Jason Wilson’s Auld Acquaintance: A Musical Life Told Through the People He Met Along the Way
By Stevie Connor | The Sound Cafe Journal
Photo Credit: Simon Tanenbaum - Jason Wilson and Ashara
I first met Jason Wilson back in 2013. I was a fan then, and more than thirteen years later, I’m still a big fan. That personal connection matters when writing about Auld Acquaintance, the new album from Jason Wilson and Ashara, because this isn’t a story that has simply arrived as a new record is being released. Jason has been part of my own musical journey for many years, and his work has continued to interest me because it has never fitted comfortably inside one particular musical box.
Scottish folk, reggae, roots, Canadiana and the wider traditions of world music have all found their way into Jason’s work, often through the people he has encountered along the road. On October 3, that road brings him to Hugh’s Room Live in Toronto, where The Sound Café Journal will be in attendance for the album-release concert celebrating Auld Acquaintance.
The show takes place in Hugh’s Room’s Green Sanderson Hall at 296 Broadview Avenue, with doors at 7 p.m. and the performance beginning at 8 p.m.
There is something particularly fitting about that setting. Hugh’s Room has long been associated with intimate, artist-and-audience-focused performances, and Auld Acquaintance is a record that seems to ask the listener to pay attention not only to the songs, but to the stories and relationships behind them. This is not simply a new collection of recordings from an artist who has been around for a while. It is a look back across more than four decades of music and the remarkable collection of musicians who have become part of Jason Wilson’s story.
At first glance, Auld Acquaintance might be described as a covers album, but that description only tells part of the story. These are songs connected to musicians Jason has performed and recorded with over the years, making the album feel less like a conventional collection of covers and more like a musical address book built over a lifetime. The record includes eleven tracks: “Hand In My Pocket,” “Lemmings,” “The Finest Kind,” “I Would Do For You,” “Showdown,” “Leaving Rome,” “Soul Bird,” “Dark Horse,” “Sloth / Swarb Of Rhodes,” “Ina Your Rights” and “Memories Fade.”
The guest list is every bit as interesting. Stephen Fearing appears on “Sloth / Swarb Of Rhodes,” Rupert “Ojiji” Harvey features on “Showdown,” Fergus Hambleton joins Wilson on “Leaving Rome,” and Brinsley Forde of Aswad and Patrixx Tenyue appear on “Ina Your Rights.” The album also features Carl Harvey of Toots & The Maytals, along with Ali Hutton and Lauren Collier.
Those names provide an immediate glimpse into the breadth of Wilson’s musical world. His career has taken him from Scottish traditional music and folk into reggae, roots and Canadiana, with collaborations that stretch across continents and generations. Jason is an award-winning Scottish-Canadian musician, bestselling historian and television personality, a two-time JUNO Award nominee and Canadian Reggae Music Award winner. Born to Scottish immigrants, he grew up in Toronto’s Downsview neighbourhood and has amassed more than 2,500 performances across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Jamaica.
Along the way, he has performed and recorded with artists including UB40, Alanis Morissette, Sly & Robbie, Prince Buster, Aswad’s Brinsley Forde, Dick Gaughan, Pee Wee Ellis, Jackie Mittoo and Martin Carthy. He was also one half of the Wilson & Swarbrick project with the late English folk icon Dave Swarbrick, with whom he produced Lion Rampant and Kailyard Tales.
That relationship with Swarbrick is particularly relevant to Auld Acquaintance, where Stephen Fearing appears on “Sloth / Swarb Of Rhodes.” Even the title carries a sense of musical history, acknowledging a figure who was an important part of Wilson’s own journey while bringing another longtime musical connection into the present.
But music is only one part of Jason Wilson’s story.
He is also a historian, author and television personality, with eight books to his name.
Among them is King Alpha’s Song in a Strange Land: The Roots and Routes of Canadian Reggae, published by UBC Press in 2020 and winner of the Ontario Historical Society’s Joseph Brant Award, as well as The Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club, a national bestseller published by McClelland and Stewart. Wilson completed his PhD in 2013 and is an Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Guelph. His academic career has also led to appearances as a historical expert on television programmes and documentaries broadcast by CBC, Discovery, ESPN, Nat Geo, NBCSN, TSN and UKTV.
Perhaps that combination of musician, historian and storyteller helps explain why Jason’s work has always had such a strong sense of history about it. He understands that music does not exist in isolation. Songs have histories, musicians have histories, and the relationships between artists can become part of the history of the music itself. In Auld Acquaintance, those different strands appear to come together.
Ashara provides another important part of that story. The project is described by Wilson as “Scotland meets Jamaica in Canada,” bringing together Scottish folk, global roots and reggae. Wilson provides vocals, acoustic guitar and piano, alongside Jamaican-Canadian guitarist Carl Harvey and Ashara band members Marcus Ali, Laurel Tubman, Vince Reel and Michael Shapinko, with Scottish traditional musician Ali Hutton also part of the wider musical picture. Ashara debuted in Scotland in January 2023, including performances at Glasgow’s Celtic Connections, before releasing its self-titled album on September 29, 2023.
That meeting of cultures is something that has always interested The Sound Café Journal.
Music rarely respects the borders we try to place around it. Scottish music can find a new home in Canada. Jamaican rhythms can become part of a Canadian story. Folk, reggae, roots and world music can sit alongside one another without any of those traditions having to surrender their identity. The interesting part is what happens when musicians listen to each other and allow those traditions to meet naturally.
Jason Wilson’s career has been built around those kinds of meetings.
That is also why Auld Acquaintance feels like more than a look backwards. The past is present in the songs and the people connected with them, but the recording itself is another chapter in an ongoing musical story. The musicians involved have continued to create, collaborate and perform, and the relationships that began years ago have found another way to speak.
There is something rather human about that. As we get older, our understanding of a life is often shaped less by individual events than by the people who were there when those events happened. Music can work in much the same way. A song can become attached to a person, a place, a particular period of our lives or a friendship that has lasted much longer than anyone expected.
That is where the title Auld Acquaintance becomes particularly appropriate. These are not simply old songs being brought back for another performance. They represent people and musical connections that have remained part of Wilson’s story, and in some cases those musicians are returning to the conversation themselves.
There is also a healthy sense of humour surrounding the project. The album presentation describes a live show filled with funny, self-deprecating stories, including the observation that despite having worked with artists whose combined sales have exceeded 180 million albums, Wilson has somehow managed to largely evade fame.
Perhaps that is part of the appeal.
There has never seemed to be a great deal of interest in fitting Jason Wilson into the conventional idea of what a musical career should look like. The music, the books, the history, the collaborations and the friendships have all developed alongside one another, connected by a curiosity about where the next road might lead.
And that brings us back to October 3.
The Sound Café Journal will be at Hugh’s Room Live in Toronto as Jason Wilson and Ashara celebrate the release of Auld Acquaintance.
For me, there is a particular sense of continuity in being there. I first met Jason in 2013 as a fan of his work. More than thirteen years later, I’m still following the music, still interested in the story and still looking forward to hearing what comes next.
That, in its own small way, is what a musical relationship can become.
Not every artist we encounter remains part of the journey. Some records come and go, some performances become memories, and some names disappear into the ever-growing archive of music we have heard along the way. Others stay with us.
Jason Wilson is one of those artists for me.
And perhaps that is why Auld Acquaintance feels particularly at home within The Sound Café Journal. Our purpose has always been about documenting music, culture and human stories, and about looking beyond the obvious headline to understand the people and experiences that sit behind the music.
Jason’s new album gives us plenty to explore: the remarkable list of collaborators, the Scottish and Jamaican connections, the history of Wilson & Swarbrick, the continuing Ashara story and the many chapters of a career that has crossed continents, cultures and musical traditions.
But underneath all of that is something rather simple. A musician is looking back at some of the people and songs that helped shape his journey, while continuing to move forward himself.
The album may look backwards, but the music has never really stopped moving.
On October 3, we’ll be there at Hugh’s Room Live to hear where that journey takes us next.
The Sound Cafe Journal
Where the story behind the music matters.
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