I am a family doctor by profession. In 2006 I was diagnosed with lymphoma and while having a good prognosis, I had to be off work for about 8 months while I was treated with chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

For the past forty years I have played the guitar for the simple pleasure of it and to relax and drift away at the end of the day. After hearing Blues interpreters like David Bromberg, Ry Cooder and J.J. Cale (all of them represented on my latest release) I became interested in the music of the early acoustic bluesmen. Ironically, the finger style I learned from a year of classical lessons was ideally adapted to thus music. Playing this music became a passion after a while.

During my illness, many people offered their prayers and assistance in a wide variety of ways. As it would happen, Scott Dibble, a musician I have known for about 25 years had just finished building a recording studio. For a while, I had wanted to record a collection of some songs I had written and a few of my favourite blues songs. After I told Scott what was going on, he thought it would be good therapy for me to come down for some recording sessions.

Since I had always used music to relax and regroup, I had planned to work on my music as a theraputic occupation to fill my time and forget about the cancer. There weren’t too many days that I was too sick to play. These unforeseen events in my life allowed me the time to polish up some tunes and record this CD. I guess it was ironic that a doctor would use music as a medicine. When you think about it, that’s what these blues songs were written for. An expression of longing and a view from people struggling with life. No matter how far you go back in time, human feelings always go back to the same themes.

After a few informal sessions, Scott and I decided to try to capture the emotion of this real life situation as it percolated through these traditional songs in the style of the old blues players. – just a single guitar and a voice, done live. We just started recording different songs that I felt like playing. The idea was to end the sessions when my treatment finished, sift through the takes and see what we had. There are no overdub on the album and some of the tracks were recorded direct to disc.

When you arrive at the crossroads, get down on your knee and make your deal, you realize that whether it’s the Lord or modern science that saves you, you need people to make you feel better. Obviously your Baby can make you feel a “Whole Lot Better”. The Blues links with the feelings of the great equalizers in life, of loss, lust, love and just keeping on living, sustained by dreams of things getting better. Sometimes late at night when you’re deep into these old songs, playin’ the slide, you feel like the whole world is there with you.

In many ways, out lives are shaped at the crossroads and borderlines along the roads we travel. In that spirit we made this healing blues, with the support and love of my family Loreen, Kate and Leni.