Ron: Jennifer Batten. Another hired gun. All this brought me back to being with Frank Quinn and meeting Fred Torak. I was practising 8 hours a day at this point. I would practise with John McLaughlin's "Birds of Fire," and it's at this point that I brought it to Fred, who transcribed it for me, while it was playing. Wow. I too, have had the honor to be backed up by the lovely Rick Whitelaw(L.O.L.) and the beautiful Noah Zacharin(L.O.L). Played Mariposa with David Wilcox(Cdn.) as backup. And also got backed up by Jimi James here in Montreal. One of the few guys I've met who was able to put the right chords behind a song I'd written. Did a little Blues with George Benson on stage at the Musician's Union. Another Blessing. As you know what you leave out is just as important as what you play. And when you're with guys that know what their doing, it is Soooo much easier to "do a show", especially in a "Folk" context with monologues and stories to perform. I'm a fan of all the guys you mentioned. Another "picker" not to forget is Scotty Anderson and I wouldn't have minded a bit if Roy Clark(Bless) showed up too. There's a lot of great people out there...
And now, for those who haven't seen this, a little bit of Jennifer...
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=LZBuzbe9xCo
bob