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Murray McLauchlan returns to his true love

What: Murray McLauchlan When: Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Where: McPherson Playhouse Tickets: $47.50 at the Royal McPherson box office, by phone at 250-386-6121 or online at rmts.bc.
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Murray McLauchlan wants the government to show more recognition to Canada's singer-songwriters.

What: Murray McLauchlan
When: Sunday, 7:30 p.m.
Where: McPherson Playhouse
Tickets: $47.50 at the Royal McPherson box office, by phone at 250-386-6121 or online at rmts.bc.ca
Note: McLauchlan also performs tonight in Courtenay at the Sid Williams Theatre, Friday in Duncan at Cowichan Performing Arts Centre and Saturday in Nanaimo at The Port Theatre

 

Murray McLauchlan is a man of many pursuits. But nothing brings the Toronto resident the same sense of satisfaction as writing a good song.

“I have a science brain and a music brain and a painting brain. I have a really, really wide variety of interests,” McLauchlan said from Cowichan this week, where he was preparing for a tour that began last night in Campbell River.

“But music is the one thing I keep coming back to. I don’t think I get a better feeling than when I write a song and I think I got it right.”

McLauchlan, 67, has nailed more than a few songs (Whispering Rain, Down By the Henry Moore, Farmer’s Song, On the Boulevard) during the course of his decorated 50-year career. He became known in Canada during the folk boom of the late 1960s and early ’70s, when Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young put Canada on the map.

McLauchlan never reached the star status of the aforementioned artists, but that was partly by his own design. He certainly had his share of golden opportunities — living in Greenwich Village in 1969 under the tutelage of Bob Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman, being one of many — but never seemed to capitalize on them.

That wasn’t by accident, either. “I don’t think I ever really made a conscious decision,” he said. “But on some really subliminal level, it just worked out that way. Every time I had something that was working great, my instinct was to then do something entirely different — which is never a recipe for continued success.”

McLauchlan has no regrets about missing the mark south of the border. Not only did some of his heroes, from Kris Kristofferson to Tom Rush and Waylon Jennings, cover his material, he was successful at a time when money could be made as a songwriter in Canada.

“I got lucky enough to keep me going. And I got successful enough to afford me a really good career. But I never got successful enough that I wound up dead. If you’re 24 or 25 years old, and things happen fast, it’s very dangerous. You’re not ready for it.”

McLauchlan feels that Canada has produced a tremendous number of singer-songwriters over the years, “really good ones,” in fact. The government as a whole, however, often fails to recognize such accomplishments, McLauchlan argues.

He served as a board member at SOCAN, the Canadian performing rights society, for 17 years, so he’s acutely aware of how much money arts and culture represents to the national economy (the answer: $80 million, according to McLauchlan). “And not one word has been said about the arts in this election campaign.”

On one hand, Canada has been good to him, as evidenced by his 11 Juno Awards wins from 24 career nominations. But he still has doubts about making his living through art in this country, with little in the way of infrastructure uniting the arts communities from province to province.

His frustration resulted in a temporary hiatus a few years ago, but only where his solo career was concerned. He still plays occasional dates with Lunch At Allen’s, his super-group with Marc Jordan, Cindy Church and Ian Thomas. And McLauchlan still describes his life to date as “quite lively,” even though he hasn’t toured Canada — or anywhere else, for that matter — under his own name in five years.

McLauchlan never stopped playing during the break, and spent the past three years learning a new guitar method. For his first tour of B.C. in years, his booking agent and promoter made sure everything was in its place. He wanted to go out and play again only if it felt right.

So far so good, McLauchlan joked.

“The routing is rational, the theatres are nice, the pianos are in tune, the postering is done, everybody is nice and all I have to do is walk up and play the show. I love it.”

mdevlin@timescolonist.com