Just Us Folk

There are songs we all know that came from dreams. ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Let It Be’ by the Beatles are just two that come to mind right away.

But dreams can also be the source of album covers.

Just ask Rama First Nation singer-songwriter Ronnie Douglas about the cover of his album Music is Medicine.

“In my dream, some folks led me down a path to the water,” he explained.

“I distinctly remember saying, ‘Where are we going?’ The folks said, ‘We’re taking you back to where music is created because you need to re-connect to that.’”

In his dream, Ronnie saw black luminescent rocks in the water. It was here he was told where music originates. It was at that moment Ronnie woke up from the dream.

“It was pretty profound,” he recalled at this year’s Mariposa Folk Festival.

This nocturnal journey of Ronnie’s happened during the COVID-19 pandemic and right after some of the members of the Ronnie Douglas Blues Band had quit. Left to his own devices, Ronnie reacquainted himself with his acoustic guitar.

“I would play music at home with my wife, Leanne, and some childhood friends,” he said. “That led me to exploring open guitar tunings, especially Open G tuning and that unlocked a door to my childhood.”

Music was always around Ronnie as he grew up. His father and two older brothers played guitar, and Ronnie was always singing. Listening to the radio in the late ’60s and early ’70s was a great source of music from a wide variety of styles, which he loved.

“I didn’t realize it, but all of that music got stored in the back of my consciousness,” he said. “Then when the pandemic hit, I started to play songs in Open G, but not down the path to Keith Richards or traditional blues stylings. What playing in Open G did for me was learning to play the acoustic guitar again.”

Soon melodies started coming to Ronnie, and then pretty soon he had a bunch of songs on his hands. For someone who had lost touch with the essence of music at that point, this re-connection was a pure joy.

With enough songs for an album, Ronnie returned to the images from his dream to create the album cover, in collaboration with local Indigenous artist Chief Lady Bird.

“In my culture, my clan is the loon and my spirit name in Ojibwe is Waasnoodenwe, which means ‘Sounding the Language of the Northern Lights,’” he said.

So, on the cover of Music Is Medicine you’ll find a loon, glowing rocks in the water, the Northern Lights, a forest and the moon.

“In all my years, this is probably the closest I’ve ever been to being comfortable in writing and playing music,” he said. “I don’t have a blues hat on, trying to be a blues man. I’m just being myself. It’s totally satisfying and gratifying on so many levels.”

Finding his true self in his music came at the same time as his retirement, with encouragement from his wife to start writing songs.

“I’m kind of a late entry into the game but nonetheless I’m here,” he said.

Since Music Is Medicine was released in 2023, the music has kept coming. ‘Let It Roll’, featuring Lance Anderson and Steven Henry, came out in September of this year while ‘Hard to Find’ was released in February.

“If I set time aside to be quiet, the songs will come out,” he said. “What I learned in writing the songs for Music is Medicine was that it’s okay if the songs don’t come this afternoon. Sometimes you need to step away for a little bit.”

An important lesson Ronnie’s learned is one that can be used by anyone trying to write a song.

“Songwriting really needs to be from an ego-less point of view,” he said. “I can’t write a song thinking it’ll be good for this purpose or that purpose. It doesn’t work that way.”

For more on Ronnie Douglas, you can find him on Facebook.