Artist: Grier Coppins, Album: Songs Of Bernie Martin, A Certain Man..., Song: One Last Dance

Here is an interesting tribute to a local Peterborough, Ontario artist named, Bernie Martin.  Bernie passed away in 1995 and his good friend and fellow artist, Brian Sanderson, uncovered over 150 songs in his backyard studio.  He immediately began work on releasing the songs in the form of a tribute album.  He passed around the original recordings to almost 50 artists in the community for their interpretation and the album, A Certain Man..., was released in 1997.  Bernie wore many hats and seemed to be gaining recognition for his work later in life.  He was an actor, painter, playwright, musician, poet and craftsman.  He played live but didn't really promote his work and many of his songs were only known to family and friends.  The song, One Last Dance, really struck a chord with me from this release and it features Grier Coppins on vocals and bagpipes from the band, Taxi Chain (see blog 12/25/10) and Rare Air.  The late Oliver Schroer (see blog 4/8/11) also contributed to this release.  There is a Peterborough based website featuring this recording and many others that were handled by the community group, Backlash Recordings, and it appears to be available for download (http://radiofreepeterborough.ca/content/bernie-martin-collection).  You can hear the song, One Last Dance, on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yllBjnJ5ABc).  Brian Sanderson continues to pay tribute to his friend Bernie as part of the band, God Knows What (http://www.myspace.com/godknowswhat).  Thanks for reading and enjoy!