Growing up in the 60s was a politically charged time, painted in stark black and white. There were vicious fights over sunday dinner on the morality of the Vietnam War, pitting generation against generation. There was dissent within the family, with siblings or cousins in different camps. And there was a terrible cloud of hanging over some of us, as we waited to see whose draft lottery number would be called next.
It was a shock, the realization that some of us would die without having had a chance to live. It spawned a cottage industry of doctors who would write the necessary diagnosis to get you reclassified. There was also a new kind of underground railroad, with people crossing the border to Canada. My mother always said if my brother Mitch was called up, that was what we’d do. Fortunately, we never were faced with that decision.
Frazey Ford comes from a family that had to make that choice. Her father escaped to the communes of Canada as a draft dodger. She says this created an atmosphere of the wild west, "crazy and adventurous," and it colored her being and informed her art.
After ten years with Vancouver’s Be Good Tanyas, Frazey Ford emerged with a solo CD called Obadiah, which is actually her middle name. She came before the Music Fog cameras in conjunction with the Americana Fest in September during our shoot in the Sheraton Sweet Suite. You can check out her live show dates here, but today we bring you an opportunity to check out an as yet unreleased song, “September Field.”
-- Jessie Scott