A TORONTO-BASED GROUP called Olivus, which appeared some months ago at the Riverboat under the name Flying Circus, has pulled the plug on its electronics equipment and gone acoustic.
Last night, the four-man group made a one-night appearance at the Night Owl coffee house to say farewell to the old sound and now faces two months of work before making its debut with its new sound at the Mariposa Folk Festival. Also on the books is a fall appearance at New York's Bitter End.
Since appearing at the Riverboat, where I found them to be one of the more subdued groups around even with electronics, Olivus has made a few appearances out of town, notably in Montreal and Ottawa, but none locally until last night.
Its members are Gord McBain, Martin Fisher, Dennis Pendrith and Bruce Cockburn and the reason they're switching to acoustical instruments, according to their co-managers Lee Jackson and Harvey Glatt, is that electronics equipment hasn't enabled them to do justice to the material written by Cockburn.
One of the group's biggest fans, according to Jackson, is folksinger Joni Mitchell who heard some of Cockburn's material during her recent visit to Toronto and to a couple of their tapes to pass on to Reprise records.
Printed from the official Joni Mitchell website. Permanent link: https://jonimitchell.com/library/view.cfm?id=4008
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