By Diane Urbani
de la Paz
Peninsula Daily News
PORT ANGELES — Norman Foote figures he was an embarrassment to his folks,and a mystery to the people in the logging town where he grew up.
The town was Squamish, B.C., and the 21-year-old Foote was a guitar-playing puppeteer just back from Australia.
He’d left home for New Zealand, played in folk clubs there, played on the street and met an Australian who wanted him to play music for his puppet shows.
Ever since he was an 11-year-old with his first guitar, Foote wanted to be a performer. That desire has taken him adventuring around the globe — and he’s had lots of practice in finding the comedy in his adventures.
Comical music
Foote’s next escapade is something he’s never tried before: doing a musical comedy — or is it comical music? — set and then presiding over an auction of fancy hotel getaways, Coho ferry trips and so forth.
This event, to get under way at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Elks Naval Lodge, 131 E. First St., is the big fall fundraiser for the Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts, that cavalcade of music, dance, visual art and comedy that comes to town every Memorial Day weekend.
Tickets are $20 for the show. More information can be found at www.JFFA.org and 360-457-5411. The Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts’ Facebook page also has information and a video of a Foote performance.
Award wnner
Now, Foote is the winner of Canada’s Juno Award, similar to the Grammy, for best children’s album in 2010. He’s won acclaim for his work with the Walt Disney Co. and with the CBC’s kids’ show “Scoop and Doozie.”
Port Angeles elementary school students will be treated to a Foote concert at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Elks Naval Lodge — and while the show is free, kids must have tickets. They’ve been distributed among the five local elementary schools: Franklin, Jefferson, Dry Creek, Roosevelt and Hamilton. Those who cannot pick up tickets at a school can phone 360-565-3703 by
5 p.m. today.
On Saturday night, Foote will pull out his own brand of adult humor for the big benefit show.
The singer tosses together physical comedy with hockey helmets, audience participation and spoofed-up traditional folk songs.
He also promises some whimsical looks at the music of Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash and various reggae singers.
“I’m a blue-collar entertainer,” Foote said, adding that his song “Love My New Shirt,” actually about an old shirt from a second-hand store, is a good example of his schtick.
Foote has five children, ages 34, 32, 20, 17 and 9. Which means he has access to comedy material that works across the age spectrum.
He marvels at how his teenage son lives in a culture that is quite different from the one he remembers.
“I came from the ‘children should be seen and not heard’ era,” Foote said. “Now [teenagers] are obscene and absurd.”
Look no farther, he added, than your family for good humor. If you really want laughs, tell some of the embarrassing stories your mother might have told about you when you were younger.
At 58, Foote still loves his line of work. He lives in Vancouver, B.C., and tours Canada and the United States “like a yo-yo. I go out, I go home, I go again.”
Throughout, “I have the same passion I had when I was 21.”
