Fame & Fortune: Jesse Winchester American music's most identifiable draft-dodger
Page | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |

To tell you the truth, I think I learned more German doing that than I would have in the school, because I saw all the other American students there and they were all hanging out together, talking English to each other all the time, whereas I was out there speaking working-class German. I didn't learn what I was supposed to be learning but it was OK. We played the Top Hat club in Hamburg, Germany, where the Beatles played. They were long gone but it was still happening. I really felt like a Bohemian.

Bankrate: Of course, like so many those days, you received your draft notice along with your college diploma. Did you speak with anyone in your family about your decision to move to Canada?

Winchester: I spoke to my mother about it, but she's the only one I talked to. My father was dead by this time. I had an older doctor friend, sort of a mentor, and I talked to him, too. He didn't really commit himself one way or the other; he just said, "Do what you think is right." Thanks a lot, doc, you know? Those were the only people I talked to. I pretty much knew what everybody's reaction was going to be, from person to person. I knew what they were going to say.

Bankrate: Did your decision burn bridges within your family?

Winchester: Yes, in the sense that some of them died before I had a chance to reconcile with them, which hurts a lot. Especially my grandfather. My grandfather was the kind of person they just don't make anymore. He was a very leonine man. He could quote poetry at the dinner table. He was just a beautiful, beautiful man, but extremely conservative; my country, right or wrong was his point of view. I can certainly understand that. And he died before I had a chance to make up with him. I'm not sure it would have ever happened, but I would have loved to have had the chance.

Bankrate: That decision put you on many people's radar, for good or ill.

Winchester: That is, unfortunately, probably true. I wish I could wave a wand and make that go away, but there it is. We make our bed and we lie in it.

Bankrate: Did you have a living situation of any kind waiting for you in Canada?

Winchester No, I had nothing. I had $300 and an electric guitar. I had enough to buy an airplane ticket, and I flew from Memphis, Tenn., to Montreal.

Bankrate: How did you land on your feet?