Linda Chobotuck says she’s been lurking around the VFSS since it met in the Granville Island Community Centre. She was lured in by then-president Anna Holbech Bjarnason. [Ed.: Our records show that Bjarnason was president in 1980.]
“I grew up in a folkie family with a mother who came from a parlour-singing tradition and was an early disciple of the folk revival. Surrounded by folkies, everybody I respected as a musician was also a songwriter, so from an early age I also wrote music. I’m not very prolific, but I’ve been doing it a long time and it adds up.
“My notebook says that ‘Give the Boss his Due’ was written in October 1985, but it was certainly brewing earlier than that because the third verse was inspired by an industrial psychology course that I dropped in disgust. The whole song is basically a tribute to my father’s attitude to work; the proper relationship a responsible worker should have to his or her job. You owe your co-workers to pull your own weight, but your obligations only go so far.
“After sleeping, people actually spend most of their time working, so I am perhaps best known as a singer and writer of labour songs, the most widely recorded of which is ‘Canning Salmon,’ which I wrote while working in a cannery in Richmond.”
Chobotuck performs “Canning Salmon” on a compilation CD titled The Cannery Shed put together by Washington folksinger Mary Garvey. As for a CD of her own, Chobotuck says that’s another project for some indefinite future. Until then, you can enjoy “Give the Boss His Due,” which was recorded live at the VFSS in 1991.
Vancouver Folk Song Society 
Nice article! I love Linda’s intonation in her ode to her father’s work ethic. Where can we hear “Canning Salmon”?