love pretty much all eras and production styles in the genre,” said Schmidt.
Though the band has never been to the West, they are excited to hit the long road.
“We did a tour with the Deep Dark Woods out east, which is kind of like playing Saskatoon every night. I’ve actually never been to Saskatoon but I ran into this opera singer at a hotdog stand and he said it’s the nicest city in the world. I hope so,” said Schmidt.
Since the band is a mainstay of the Toronto scene, Schmidt gave the low down on what other acts people should check out from their city.
“My favourite musicians are Castlemusic, Emma McKenna, Michelle McAdorey from Crash Vegas and the Foggy Hogtown Boys; they’re an amazing blue grass unit from here that I’ve been watching since I was 15 — John Showman is a phenomenal fiddler who I never get sick of watching.”
You can see One Hundred Dollars play Lydia’s on Oct. 30.
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photo Daniel Arnold