Alan Hume and Doug Cox at Old Town Strings, Victoria (circa mid-late 90's)
Today I'm going to tell you about my dear friend Alan Hume from Victoria, BC. I first met Al, as many of you did, when he was working behind the counter at Victoria's Old Town Strings, a fantastic top-end music store, repair shop and lesson centre that was located on Pandora Ave in Market Square in Victoria for a bunch of years.
Al was this guy behind the counter who always knew so much about guitars, and it took me a few years to learn what a brilliant classical guitar player he was himself. You could tell he loved all the instruments in the store. He was very modest about his own playing and apparently, he was a really good teacher too. I ended up teaching at Old Town Strings for a while and got to know him a bit better, but really got to know him when we started to play music together.
We recorded the CBC Radio theme song (bluegrass version) to Jürgen Goth's show, which was very popular at the time, called Disc Drive. And we had spent weeks preparing a classical guitar and dobro duet version of that song. When we showed up at the studio, Producer Tod Elvidge, (who we also sadly just lost), laughed and said, "No, that's not really what we were looking for at all. We were kinda looking for a bluegrass version." So luckily, we had John Reischman and others in the studio with us, and very quickly came up with a version that became known as the bluesgrass version of the theme song to Disc Drive.
After that, Al and I started to compose together. He was a brilliant composer and always pushed me in directions I never thought I could go as a Dobro player. We were going to make a record of duets for dobro and nylon string guitar. Imagine the commercial potential!! Ha ha ha.
We did a nice duet version of a Sting song from back in the days of The Police called "Wrapped Around Your Finger," which is on one of my CDs. And then we wrote a couple of songs together that I still am really proud of to this day. I'll try and hunt those down. I know that they exist somewhere, and when I do, I'll post them on Bandcamp.
Well, Al got really busy because sadly, he suddenly ended up as a single father of his boys, so he chose to stop with the music thing for a while. I really admired him for doing that, because when his family needed him he dropped what he was doing and gave them 100%. You can't blame a guy for that.
After that, we kind of lost touch for quite a long time. Actually, years and years and years. And one day last year, I was sitting here in my office in Courtenay (about 3 hours north of Victoria) and my phone rang; the name came up that it was Alan, so I happily answered the phone. "Hey, Doug, it's Alan." We did the usual catching up pleasantries, until he shocked me with some news. This was on a Tuesday that he phoned me, and he gently said "I'm going to be dying on this weekend on Saturday, and I have a record that I need to finish. I've written all this beautiful guitar music for my sons, and I really want to finish the album. And if I can't finish it, would you be willing to finish it for me?" Well, I tell you, behind tears, I said, "Of course I will, Al. I would be happy to. I would be honored to."
Anyways, he finished the record on Thursday, put it out on Friday, and he indeed passed away on Saturday. How heavy is that? The notice that he posted on Bandcamp about the album is beautiful. I'm gonna copy it and paste it here for you, and I'm also gonna add the link to Al's record that he made for his sons. Here's what Alan wrote:
This album was written, recorded, mixed and mastered by me, the AlanHumeBand. I actually have but days to live
I'm sad to say and can tell you that all proceeds of sales will be going to my 4 sons. I truly hope you find some tunes in this album that give you some lasting enjoyment...I feel fortunate to be able to have it out in the big world of music--With Love and Peace to you all.
https://alanhumeband.bandcamp.com/album/flying-colour
I hope you'll enjoy it. I hope you go listen to it. He was a very dear man and a great musician, and a reminder that you don't really have to be known out there in the world to be a brilliant musician. They are everywhere.
Anyways, I was very lucky to work with Alan Hume and blessed to have some of his music and our duets as a memory of my time with him. I hope you enjoy it.