Sneezy Waters: A Very Fine Biography,

sneezy-waters

Review by Ian Boyd

I was excited to read this book by Peter B. Hodgson, aka Sneezy Waters. It was worth every word. The cover lays out the type of book that the author wants you to see – it shows travel stickers, backstage passes, provincial logos and cause-related activism, all slapped on a well-worn travel case.

Sneezy Waters started out as Peter Hodgson, with an older brother to influence him in life. He grew up in west Ottawa. He enjoyed baseball and talks about his childhood exploits with a sense of glee and wonder. His parents had a huge influence on him as they encouraged his musical development. Peter’s parents travelled to Europe and lived in Paris for a time. Back in Ottawa, he went to high school, got his first guitar and started to make friends in the arts. He started playing local coffee houses while still in his teens, linking up with Bruce Cockburn in a band called The Children. He went to Asia with another band and played at Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan.

After that trip, Hodgson was playing a local bar, drinking a few beers – “lit up pretty sweet,” he writes – when “I started mumbling disparate words, meaningless.”

“At one point, while doing my Kerouac rant, I started to repeat ‘The waters are sneezing,’ thinking of a calm body of water which then suddenly sneezed. I babbled those words for quite some time until I stopped and said, ‘Sneezy Waters – that sounds commercial!”

And so, in the early 70s, Peter Hodgson became Sneezy Waters!

Sneezy was part of the leading edge of what was then the folk revival. He did full-band gigs, solo coffee-house gigs, he even busked in the streets. He speaks fondly of playing Le Hibou, the Ottawa coffee house that moved around the city, ending up on Sussex Avenue before it closed in 1975.

Never letting any grass grow under his feet, Sneezy loved to hit the road. He hitchhiked across Canada on one early tour. He toured the U.S. and Mexico in finer style, and his Asia tour is legendary. He booked house gigs in Hong Kong and Bangkok, anywhere he could find work. His prowess at self-booking served him well, and his around-the-world trip was truly a fantastic adventure, featuring a 36-day car ride from Southeast Asia to Denmark.

Throughout the book, there are photos of Sneezy and his family, friends, band members and colleagues. He joined the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the entertainment union, and moonlighted as a stagehand for many years. His first love was clearly performance, not just the music but the showmanship that goes with it.

This led to his famous interpretation of Hank Williams Sr. in the stage show and later in the 1980 film Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave. From 1977 to 1990, he toured the show extensively around North America to good crowds and positive reviews, playing the concert that he imagined the American country music icon might have done in Canton, Ohio in 1952 had he not died of a drug overdose in the car on the way there.

It was around this time that I first met Sneezy Waters, only knowing him by that name for years. Oddly, my father was the logistics guy at the same company where Sneezy’s father also worked. Small world, eh? Sneezy was playing at the Chateau Laurier when I met him, and we have been friends ever since.

How to describe Peter Hodgson? Good guy, friendly, benevolent, funny, musical, great musician, friend to all, nomad, hard worker, fellow musician, generous, giving. Fine band member, honest worker, great photographer, songwriter, interpreter of songs, showman, performing artist. But none of those words work on their own. The best way to describe Peter Hodgson is simply . . . Sneezy Waters.

Sneezy Waters: A Very Fine Biography is available online from sneezywaters.com or at the Compact Music shop on Bank Street. I dare say it’s a very fine read.

 

Ian Boyd is the owner of Compact Music at 785 Bank Street.

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