Settling down in Kingston, Ont., was not part of Greg Tilson’s long-term plan.
About 20 years ago, he found himself in between teaching jobs and decided to try out tree-planting. One of his fellow planters — many of whom were artists and musicians — told him he had to check out Blue Skies Music Festival, an event north of Kingston.
“Sometimes, we have these moments of intuition,” Tilson said, reminiscing.
It didn’t take long for Tilson to hop on his bike and speed towards the festival. He ended up spending longer than expected in Kingston, working at the downtown Sleepless Goat Cooperative cafe that has since closed its doors.
“They literally took me aside to a table and interviewed me on the spot, asked me ridiculous questions: What kind of music I listened to, if I was an animal, what would I be… It was ridiculous,” he recalled.
“They went into the kitchen, came back out, and said, ‘you’re hired.’”
At the time, the Sleepless Goat was completely run by the workers, serving as a hub for local artists and musicians. After landing the job at the Sleepless Goat, Tilson packed up his belongings and relocated to Kingston.
“It was incredibly spontaneous. I just had a really intuitive feeling that Kingston was the place for me,” Tilson said. “I’ll live here for the rest of my life, probably in this house.”
Tilson’s sense of belonging in Kingston has only blossomed from there.
Now, he’s the lead singer and acoustic guitar player for the folk music group the Gertrudes, a “folkestra” and musical “collective.” They released their newest album, City Noise, in early March.
Tilson said the Gertrudes have some eight members, including his wife Annie Clifford. People come and go, and they can at times reach almost 20 people, he added.
The Gertrudes’ newest member is Evalyn Parry, an award-winning Canadian performance-maker, on vocals. Parry recalled the first time she saw the Gertrudes perform as “a really fun sample of their kind of eclectic membership.”
Almost all of the members, live within a four block radius of Kingston’s Skeleton Park, contributing to The Gertrudes’ music that grew out of the community, Tilson said.
Recalling the exact founding of the group is “a little hazy,” he added.
The project began at The Grad Club, a Queen’s University campus community venue that hosted open mic nights about 15 years ago, according to Tilson. He added that after the band shared potluck meals, they would head over to the Grad Club to play the songs they had been learning.
“The band kind of grew out of that.”
“Something happened when I came here,” he said. “I was just embraced by the music community.”
Clifford was also among the founding members of the Gertrudes. Tilson said he first met Clifford in Kingston, even though they had both gone to school in Halifax. Tilson’s friend, the only person he knew prior to moving to the city, introduced them.
“She was busking in Market Square, I can remember clearly. She was playing the banjo with this 90-year-old man who was playing harmonica,” Tilson said, smiling.
Clifford said she remembers an interaction with Greg at a different point in the same day.
“He had gorgeous eyes and a beautiful smile, and I lost my heart immediately,” she said.
Clifford added that she initially found Tilson “quite loud.”
“I was sitting on the bench in front of The Sleepless Goat playing banjo,” she recalled. “He sort of walked past me and made this loud yell and did this weird sort of dance kick in the air.”
Tilson said he started seeing Clifford soon after, and they’ve been together for almost his entire time in Kingston.
“She’s a bit of a poet, in my opinion. Often what happens is I kind of find scraps of paper of her lyrics around the house, and I seem to have a knack for applying it to music. Our strengths kind of help each other out that way,” Tilson said. “Then we’ll bring songs in their infancy to our weekly practices.”
Tilson often thinks of the Gertrudes as his social group.
They don’t tour as much anymore, though they recently played a show in collaboration with Kingston’s Cantabile Choirs. Many members are parents now, including Tilson and Clifford. Their families are all friends, and as some of the kids grow up, they’ve started playing with the band, too.
Tilson said the Gertrudes’ music has been inspired by their close-knit community in Kingston. Their 2021 album, Emergency to Emergency, tells stories of issues the community found itself facing during the pandemic.
“For example, there’s a song called ‘Forced Eviction’ about this encampment in the neighbourhood that was really a focal point to discussion at the city council level and throughout the city about waking up to the housing crisis,” he said.
He said another song on the album, called “Boys’ Town,” is about the immediate area around his and Clifford’s home. All the street names are boys’ names, like Charles Street, James Street and John Street.
“It’s just kind of [about] how dramatically this neighbourhood has [been] gentrified and that we wouldn’t be able to afford to live here if we had to buy a house now,” he said.
While Emergency to Emergency focused on issues within the community, their latest release City Noise tells everyday stories about their friends, families and neighbours, Tilson said.
Tilson and Clifford said “Elf Ears” on City Noise is about watching their kid, George, grow up and become their own person.
“We don’t have to go anywhere to experience life. Every kind of motivation of the human heart is happening within a two block radius of where I’m sitting now,” Clifford said of the album.
Tilson said the community-engaged nature of their group will press on, including at the Skeleton Park Arts Festival held every June.
He added they are in the beginning stages of a new project, in which the Gertrudes would serve as a backing band for guest lead singers with an interest in music.
“Sharing music in our neighbourhood with our family and friends is really important to us,” he said.
Tilson said art and music is the best way to become involved in community-building, activism, protest and other things happening in the city. He said for him The Gertrudes is a medium for that.
The community where the St. Lawrence River meets the Great Lakes is the backbone of City Noise, Clifford said. The album tackles people’s “fascinating” inner lives, their experiences and their coming to terms with their own personal history.
“It’s all here,” Clifford said. “It’s all happening.”
Featured image by Daniel Solorio.
