The Yodelin' Repairman

Oliver Vardy is a one-man band, with a fast left hand. His life plays out in the vein of a long-drawn song; a song he's crafted every step of the way and strummed note for note on his own.

Outside his house there's a van. She's older than hip-hop. She's shiny and red with black tinted windows; sticker-letters spell Gospel and Country Tapes and Cd's for sale along the sides. She lets you know that a musician's heart beats next door.

The vegetable garden and makeshift contraptions populating the lawn give you a good indication of the kind of boundless man he might be.

He's never made a hurry out of meeting anyone's deadlines, apart from his own. An overturned outboard motor case serves as a flowerpot out back; 45 Horsepower, and a millimeter a-day closer to the sky.

Oliver will be 71 soon, if, as he puts it, the good lord spares him a few more months.

Time is on his mind. Time is also on his hands, and it's what gets him to writing.

I've been singing those songs, for many long years

And I've picked my old guitar through laughter and tears.

Songs about Jesus, my savior and king

And I don't feel like quitting, cause I just love to sing.

The Old Days

Oliver was born in the heart of Random Island. Music was in him like sand in a stone.

"I started when I was seven years old. My mother used to play the piano and I played the spoons. I learned from her. Then there was the ukulele, and the mandolin, the button accordion, and harmonica..."

When he was 12 he could play about a dozen different instruments.

"I just started playing one after another. I've played about 18 different instruments over the years, but I like the guitar best of all.

"My brother brought home a guitar when I was just eight years old. Shortly after, I was playing to concerts and this and that."

His idols back then are the same as today. He adored Wilf Carter as far as yodeling went. On the guitar side of things he took pointers and always tried to pluck like Hank Snow and Smiley Bates.

As a young man he used to run with Bobby Evans and his brother George. They journeyed the island, playing nightclubs and concert halls, often times performing before a full crowd.

"We didn't have much to work with back in those days. In fact, when we first started we didn't even have an amplifier.

"We used to play concert halls and the people in the back couldn't hear a thing. Then one day I got an old jukebox. I took the amplifier out of it and I put some jacks in it so we could plug in our guitars and my new microphone. It was about 10 or 15 watts of power, tops."

Oliver recalls stealing the spotlight most nights.

"There was a few yodelin'songs I had to sing everywhere we went. I'd do Swiss Moonlight Lullaby or something else by Yodelin' Slim Clark and by the time I was through they'd all be singing out and shouting. I'd have to sing the same songs twice or three times before the night was over."

Oliver's voice has gone deep since then but he can still muster a yodel, when the mood strikes him.

As for the trio, they ended up walking split lines in life.

"The brothers both kept up with the music and, lucky for them, they did pretty good, especially Bobby. I gave it up and went into business.

"One of the things I'm sorry for is not staying with music. I'm pretty well sure I'd have made a go of it by now. But that's life."

Oliver became a television technician, spending 20 odd years in sales and service. Then he started a successful business in small engine repair.

He's been a self-made man since the age of 13, when he traveled the island selling movies.

"I've sold everything over the years from a squid jigger to a grapnel, just tryin' to make a living.

During the some 40 years of being in business Oliver lost almost all interest he had in music.

"I only bothered to fiddle around a bit with the guitar.

"But then somebody said I should do a recording. A lot of people used to ask me over the years, why I don't do a recording. But I didn't think it was in me."

All it took was a few recording sessions at Sim's studio in Belleoram and he was hooked again.

In 2000 his son Andy took over the family business, since then Oliver has concentrated on music.

He bought some recording equipment and started traveling the island again, along with his homemade tapes and cd's.

I've never been famous, or the super star kind.

Never won any Oscars, in my lifetime

But I've made lots of music and friends on life's way

And I hope to meet Jesus in heaven someday.

The Country Gospelier

Oliver has a music room. It's where he plays, writes and records it all. Between his guitars, the lap steel, banjo, violin, the mixing boards, and keys, there's enough crammed in its space to keep his tinkering fingers busy during the long winters.

Over the years he's put his mechanical mind to work in this room. He's built an apparatus that enables him to be the one-man band that he is. Using hand-made foot pedals and a talking keyboard, he can play four instruments at one time.

When asked about where his inventive ideas come from he shuts his eyes and says; "I just dream them up somehow," as if to show how the gift of imagination is unwrapped.

He's written 50 songs and released 10 albums in all. He recorded three of those albums just this past winter.

"I just can't sit down and relax, I always got to be doing something."

He still plays fundraisers, entertains at senior homes, and makes an appearance at most all local music events.

He and his wife, Barbara, and the shiny red van are hitting the road once again this summer. They'll be setting up shop outside of Co-op stores and the like across the island.With his wife by his side, Oliver says he's "been to the moon and back" in that van. And as for why he's still at it, the reason he gives doesn't surprise.

"I've met a lot of good friends in my travels. The more I traveled the more I've realized that the majority of people are good. I just love it."

He admits that he's been saying it for the last four or five years, but Oliver insists this year is going to be his last out on the road.

He hopes to spend more time in his garden, where he grows "everything but pineapples and oranges."

With his hands in the soil he gets the same lift he does when he's lost in a song.

"When I look at flowers it brings me closer to God."

I just love to sing is a song Oliver wrote and recorded this winter past.

The End

Now my story is ending, but it's not been in vain.

And if I could live over, I'd do it again.

I'd sing old time music for Jesus my king

And I'd yodel in the valley, till the mountains would ring.

Visit www.thepacket.ca to hear an audio stream of Oliver Vardy's Guitar Pickin' Newfie.

gsimms@thepacket.ca