Ex-executive says to dig out your passions and start living

One man, six banjos — but no concert?

There’s a lot to explain.

Keith Alessi will perform his hit show Tomatoes Tried To Kill Me, But Banjos Saved My Life to open the Kinosoo Performing Arts Association (KPAA) season on October 17.

Banjos had always been part of Alessi’s life, even though he had never learned to play. He loved the sound, he loved the banjo’s history, and he loved the craftsmanship behind the best of the instruments. By the time he retired from his position as CEO of Westmoreland Mining, he had a collection of 52 banjos.

He retired at 61, determined to use his newfound leisure time to finally learn to play. But that’s when the tomatoes came for him.

With his Italian background he enjoyed a lot of food prepared with tomatoes, but he began to experience severe heartburn. He went to see his doctor.

Less than two weeks into his retirement, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Doctors estimated his chances of living for a year to be about 50 per cent, and a five-year outlook was only 12 or 13 per cent. He went all-in on his treatment, and he stuck to his commitment to learn to play the banjo.

“I guess that just speaks to my stubbornness more than anything else,” he said. “My probability of living five years when I got my diagnosis was about 12 per cent. I’m now almost 11 years post my surgery, which was the end of my treatment. So I’m in the clear —supposedly. I don’t take that for granted.”

From there he kept learning and practicing, sitting in regularly with a musicians’ circle. It was his doctor who encouraged him to share his story.

Alessi has no pretensions about his playing. “I’m not a musician, but I play the instrument. I’m competent, but it’s not by a far shot,” he told me.

He took his skills and his story and created a one-man show, which he performed five times at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2018. The critics did not rave.

“The shows weren’t very good,” Alessi admits. “They got panned by the critics, those first couple shows. As they should have been, because it was very rough. I hadn’t been on stage since senior in high school, which was 1972.

“But from the very first show, people were coming out of the audience with their stories. And I was seeing the impact it was having on people.”

From that five-show engagement in Toronto to a gig in Assiniboia, Saskatchewan just last week, Alessi has performed his show 500 times.

Tomatoes Tried To Kill Me isn’t a singer with a set list; it’s a story, and it’s theatre with Alessi and his six banjos as characters.

“I point out often during the performance, I’m an intermediate player. You know, that’s not the point of this,” he said.

“The point of this story is about overcoming obstacles, the importance of pursuing passions, the healing power of music. It’s all those things. And the message to people is you don’t have to be great at something to enjoy it or to pursue it. For me, that’s very much been the takeaway of this entire experience.”

A lot of people have a fiddle or a guitar (or 52 banjos) in a closet at home. But that passion we’ve tucked away for later doesn’t have to be a musical instrument.

“Maybe they’re a writer. Maybe they have other passions that they want to do, like knitters or dancers,” Alessi said. “It doesn’t have to be an instrument, but whatever it is, there’s a reason it’s in your closet. Figure out why it’s there, why’d you keep the thing? Maybe you should take it out.”

Alessi’s tour itinerary is intense. Yet he performs for free and covers his own expenses, donating concert proceeds to cancer organizations, music programs, community groups, and artist funding and development.

“I came to the stage with resources,” he said. “I’m grateful to the theatres for allowing me in. And as a result, we always donate 100% of our ticket sales to local charities wherever we perform. We’ve now raised a little over a million and a half dollars doing this show. I’m really proud of that.”

But the bigger gift is in the story itself. Alessi says he admonishes people to look out the windshield, not the rear-view mirror. The instrument in the closet, figurative or literal, represents a passion that has been suppressed or relegated to a future that might not come.

“When I was in the world of business, if I did well people made money. No big deal,” he said. “I taught university, I’d see that I was having an effect on a student or two, and I’d hear from them five years later say, ‘Hey, I took your class, and all these things happened.’ That was rewarding.

“But here every night I’m getting reaction — guttural, emotional, real-time reaction, and that’s what keeps propelling me down the road.”

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When the killer tomatoes came for Keith Alessi, 52 banjos had his back