Jackson helps the homeless

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The latest album for Native recording artist Tom Jackson is literally designed to be food for thought.

That Side of the Window is an album about homeless people and all proceeds from the album are going to the Canadian Association of Food Banks.

"It was going to be purely a commercial ventrue for me, but I spoke to my wife and realized I didn't feel comfortable doing this as a commercial venture," said Jackson.

Part of Jackson's decision to donate the proceeds from the album come from his own past.

"I've always been very close to it (homelessness). For three years I lived on the streets of Winnipeg," said. "This [album] is certainly an awareness created out of that period of time.'

The process leading up to this album has been brewing for some time, he said, recalling times when he would see people huddled on top of subway grates in the middle of Toronto winters as pedestrians walked past them.

"I realized how scary that would be to have people just walk by and knowing that it could have been me there. It caused me to want to create some kind of a change. I decided that I would use what I knew best," he said.

He used his voice.

The release of That Side of the Window coincides with Jackson's annual Huron Carole concerts, which also raise funds and donations for food banks.

From rocky beginnings in 1988, the concert tour has turned into a national event which raises thousands of dollars for food banks across the country.

Starting out with a show in Toronto that didn't go over too well, nine years later, the Huron Carole concert series stops in 14 cities across Canada.

The tour starts with a November 27 show in Victoria and winds its way through the prairies with stop-overs in Calgary on Nov. 30, Edmonton on Dec. 1 and Fort McMurray on Dec. 2. The tour winds up in Halifax on December 22.

Jackson said he loves to sing live.

"It's more fun to play for them live because the feedback is instant."

With the albums, and especially with That Side of the Window, he just has to hope that the message of the songs gets through.

"I just hope that as much as they tap their feet, they also get to listen to the lyrical content of the CD," he said.

Despite it being focused on street people and homeless situations, Jackson said the it is not a dark album.

"As much as the subject matter is about homelessness, they are happy songs. They aren't songs about depression," he said.

Many of the songs, he said are up-beat and even humourous portayals of the people on the streets.

"A lot of people on the streets have a tendency to laugh a lot," he said. "People with less gave got a great sense of humour. It's one of the things they cherish."

Jackson hopes the new CD will heighten the awareness to the situation of homeless people and help the public to understand them a little more.

"It's designed to bring more flesh onto the skeletal parts - to give a life and soul to the homesless folks . . . because they live and breath also."

This is Jackson's seventh album, and the third based on a theme which is close to him. The Huron Carole Christmas album in 1988 has a yuletide theme and Sally Ann, released in 1990, was dedicated to the work of the Salvation Army.

For upcoming projects, Jackson plans to continue to record songs based on the lives of peole he has come in contact with.