30-plus years ago, I made a tape of Michael Smith playing 4 songs on the popular CBC Radio show “Swinging on a Star” (1989-1994). It was 1991, and I taped off the air from the Windsor station with an inexpensive Radio Shack cassette recorder. I digitized the audio recently. Michael performs Panther in Michigan, Sister Clarissa, Dead Egyptian Blues, and I Brought My Father with Me.
For this video, at https://youtu.be/a1w_ZiIhCKw I used iMovie to add photos and still images. The show was hosted by Canadian singer-songwriter Murray McLauchlan (11 Juno awards, 20 albums). During the interview portion, Michael talks with Murray about his early love for the Kingston Trio and Elvis, and how all of that music was either “very very dramatic or very very sentimental,” and when he started out as a coffee-house performer he felt he needed to write dramatic songs and funny songs. Michael is accompanied by the house band for Swinging on a Star: Danny Greenspoon on guitar, and Kit Johnson on bass.
