Here is the final part of my interview with ukulele blues maestro Hal Brolund. Even though I have known Hal for years I was struck by his clear eyed perceptions of the musical life and the honesty and eloquence with which he spoke.
If you missed the first two parts you can read them here: How to Be Hal part 1 and How to Be Hal part 2
In making this mini autobiography, sizeable chunks of Hal’s musings have had to have been removed. I’ll take another look but I suspect there could be rich material for another newsletter of his musical wisdom. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this final part of Hal’s story so far.
I was told I could be anything and do anything. More than that, I believed I could do anything. So as a young man I was in search of the anything. When a crazy idea like being a musician came along it never occurred to me that I couldn’t be it: even though I had failed high school band and wasn’t a naturally gifted musician. My brother and uncle were in bands and I was the least musical person in our family but, ultimately, I was the one who took it halfway around the world. It never occurred to me that I couldn’t.
That self-belief came from my parents and grandparents. My mom raised my brother and me in a single parent home with help from my grandparents. They taught me about determination and resilience and that not everything would be easy but, if you work for it, you can have it.
They said, “You can do anything.”
It makes it easier when you’re a white kid in North America. I was never told No. Privilege, for me, was the fact that anytime I wanted a job I had a job. I never had trouble finding work. People say it’s because I had skills. Well, I was able to have skills because no-one ever told me, “No.”
My family, despite disagreeing with me, supported me. My step-father and mom tried to steer me away from having a life as a musician but they never stopped supporting me and believing in me. When I had concerts, like at the Gas Station Theatre, Winnipeg (Hal Brolund and Ralph Shaw’s Clash of the Ukulele Titans Tour in 2000) they all bought tickets. My mum always bought everything I put out even though it’s not the type of music she likes. She wouldn’t let me give it to her – she bought it because she wanted to support me.
I just never knew I couldn’t do it and that if I worked at it I could figure it out. One of the greatest gifts I was given was the ability to learn to develop.
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They all thought I was crazy and they were probably right …but here I am. I turn 60 coming up and I’m looking back at everything.
I used to think that it all meant something. Now I look back and go, It was just a thing I did. If I’d been passionate about medicine, I’d have been a doctor. If I’d been passionate about law, I’d be a lawyer. Which is not to say that making music is not special but at the time I thought I was special because of my passion for music. Now I realise it was just the thing I did. It’s what I put all my energy into.
I used to say, when I was down on myself (which I try to avoid doing now), that I had a career designed for obscurity and I got exactly what I aimed for. The reality is that so few of us in the arts ever attain the heights of stardom that we see out there. But the truth is that few of the people who we call stars even own their stardom.
Like Jon Bon Jovi. He had been on the road 300+ days a year for about 5 years in a row. He came off the road and was so despondent he nearly drove his car off a cliff. After working his whole life for the kind of fame and reach that he had he realised that while he was seeing the whole world he was only seeing the dressing rooms, buses and airports of the world. I’m not trying to equate my career to his but when I finally reached my goals of being able to live off my music and travel the world the stress to keep working took a toll on my relationships. And there’s no dependability. After a while it’s like, “When do I give up?” and “How do I give up?”
If you want to take a rest, well you’ve no income so at some point you have to go back to work even if you’re not ready.
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The pandemic took my career from me: as it did so many of us. But when I started trying to rebuild it I found that I didn’t want the things that drove me to do it before. And so, here I am, working part-time making minimum wage in a gas station and I’m literally, without any word of hyperbole, making more regular money than I’ve ever had in my life.
I’m not complaining about what people paid me as a musician: I thought I was well paid as a musician. I managed an annual income in excess of $40,000. (Canadian dollars). But of that amount $15,000 was spent on travel. And so, what with that and other necessary expenses I never took home very much money. I had a lot of money but it mostly got used up. Now I take home a small amount of money every week but I don’t have a lot of outlay so bills get paid and things get bought and I can enjoy myself. I don’t mean to sound like it’s passed, for I do still play gigs, but I’m no longer chasing the full-time musician life. At all.
My preoccupation these days is building cigar-box ukuleles and guitars. I have no desire to make a fancy instrument. The interesting thing to me is taking junk and making it playable. That’s the distinction. It’s easy to make a cigar-box ukulele where the strings are a half-inch above the fingerboard and you play with a slide. A lot of guys do that. But mine have real good action and they are fully intonated. That’s what I like to do is to take a piece of junk and make real music with it.
Making instruments is not my business or a career but it’s the thing I like to do, when I get a chance. I sit in my shop and bunk away until I pull something together that is really interesting and amazing. I don’t like to repeat it – even the same style – I’ve been making licence plate guitars for a while but I’ve stopped doing them for the moment because I’m tired of making that same thing over and over again. I want to do something new.
I would modestly call them folk art. But I want each and every one to be an advancement of skill. For me it’s always about one step further. What can I do that I haven’t done before and how can I achieve it? I don’t have an extensive shop. It’s not like I have a million tools or a CNC carving machine (computer numerical control). No, I’ve got a screwdriver, a hacksaw, a chisel and not much else. Just the basics.
I play a regular gig on a ferry that runs from Yarmouth Nova Scotia to Bar Harbour, Maine in the summers and occasional festivals as I can pull them. I’m playing a blues festival in New Brunswick this summer and I’m working at the gas station and I’m building instruments. I live in my little town: a beautiful place called Shelburne, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Check out Manitoba Hal at https://manitobahal.com/