Hard to believe it’s been 20 year since Rick Fielding died. Rick was a friend, though anyone who came within shouting distance could easily become a friend as he was just that kind of guy. In the early ’90s, I was getting involved in folk festival organizing and Rick was an invaluable resource about who was who and who might be helpful and who it might be best to avoid – that sort of thing.
As my day job was in politics, that was another point of contact. Rick was a life-long student of left-wing politics and an activist and would help out in any way he could, including performing at various fund-raisers for my boss in the ’90s City Councillor Jack Layton and someday-to-be Mayor Olivia Chow. Rick also lent a hand on re-election campaigns for my wife, Member of Provincial Parliament Marilyn Churley.
He was a great story teller so the bits of information about him that appeared in his obituary are well known. He grew up in Montreal, came to Toronto after high school and for over thirty years toured extensively in Canada, Great Britain, and the United Stated, and recorded albums for Borealis and Folk Legacy. His knowledge of the history of roots music was vast, and for those of us just getting involved in the scene, fascinating. His story about entering a house party in Toronto only to see Gordon Lightfoot in the corner with a guitar strapped around his neck is one I have always remembered.
In the early ’90s, Rick picked up another skill, leather working. I’m not sure the guitar strap he made for me was the first he ever made, but it would have been nearly so. I still have it. The picture second from the left says, as you can see, “Designed and Carved for Richard Barry by Rick Fielding – 1992.”
The song I am posting was recorded by Rick in 1995 on the Folk Legacy Records label. It was written by world-renowned luthier Grit Laskin who is both a friend and neighbour – an appropriate touch as the title is “The Margins of My Neighbourhood.”