Bram Morrison arrives at the opening night gala premiere of The Man In The Basement during the Toronto Jewish Film Festival at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema on June 1, 2023 in Toronto.Robert Okine/Getty Images
Alongside best buds Sharon and Lois, 83-year-old “Skinnamarink” singer Bram Morrison has been a staple in Canadian children’s hearts since 1978. In the great history of struggling musicians, however, Morrison absolutely worked a series of side gigs along the way.
In 1968, when I was 27, I’d been touring up North for a while with the folk singer Alan Mills, a friend and a mentor who’d hired me as his accompanist. He said he picked me because I seemed the person most interested in doing what he was doing – and he was right. Alan was such an inspiration and I wanted to be just like him someday.
But it wasn’t going to happen overnight, I knew that. I wasn’t anywhere near established or well-known enough to make any kind of regular income. Which is the usual case with almost any kind of performer. So I became a taxi driver that summer before I decided to go to a teacher’s college to become an elementary school teacher.
I liked the idea of driving a cab because I could do it or not do it whenever I wanted, and start and finish whenever I chose. Nothing was prescribed and freedom’s great, but also you get exactly what you put in. I found out very quickly that I wouldn’t make any worthwhile money if I didn’t put in a long shift – I’m talking 12 or 15 hours. I’d often start in the early morning and drive until 9 p.m. or later.
I worked for a company, so they gave me their car to drive and a dispatcher’s radio. The city was divided up into sections, so a call would come in and say, “Who’s in section 3?” or “Call at Bloor and Jarvis.” Whoever wanted it could drive right over. If someone flagged you down on the way, you could change your mind and pick them up instead. You could park and wait for someone to knock on your window, or could cruise around looking for people, but you pay for your own gas too so cruising costs money. Every driver has their own strategy.
Obviously, there was no GPS, but as far as cities to navigate in 1968, Toronto was a good one. In London, England, for example, in order to get a taxi licence, you need to know every road for a radius of six miles. And they test you on it! They say, tell me how to get from point A to point B, and you need to know the names of all the streets in between.
Not so in Toronto! They just gave us a book of maps and threw you in the car. If someone was going to Yonge and Shuter, that’s easy no problem, but if it was some obscure little street nobody’s ever heard of, I’d have to get out the book and look it up. Luckily Canadians are generally very nice and don’t mind. Not sure if that happens in London or New York.
Some people wanted to talk, and some people didn’t. I love to talk, so usually I’d start talking first. If I got a “yup” or a “nope” and that’s it, then I’d know we’re not talking this time, and I’d stop. If I was lucky, I’d get a conversationalist. This was my favourite part of the job by far.
Then I’d have five or 10 minutes to talk to anyone about anything and everything or nothing in particular. I knew that if and when I became a musician, I’d be doing this a lot, and this was great practice. I had every kind of person in my car, from fancy business people in suits to sex workers. Straight people and gay people and stoned people and drunk people. Lots of drunk people.
Don’t get me wrong; It was great to meet all those people, whatever their classes or incomes or walks of life. I’d been raised middle class but gone to top-end schools full of rich kids, which was fine as far as it went, but as far as knowing the world, it didn’t go very far. Being a taxi driver opened my eyes to see all the different kinds of people who were all around me but that I didn’t know anything much about and wouldn’t otherwise interact with. As a taxi driver, I could talk to all of them, and I came to appreciate each and every one.
As told to Rosemary Counter