WYCKHAM PORTEOUS

A Bio

"The Intuit understand snow, the Africans understand heat,
I understand rain."

From "A Night In Tunisia" - W. Porteous

Born in Victoria, British Columbia, and rarely straying from the West Coast of Canada ("The sole pinprick of temperate weather in all of Canada"), Wyckham realized very early in life that his path would be that of a writer and in particular a singer/songwriter.

Now he has a new album on Bohemia Beat Records, produced by Jimmy Lafave

Wyckham on Looking For Ground : "You know how when people talk about the photos they took on their trips, they always describe what's not in the picture? Like they'll say, 'our hotel was right around the corner from where these guys are standing?' I hope that's what my songs are, is the subtext to what seems obvious. Everything that's not in the picture, that's what's in the picture."

So, how is it that a young man who sang in the Anglican Boys' Choir, whose first song at age 10 was called "Man Is Going Somewhere, But Getting Nowhere," and who, soon afterwards, got himself "fired from every early hotel lounge gig for not doing any covers" ('I could never seem to play well enough to learn anyone else's songs' / 'It's easier for me to create than to copy'), managed to find his way to Austin, Texas, and to putting on tape an arguably perfect realization of his above described ideal?

Perhaps it begins when a kid who "always thought he might have something to say," and was stabbing away at a typewriter with short stories and poetry, came across the Beatles on Sullivan. It seems Wyck was convinced along with us millions that the route of popular song "offered an emotional outlet that nothing, no story, no page, could give me." To his credit, he understood that "it wasn't the adulation; I really just wanted to write that kind of song.... something so direct and complete that it made people react like that."

Where to go from there? "I knew I had to be a songwriter. I knew I wanted to sing. But, where I was living, there was no Nashville, no Tin Pan Alley, no L. A., there was really no place to put your focus. Which is maybe a big reason why no one out of Canada; Joni, Neil Young, The Band, has ever been at all formulaic."

So he played a lot of festivals. He did his songs in the clubs. He logged a lot of miles. He did everything he was supposed to do. And finally, his break came when he wrote and starred in the hit play "Joe's Cafe," which enjoyed an extended run at Vancouver's prestigious Arts Club Theatre. Soon afterward, more out of romance than design, he and his long-time partner Patty Fraser, well known for her work in live theatre, wrote and performed a very cool radio play brimming with songs about these journeys for the nationwide Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC). Well.. the CBC loved it... and everyone that mattered seemed to have tuned right in. Soon, an angel financed an '89 album that was picked up by Bryan Adams' management firm, and charted Top 20 on Canadian radio. Leading to a 17-song CD, independently distributed in Canada, and a slot on Rod Kennedy's Kerrville Festival, down Texas way......

Teaching a songwriting school at Kerrville with Austin's country diva, Christine Albert, Wyckham managed to make a lasting impression. Not only on his students and on the ever-discriminating promoter (Rod immediately booked him for the main stage), but, as fate would have it, on his co-instructor, who snuck his demo into the baggage of her friend, Jimmy Lafave. She knew Lafave was on his way to visit Bohemia Beat chief Mark Shumate in Denver. When Jimmy got to Denver they listened to a few demos, got to the one labeled "Porteous," and pretty soon were both grinning like little kids. It was then that the hard-to-please Shumate whispered, "Maybe this one should have a credit like 'Produced By Jimmy Lafave'...." The voice from the rain had found it's place in the sun.

Thus it came to be that North met South, and that Looking For Ground was ready to happen. When Wyckham arrived at the Austin airport with his core Canadian band, eager and apprehensive to join the cohorts Lafave had assembled, his smile was, he admits, Lone Star wide. "I had always loved everything Texas. So to go where those players actually played, to think about recording down there, well, I felt real grounded, musically."

Wyckham Porteous has been preparing for that ground all his life. From the nights he stayed up validating his sensibilities with those of Misters Cohen, Dylan ("of course"), and Lennon ("him, more than just the Beatles"). From the days of letting Marvin, Stevie, and Smokey lend their melodies to his mix. Feeling that someday he would put it all together into something all his own. Knowing he wouldn't sell it short.

"The core of the soul, that's what you want to write about. Not that I don't like a bunch of them myself, but I hope I never write a facile song. I think it would offend me."

Wyckham Porteous has now, in a very big way, mined for us that core. Press "play," and let him haul you along right now, to some very precious ground.

-MS, from the Looking For Ground press kit

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