Pass the hat

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This article was published 25/11/2023 (702 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Everyone’s had hard times, but it took a songwriter to put the feeling into words.

Hard Times Come Again No More was written in the 1850s by Stephen Foster, but despite his long-ago pleas, they keep coming back, even for musicians in the 21st century.

Streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music have replaced sales of compact discs, records and cassettes, which for a century were the currency of singers and songwriters.

They haven’t replaced the revenue those musical keepsakes provided for performers, whether they were sold by the dozens at a concert or by the millions in record stores.

Inflation has eaten away at touring income, too, with rising fuel prices being a constant culprit and higher ticket prices becoming a barrier for some fans, who are also feeling hard times.

Another potential revenue source, merchandise sales, has become a new battleground between artists and venue owners, a growing number of whom are demanding a piece of the action.

Meanwhile, people have taken to social media to lambaste those who have implemented new merchandise costs to musicians and to celebrate venues that haven’t.

So it’s no surprise that artists are turning to crowdfunding websites, the high-tech way of passing the hat, to raise funds for new records, spreading the financial risk among their most ardent fans.

Among them is Romi Mayes, a six-time Western Canadian Music Awards winner who has earned nominations for Juno Awards and Canadian Folk Music Awards in a career that began with her 1997 solo record, Off the Wagon.

She’s planning to record a new album in March, her first since 2015’s Devil on Both Shoulders, and is seeking donations for the effort.

She states it bluntly on her GoFundMe page: “Let’s be honest: Music is free now. One hundred per cent free.”

“Fundraising may be the most humbling approach to seeing your album come to fruition that there is,” Mayes writes in an email interview. “What it came down to, though, was, without the finances, I wouldn’t have a plan and a deadline. Without the deadline, I would never finish the album.”

She has raised more than $6,600 after a couple of weeks for the yet-to-be-named 12-track record, with a goal set at $26,500.

She aims to include many of the same people on this project who worked with her in 2015, including Edmonton engineer Scott Franchuk, although she will be the one who calls the shots.

“I knew it was time to produce the album myself … instead of hiring extensions of my musical family,” writes Mayes, who takes the stage Wednesday at the Times Change(d), a gig with the Winnipeg group Annabella Proper.

“I wanted to make an album that represented me and the people I love playing music with.”

She raised funds using the online site Indiegogo for Devil on Both Shoulders, and while she disliked the process and the feelings of indebtedness it brought, she accepted the gratitude from fans who cared about her and her music.

Never again became never say never again.

“I had no intention of ever asking more from the family, friends and fans than they had already given me,” Mayes writes.

“The support, encouragement, the attendance and, to be honest, just giving a s— at all, is more than anyone can ask for in anything they do.”

Mayes joins many other artists who have gone online to seek funds for their work.

Perhaps the most notable recently has been a $2-million GoFundMe campaign for the musicians of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, who lost their jobs in September when the symphony went bankrupt, ending the 2023-24 season before it began.

Billy Joe Green, a veteran of Canada’s blues circuit, is taking a more conventional route to raise money for his first album since 2019’s The Featherman Family.

He’s plugging his guitar into his amp at gig after gig, whether in bars in Winnipeg or on tour, and using the proceeds for the new record, not to mention using the live recordings from his shows.

“All the tracks are in place; we just have to edit them down, sweeten them up a bit,” the Anishinaabe artist said in September.

He has a collection of new songs such as Endangered Man, which he released in the summer, along with his versions of the Rolling Stones’ Far Away Eyes and a live rendition of All Along the Watchtower, a fan favourite he once played at the Windsor Hotel for former NDP leader Jack Layton.

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @AlanDSmall