From Bangkok to Old Tallinn

During the splinter’s salad days, Exhibition Stadium and Ontario Place were welcome music venues during the month of August. Back when a rock show was affordable. Such as paying three bucks to see and hear The Guess Who. And Lighthouse. And many more class canuck bands at what Trent Frayne, the Globe’s best sportswriter of the time, called Execration Stadium (and that was one of his politer words). For obvious reasons. What can you get for a loonie and a toonie these days? Not even a decent cuppa joe.

A recent walk down memory lane took a certain scoundrel to Silvi Vrait and her singing talent. The sultry siren sang not only pop and country but in musicals as well. Which led to some reminiscing upon that latter category. During the Soviet occupation, it was common to steal tunes from the West and perform them to Estonian lyrics. One doubts that royalties were ever paid to such luminaries as Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan, whose classics “Me And Bobby McGee” and “Blowin’ in the Wind,” respectively, to name but two cuts were performed and recorded by various Estonian singers. The lean machine has been assured that with the restoration of independence, international law is being followed with regard to copyright.