Just Us Folk

Singer-songwriter Garnet Rogers has spent a lifetime as a touring musician. Starting right out of high school, he worked as his brother Stan’s sideman on the road and in the recording studio for 10 years. The last four decades have seen him release a dozen albums of his own and criss-cross North America to play everywhere from small town folk clubs to the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.

The last decade has been a time of changing priorities. He’s cut back on the amount of touring he does, his last studio album was 2014’s Summer’s End, and his writing has been more literary than musical.

2016 saw the release of his memoir, Night Drive: Travels With My Brother, chronicling his life on the road with Stan.

Then came the publication of his first novel, Six Crows Gold  in 2021. It followed the exploits of Callum Sinclair, a former RCMP officer now a rare antiques dealer, who investigates the bombing of a Planned Parenthood building in Maryland.

“I sent Six Crows Gold off to the printer and the next day I was missing the characters and wondering what they were doing now,” he said.

In trying to figure that out, Garnet found his lead character in a Cheyenne, Wyoming trucker’s cafe befriending a runaway prostitute who ends up being brutally murdered. Such is the beginning of his latest novel, As The Crow Flies, where Callum and his friend, Danny Fiedler, a former US Army Ranger, travel to Duluth, MN to investigate human trafficking on the Great Lakes and who killed the prostitute.

“There are any number of books you can read about human trafficking on the Great Lakes,” Garnet said. “It’s a very grim scenario. It’s not fun reading them; it’s not really something you want to explore when you know you can’t do anything about it.”

Garnet’s response was to have Callum, Danny and their internet-savvy colleague, Izzy, do what they can to fight against the perpetrators.

As the storyline progresses, they first meet a transgender lawyer who rescues Callum from a Wyoming jail, at the behest of Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

“I don’t have a lot of regard for Liz Cheney,” Garnet said. “She’s not someone I terribly admire. But I had fun with the idea of people acting against their instincts to do the right thing.”

Once in Duluth, Callum comes in contact with a couple of female police officers who assist him in trying to apprehend the human traffickers.

At the moment, the plan is for these two characters to return in a future book, as will Callum’s girlfriend who parts ways with him during As The Crow Flies.

“Callum is clearly unlucky in love,” Garnet said. “He’s got about a dozen former girlfriends. In 6 Crows Gold he wound up with this woman who I thought was a good character too, but sad to say she made an exit in the new book. But I think she’s going to return in the third book and drive the plot line. I just haven’t figured out how.”

So given there are plans for the further adventures of Callum Sinclair, are there any battles going on between the songwriting Garnet Rogers and the novel writing Garnet Rogers?

“Not any more!” he said.

“I still love songwriting, and I love poetry, but the songs are few and far between now. In any case, they don’t really have an outlet anymore. I don’t see myself recording again.”

Garnet’s plans for touring for the next year to eighteen months are to only play two to three gigs a month south of the border while continuing his Canadian appearances. Given the current political climate in the U.S., with foreign artists having to cancel their tours because their visas have been revoked, Garnet is uncertain about what reception he’ll get when he tries to cross into the States, in spite of having a top of the line visa for 30 years.

“If I get sent back, I’ll be in the backyard gardening and working on the next book,” he said.

Hopefully all goes well and Garnet is able to perform at some of his favourite venues.

“I want to go back to these places I’ve been playing at since 1976,” he said. “These are the clubs I’ve grown up with, that I learned how to play as a solo performer after Stan was killed, but places that Stan and I played for years before that.”

Many of these venues are still run by the same people with the same volunteers all these years later. They’re become Garnet’s “family” on the road.

“I want to hug them,” Garnet said, “to shake their hands and tell them I love them.”

A health scare earlier this year took Garnet of the road completely but thankfully he’s fully recovered.

“I’m feeling good physically,” he said. “I have lots of energy. I still have a little trouble with short term memory, so I have to write stuff down more. But I can remember all the old grudges and all the bad jokes, so that hasn’t gone away.”

For more on Garnet Rogers and As The Crow Flies, go to https://garnetrogers.com.