Race Track Hack:
"The big man's music was the real deal"
by Mike Beggs
HOME
NEWS
COMING UP &
past gig links
BOOK
When Cats Go Wrong
DISCOGRAPHY
TRIBUTE ALBUM
LYRICS & PROSE
BIO
PHOTOS
REVIEWS
PRESS KIT
LINKS
SITE MAP
BUY CDs &
CONTACT
Taxi News,
January 2008, p. 9,11
© Mike Beggs 2008
Norm Hacking was an independent music artist long before it was considered cool or a canny career move (thanks to web sites, online sales, illegal downloading, etc.).
“I’ve always written songs for people, not markets,” the bear-sized singer-songwriter once observed.
That resolute commitment relegated him to a 30-year career on the margins of the mainstream music industry – where, of course, some of the best music is made. This reviewer’s first encounter with Hacking came at the Rivoli in the early Eighties, where the offer was made to buy him a beer. “Wouldn’t mind,” he grinned. “I must have about 25 cents on me.”
His first record, Norm Hacking Live came out in 1977, right when the Punk revolution of the Sex Pistols and The Clash was turning the music business on its’ ear. In that headbanging atmosphere, eking out a living as an acoustic bard was about as alternative as you could get.
My own introduction to his music came with Hacking’s second offering, Cut Roses (1980), whose poetic title, early Dylanesque black-and-white graphics and train yard portrait of the artist led me – correctly – to presume this was an artist who had something to say. Here was your archetypical lovesick rounder wending his way through the bars, racetracks and “broken hotels”. Lines like “brought enough junk that we might stay a year” seemed even more romantic than the ballads.
Anyone who knew Norm could tell you there was little or no gap between the music and the man. He had a sweet tooth for life in all its’ forms and his sharp-eyed one-liners and big belly laugh will be missed as surely as his music.
Released in 1988, Stubborn Ghost was a fully realized folk/rock record addressing the bigger issues in life. It met with rave reviews from some critics, but made nary a ripple on the popular music pond.
It hardly mattered. Through much of the Eighties, Hacking had ceased touring to care for his son Ben as a single dad. And by the time he got back out there, the Ontario folk circuit had all but dried up completely. He ploughed on playing festivals and clubs and hosting innumerable acoustic open nights around Toronto.
1997’s Skysongs was basically a Best Of collection. From there his recording results were checkered.
But the big man finally got his due with the 2001 release of One Voice, A Tribute To Norm Hacking, featuring a Who’s Who of the Toronto folk community, and beyond.
While maybe not as productive as the true greats, in the final accounting Hacking was a first-rate songwriter and interpreter of his own music who shared more in common with American artists like John Prine and Steve Goodman than the Canadian icons of the genre. His best characters – the heartbroken painter “John Dale”, “Sammy”, the old man who “cleans out the kitchen” at the hotel, or, for that matter, the incorrigible Rodney L.T. Coombs and Fat Phil from his irreplaceable Racetrack Hack column in Taxinews – were almost Steinbeckian in colour and scope.
In a live setting – to the day he died – Hacking had that ability to capture hearts and minds (with ballads like “Love At The Free Times Café”, or “Christine”), or make you crack up with the humorous “Video Love”, or “Syd & The Flea” (which spawned an unanticipated sideline in cat albums and kids’ books).
In the so-called New Millennium, folk music was considered by many to be hopelessly out of fashion. But by then Hacking had weathered countless musical trends – punk, New Wave, alternative rock, New Country, rap, emo, etc. For those who appreciated honest, heartfelt music, Norm Hacking stood out as the genuine article in an often shallow and glitzy industry. Ray, the long-time organizer of Fat Albert’s Folk House once observed, “The people of Toronto don’t know what they have with Norm.”
Maybe not, but there were plenty of us who did.
Webmaster's Notes: This guest column by music reviewer and long-time fan Mike Beggs was written for the TaxiNews January 2008 issue after Norm passed away at his Toronto home on November 25, 2007. It is posted here by permission of the author and TaxiNews.
Additional tribute articles from TaxiNews are on this site:
Heino Molls: "Remembering Race Track Hack" (Dec 2007)
Shirley Gibson: "Norm will be one Stubborn Ghost" (Jan 2008)
Peter McSherry: "Norm Hacking was one of a kind" (Jan 2008)See the list of Norm's on-line lyrics, poetry and prose, including a selection of the Taxi News columns he wrote monthly starting in February 1992. Lyrics on this web site include "Love at the Free Times Cafe" (with mp3 excerpt) and "Syd and The Flea", which are mentioned above.
Taxi News website is www.taxinews.com. Taxi News is a monthly publication with news and commentary on Toronto's taxi industry and is available by subscription or free at distribution points.