"I was inspired by this book I was reading, about Bob Dylan and the Rolling Thunder Revue," says Kate Maki, a heartbreak-voiced, honky-tonk-meets-Daniel Lanois girl with guitar.

In 1975, Dylan rounded up an eccentric cast of poets and musicians, including Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, Arlo Guthrie, and Joni Mitchell, to play a series of dates. The tour was notorious for generating the surreal flower-child hangover chaos, but Maki was struck by the idea that these performers, who were usually on the road and on stage alone, had created a situation that offered opportunities for collaboration and sharing the weight. "Dylan had, like, 200 people, though," laughs Maki, "I thought I could try to do something like that, but on a smaller scale."

Rolling Winter

Last winter, Sudbury-based Maki buddied up with Halifax songwriter Ruth Minnikin for a cross-country tour with a fabulous title–one that would not be out of place on an adult video rack–"Kate & Ruth: Alone, Together." Much to the disappointment of middle-aged guys in soiled trenchcoats everywhere, the name referred to the way the ladies divvyed up the music. Each would do a set of their songs, backed by the other. The experiment worked for audiences, and Maki and Minnikin had a blast bombing across Canada together.

Using last year’s tour with Minnikin as a template, the inexhaustible Maki started rounding up more cohorts for a more ambitious outing. The lineup for A Midwinter Night’s Dream is nothing less than stellar–five different yet complementary songwriters hailing from a truckload of respected bands playing each others’ songs as a group, trading up time in the spotlight and swapping instruments.

Maki’s tunes walk after midnight with rootsy-folk. Minnikin, a multi-instrumentalist (she plays accordion!) who cut her teeth with the Heavy Blinkers and the Guthries, wouldn’t be out of place making up sea shanties with Tom Waits. Toronto indie scene stalwart Nathan Lawr, drummer for Sea Snakes, Royal City, the Minotaurs, and a gajillion other bands, joined them. Lawr’s solo stuff sounds like the kind of obscure songs from the ’60s that Wes Anderson likes putting on his soundtracks. Sudbury bassist Ryan Bishops, lately of Ox, likens his work to Gram Parsons’. Dale Murray has played with Buck 65 and was also in the Guthries, and arguably has the strongest pop sensibility of the group.

"We all knew each other, and we all knew each other’s music," says Minnikin, "A lot of us have played together before in different combinations."

The musicians perform "a spectrum of songs," says Maki, "all of us write really personal stuff, but it goes from intimate to kooky. It’s a good mix."

Common influences are credited as the reason why a Midwinter set still has cohesion. "We are influenced by same bands–the Byrds, the Band, the Beatles," lists Maki.

Bishops agrees, "We all have similar taste in music. That’s hard to find in Sudbury!"

Musical chairs

Although everyone was immediately taken by Maki’s recruitment pitch, it was initially unclear how they would support each other in practice.

Lawr admits, "I thought it was a great idea but I was curious how it would actually come together."

"It went so smooth from the beginning, it was almost strange," explains Bishops, "I’d play, and they would just walk around and jump on instruments."

Or one would get assigned.

"Ruth and Kate play new instruments on all my songs," cackles Bishops.

Most of the group picked up new musical skills: Lawr tackled harmonica ("the simplest instruments are the hardest to play... it was difficult at first, but a good challenge"), Maki mastered drums ("just really easy beats"), and Minnikin added bass to her repertoire.

The process of rehearsing for the tour led to another idea. Murray says, "If we went out and we only had our own solo CDs on the road, we wouldn’t have anything communal, financially. We’d have nothing to sell to put gas in the van or get us a hotel."

Maki announces, "We just recorded a CD compilation tour disc, limited to 200 copies."

Recorded in one long day, the CD features 10 songs–two songs from each artist, recorded the way they’ll be played at the shows by the group.

"Were our own producers for our own songs," Maki explains.

"The music is collaborative," Minnikin amends, "though the songs are our own."

Lawr confesses, "The CD is sort of blowing my mind. It felt like we were making a record like in the old days–no screwing around, no overdubs. We decided the song order at the end as quickly as possible."

"It’s funny," says Murray, "we had time off before the tour and thought we may as well do something, and we knew we wouldn’t feel bad about selling it, but it turned out really, really good. It’s cohesive, turned out way better than we hoped. And it’s nice people can buy a piece of the show, because our individual CDs are quite different."

The songwriters all seem so elated with the arrangement that a studio album may not be out of the question. Murray, Maki, and Minnikin all express a desire to collaborate. Of course, nothing fosters collaboration quite like 16 hours in a van between major Canadian cities in the dead of winter.

Bishops sums it up nicely, "You’re only on stage for, two hours a night. The rest of the time you’re playing Trivial Pursuit in the van. But we’re all quite similar. So it could be an adventure every day."