On Saturday night, a fusion of acoustic Americana sounds hit the stage of The Matchbox when the Waskasoo Bluegrass Music Society presents Calgary’s Will White Trio.
Raised in the southern U.S., White — a gifted singer and songwriter — brings a wide brush to bluegrass and roots music and is accompanied by fiddler and mandolinist Byron Myhre (Jerusalem Ridge) and bassist Dale Ulan (Widow Maker).
Tickets ($25) for this terrific evening of music are available at the usual outlets, including 53rd Street Music, Red Deer Box Exchange, The Key Hole, Parkland Mall Service Desk, Innisfail’s Jackson’s Pharmasave, Lacombe’s Popow’s Auto Body, Old’s Dee J’s, and Rocky Mountain House’s Novel Ideas. Call Gale at 403.347.1363 for information.
Also on Saturday, Gordon Downie and the Country of Miracles are at the Memorial Centre.
Carolyn Dawn Johnson pulls into town Thursday to play the Memorial Centre. Tickets available at the Black Knight Inn.
This Old Guitar features five Alberta guitarists sharing performance and history in a guitar pull with a difference.
With sounds from flamenco to jazz and blues to classical represented, The Matchbox is the place to be on Oct. 8 if the guitar and its stories are of interest. Featuring Shannon Frizzell, Micah Turchet, Calum Graham, Lee Cocolicchio and Paeton Cameron, tickets are $22 at the theatre box office.
Mary Kastle makes an appearance at Restaurant 27 on Oct. 21. With a sultry voice and engaging musical personality, Kastle presents jazz and pop music with soulful overtones in a trio setting.
Slaid Cleaves makes his first Red Deer appearance at The Matchbox on Oct. 29. If you attended and enjoyed the Sam Baker-Gurf Morlix concert earlier this year, Cleaves is likely to appeal.
Ontario’s The Good Lovelies return Nov. 28. Tickets are on sale for all Matchbox shows at their box office.
This week’s roots music review:
Hey Mavis
Red Wine
Self-released
The trio calling themselves Hey Mavis have struck upon a pleasing and adventurous blending of sound and influence.
Performing original music steeped in approaches of the past, with its two-woman, one-man alignment Hey Mavis immediately recall the simple joys of The Carter Family. The significant difference being the Hey Mavis songwriters are the females. Laurie Michelle Caner is the primary tunesmith while Sarah Benn contributes a pair of songs.
Without the context of this album, one could likely be convinced Tell Me Lover True is one of those treasures that song-catchers scoured hills and hollers to discover almost a century ago. Within a sparse but keen framework, the words wring of another age: “Sing me lover true; come sing, sing to my bones.”
Sister Mary is brighter than other songs contained on Red Wine, but its lightness betrays the song’s theme of sin and deception. Hit shuffle and a spirited and engaging song is sure to appear — whether Second Chance with its allusions to Texas dust and opportunity; the realization that the memories and a leather jacket aren’t enough in I Ain’t Gonna Cry; or the title track’s strength revealed in both voice and instrumentation.
As do Crooked Still and Bearfoot, Hey Mavis provides sonic twists to what one expects from stringband-based roots music. Yes, there is banjo, fiddle and double bass, but there is also viola prominently featured, providing songs with an entirely different atmosphere than one might anticipate.
Lacking the drive of bluegrass, this album is a lyrically rich and musically soothing collection of old-timey, acoustic soundscapes. The vocal harmony of Caner and Benn is a highlight of their natural presentation. Don Dixon’s (REM, Marti Jones, The Smithereens) production is clean and uncluttered, retaining the purity of the instruments and voices.
If Gillian Welch is a favourite, one should give serious consideration to the debut album from Ohio’s Hey Mavis.
Donald Teplyske is a local freelance writer who contributes a twice-monthly column on roots music; visit fervorcoulee.wordpress.com for additional reviews. If you know a roots music event of which he should be aware, contact him at fervorcoulee@shaw.ca