ESTEVAN, Sask. – When Keith Alessi brings his Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me But Banjos Saved My Life tour to Estevan, it won’t be the first time he has been in the Energy City.
Alessi made numerous stops in the Energy City when he was the CEO of the Westmoreland Coal Company (now Westmoreland Mining LLC) from 2008-2016, and was at the helm of Westmoreland in 2014 when it purchased the assets of Sherritt Coal, including the Estevan operation.
“I spent a whole lot of time there, and in Regina with the folks from SaskPower,” said Alessi in an interview with SaskToday.
Alessi will be back in the city Sept. 22 with his Banjos tour, performing at the Estevan branch of the Royal Canadian Legion at 7:30 p.m. through the Estevan Concert Series. All proceeds from his appearance will be directed to chemotherapy services at St. Joseph's Hospital.
The Estevan concert will be one of 16 in a tour of the province that starts Sept. 18 in Shaunavon and ends Oct. 8 in Sturgis. One of the stops will be the 500th time he delivers the Banjos show.
Excited to return
Alessi said he hasn’t kept in touch with a lot of people he met in Estevan, but he believes there are people he would recognize if he saw them.
“It was one of my favourite places,” he said. “It was our largest operation both in Canada and the States. We had 35 mines or so at that time, but Estevan was our largest.”
He said he has been through Estevan since his time at Westmoreland ended, as he often crosses the Canada-U.S. border at North Portal.
“I’m always nostalgic as I have to drive right through the mines as I’m going north,” he said.
He hasn't spent much time in the other communities, other than to possibly stop for fuel or a snack.
Cancer diagnosis led to tour
Alessi said he grew up in a first-generation Italian household with an abusive father. The tomatoes in the show not only represent the toxic life from his childhood, he said, but they also gave him heartburn that led to esophageal cancer.
As for the banjo, Alessi said he has a lifetime fascination with the stringed instrument, which he claims didn’t make any sense because he grew up in the Detroit-Windsor area, listening to Motown music. He picked up the banjo and made no progress, but became a collector of the instrument. He wound up with a large number of banjos he couldn't play.
He was 61 years old when he stepped down from his job at Westmoreland in 2015 to pursue his banjo passion. Two weeks later, he received the cancer diagnosis, which threw him further into pursuing the banjo.
“As I proceeded through my treatments and obviously didn’t die, my doctor said ‘You should tell this story,’” he recalled. “That led me to writing this story and starting out in Toronto at the fringe festival there. From Day 1, we always donated 100 per cent of the proceeds to local charities.
Alessi was given a year to live.
“I found physical and emotional healing in a circle of musicians in southwestern Virginia, where we we were living at the time. When my doctor and others said you should tell this story, I said ‘OK, how do you do that’?”
Don't wait to pursue a passion
He was familiar with the fringe festival circuit in Canada, and entered shows in Vancouver, Edmonton and Toronto. The initial shows were rough – he hadn’t been on stage since his senior year in high school – but he said the show impacted audience members, who approached him with their own stories.
“The more we did it, the better the show got. The audiences got bigger, the reactions were more profound, and there isn’t a day … that we don’t have some emotional reactions from audience members,” said Alessi.
Patrons have told him they saw his show years earlier and made lasting changes to their lives.
“It’s been an interesting second chapter, one that’s had a lot of impact,” said Alessi.
Humour plays an important role, with corny banjos jokes, which he compares to dad jokes, but they usually get good laughs. He views the music as passable, but the banjos are a character in the performance.
The show has now generated approximately $1.5 million for charities in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., he said. Chemotherapy at St. Joseph's was selected as the beneficiary for the Estevan concert after discussions with the Estevan Arts Council, which organizes the city's concert series. Alessi said he likes to support a variety of organizations, including cancer causes and health care.
“Estevan has a strong, strong history of supporting charitable events, so we think we’ll do real well there raising some money,” he said.
A busy schedule
The Saskatchewan concerts come on the heels of his appearances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival – the largest event of its kind in the world. He said they sold out 23 shows at an event that attracts 4,500 acts and millions of people from around the world.
“Just getting noticed is difficult. Some people only get seven to 10 people a show; we had a 130-seat theatre that we fill up 23 times,” said Alessi, noting proceeds from the Scottish shows went to the theatre to bring in Scottish acts.
“We’re happy to perform in front of a few people, a few handfuls, or in front of a full auditorium. It all depends on the local people and their support. But I don’t measure success in terms of numbers. I measure it in terms of music.”
He’ll perform 100 shows this year even though he’s now 72. Touring is for younger people, he said, but he still has a lot of energy, so he’ll keep performing as long as he can. Another full year for 2027 includes a return to Edinburgh.
His health is good now – Alessi has been told by his doctor to keep doing what he has – so he’s going to continue travelling, playing the banjo and sharing his story.
