Canadian artist David Deacon is giving the well rounded vibe that only a person of many talents

Canadian artist David Deacon is giving the well rounded vibe that only a person of many talents, who’s been around the block a few times, can give to the traditional breakup song with his new spoken-word ballad “No Never Mind.”

Deacon’s website http://ddeacon.com gives an insight into the many talents he wields as he’s matured over the years, including race car driving, painting, poetry and a deep baritone voice that lends itself to spoken-word and melodic songs alike.

And he puts that voice, experience and poetry talent to use with his latest release, ‘No Never Mind.’

“Breakups are probably the second most written-about occasion in our lives,” Deacon said. “The first is falling in love and the second is when it falls apart so it’s easily relatable. In this case, somebody who had mattered to me left and then I got this letter and I thought this is so funny, they write me a letter trying to make them feel better.

“You know when something does actually bother you, you say, ‘no that doesn’t bother me?’ You’re doing that a little bit tongue-in-cheek, it’s like I’ve got the ‘No Never Minds,’ which means yes you mind. I think a lot of people relate to that but it’s an attitude we pick up to say, no, I'm going to get over this, I'll get on.”

Deacon’s artistry dates back to the 1960s when he won a poetry contest in high school. He also won a skiing championship and in the 1970s was the first curator of Canada’s National Ski Museum after dropping out of college and going to Paris to study art.

A motorcycle crash while practicing for a race temporarily derailed his life while he recovered from serious injuries to his head and leg, then, after working in the brokerage industry, he started racing cars.

He raced at Daytona and raced twice at the 24-hour race at Le Mans in the 1980s, then followed a few years of solid employment until a broken marriage caused him to bust out from what he called “‘The Camus,’ little fish version of society.” He went back into his own self-discovery. This time in music. It was driven from his poetry.

He opened for George Plimpton at a poetry reading at a bar on New York’s Upper East Side, then later a singer opened for him at the same bar on Valentine’s Day in an event that changed the direction of his artistry.

“They had organized this very nice singer who did sort of country kind of music, just a guitar and herself,” Deacon said. “It was very pretty and she was very good and she was opening for me and I was like, I'm so boring, I've just got spoken word stuff and I tried to liven it up with stories and whatever else. But I went back home and said, maybe I should put some music with my poetry. That’s how I got into music.”

After another period of serious employment in the 2000s, Deacon returned to his creative career and decided to make music and sell his art.

Deacon said he likes putting the spoken word to music as well as more melodic singing and sometimes the audience doesn’t notice when he changed back and forth. He said both kinds of his music will be on display on his new album, “Four.”

“A lot of people don’t even realize that ‘No Never Mind’ is almost entirely a spoken-word song except for the chorus,” Deacon said. “But the way I do spoken word has a melodic quality to it. So it sounds like singing, but that song happens to be entirely spoken word. Which I think is kind of cool. With the album that’s going to be coming along, most of it will be singing, and there are a couple of song with some spoken word bits in it where it transitions musicians either from singing to spoken word or from spoken word too singing, but it’s 90 percent singing.”

Deacon said there will be 10 tracks on “Four,” which is set for release sometime in March. “No Never Mind,” is sort of a soft launch for the album.

Two of the songs, “Hard Time” and “Poetry,” are bookends on the same relationship.

Deacon calls his music, “Blues and Roots music attached to a 6’5” rangy and rugged looking guy. He has a voice that sounds like it could have an atomic decay number attached to it. His bluesy old school rock/ballad story telling spends time digging into the psych of both someone who has travelled a lot of roads and the people who he met along the way. If you like Dire Straits or Tom Waits, maybe Leonard Cohen (if he rode motorcycles), Dylan for sure, perhaps Van Morrison you will definitely love this. He’s like them, but not all like them at the same time.”

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