As music fans know, the pandemic has created huge problems for almost all musicians. Toronto's Jerry Leger is one of the many, and the timing couldn't have been worse. Leger's album from last fall, Time Out For Tomorrow, won him great reviews, including significant press in Europe, and he was just about to start a tour there when the crisis hit. That's scuttled that, plus a further Canadian tour at a time he should have been capitalizing on the buzz.
As his income streams started to dry up, Leger responded quickly. He announced a different kind of tour, called The Show Must Go Online! He's doing a series of daily live gigs through to April 1, with a shout-out to different European communities where he was due to perform. And he even managed to get together an entire new album, making a surprise release last Friday, Songs From The Apartment, available digitally through his site and on Bandcamp.
The album features 10 songs recorded at home, acoustic performances on guitar or keyboard. They had been lying around, largely forgotten after being demoed, Leger says. Wow, I says. There are brilliant gems throughout, and none of them feel tossed off or unfinished. "You were left off her train of thought, when you only had one last stop," he sings on the opener, a break-up the protagonist didn't see coming. Every song is jammed with lines and rhymes you've never heard before, like "You can't stop a bridge that needs to be burned," where he's "chewing up what's left of this daydream," and exhorts a love to "sing like Satan." The closer, "Back To Marianna's Side," is the Tex-Mex ballad Townes Van Zandt never got to write.
Just a few days in to our forced staycation, musicians like Leger have stepped up and helped keep us sane, through concerts and music presented in different ways. Please don't forget to support them.
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