Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me but Banjos saved my Life⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

We sit before a stage area adorned with four banjo stands, three of which support different styles of banjo, with a microphone and a chair situated between them. Enter a casually dressed man of around 70 years old, bearing a fourth banjo, which he plays on entry before placing it on the empty fourth stand.

He then tells us, in a characterful, engaging and slightly husky voice, the story (every word is true, he assures us) of his extraordinary life. His name is Keith Alessi and he grew up in a Canadian town very near the US border; his father Tullio moved there from Italy as a youth, before later serving his new country during World War II.

Keith tells us that you can tell a person from what is in their closet, and in imparting what is in his own closet we embark on the journey of a life marked by childhood trauma and successes in the commercial sphere in both Canada and the US, suppressing dreams of a life quite other.

Eventually, however, a long-lingering sense of inner dissatisfaction prompts a dramatically positive change in direction, only for events beyond his control to then quickly threaten this new dawn.

His self-confessed positivity, “look through the windscreen, not the rear mirror” addresses the setbacks and informs the direction which takes him to where we see him today.

His story is delivered in a down to earth, unsentimental way and often with a great deal of very dry humour, but he confronts unavoidable, difficult moments which are very moving, but not self-indulgently presented. His musings on his life experience are thoughtful without being trite or clichéd, and yes, tomatoes do play a crucial part, one that almost cost him his life; and it is most fair to say that banjos did, indeed, save his life.

This is wonderful storytelling; the story of an amazing life, beautifully punctuated by some of the banjo playing that inspires and feeds it.