The first snow had settled on Fort MacLeod, Alberta, on that cold November night in 1943. The silence of the evening was broken by the first cries of a newborn infant at Anderson Lodge. The baby, a girl, responded quickly to sights and sounds. By the age of three, she was composing jigs and ballads on the kitchen table. Later, she'd leave the dusty lodge to set foot in the Big City. There, busking at tables at a cafe in the Bohemian Sector, she'd sing of life's gritty underside. Lyrics like "acid, booze, and ass - needles, guns, and grass", held a special appeal for the cafe's unkind-of-blue crowd.
© BILL BLAIR 2009
your story brought back fond memories of young joni at the cafe....those were the days my friend....oh, sorry...that was mary hopkins...
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