Live music abounds on August long weekend

Jeff Green | Aug 04, 2011

 by Julie Druker and Jeff Green

Local music lovers had a smorgasbord of live music choices to feast on this past weekend as no less than three high quality music festivals offered listeners a eclectic mix of top notch music from a huge roster of talented players from near and far.

Photo: Calum Graham at the 7th Annual Canadian Guitar and Finger competition festival

On Friday night the place to be was the 7th Annual Canadian Guitar and Finger competition festival held at the Loughborough Lake Park located just south of Sydenham. The festival opened with rising star, 19-year-old Calum Graham of High River, Alberta. Graham was last year’s winner of the festival’s finger competition and he not only dazzled the 400 plus crowd with his prowess on his original instrumental compositions like The Channel and Indivisible but also added his newly found voice to the mix, saying “There's more music in me than just the guitar can handle.” Indeed. It’s hard to imagine that Calum has been playing guitar for five years and singing for just one. His original vocal/guitar tunes like Double Vision, a mellow, reflective, slowly strummed rhythmic musing on the effects of female beauty, proves the words of many music predictors right when they say that his oozing talent points him directly to the world stage. Calum’s star qualities shine brightest when he is using all three of his triple treats, i.e. writing, singing and playing his songs. His first instrumental CD, Sunny Side Up will soon be followed by a second to be produced by Joe Cocker’s production team. It will include Calum's new vocal works.

Next up was the fire-fingered Chicago guitar duo Andreas Kapsalis and Goran Ivanovic, whose old-world inspired sounds awed the crowd with their emotional and musical depth. The two players are well-known and highly respected; each is a virtuoso in his own right, and they covered diverse ground with original tunes like Shattered, a ballad played in minors and inspired by some of their diverse musical influences, which include Paul Simon, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Beethoven and Chopin. Shattered demonstrated their tendency to break new musical ground by creating never-before existing genres. Other originals are more playful, like Karate, inspired by old Kung Fu and Karate movies’ soundtracks.

On a mellower, more traditional note was Gregory Hoskins who rounded out Friday’s line up by playing a number of his pop-inspired tunes that have a bit of the Paul Simon swing to them. Gregory is a natural-born crooner and front man and the crowd lapped up every single one of his toe-tapping nifty ditties.

Last up was finger-picking Canadian guitar legend and guru Don Ross, who as usual dazzled the crowd with his genius. Ross' wife Brooke Miller joined him onstage for a few tunes, after which Ross revisited some of his old stomping ground with tunes like Loaded Leather Moon, a love child kind of an oldie that he described as “Pat Metheney meets ZZ Top in a bar.” Ross regularly plays as the festival’s Friday night headliner, which is fitting since it was in his living room that he and organizer Del hatched the idea for the first ever Canadian Guitar festival years ago.

Flinton Jamboree

Photo: H'SAO were one of the headliners at the Blue Skies Festival in Clarendon.

Mean while on Sunday in Flinton, the 7th Annual Flinton Jamboree was close to winding down though some would argue that some of the best acts were saved for the last. When I arrived mid-day, the Blue River Band was finishing up their rousing set with classic bluegrass tunes like Old House Down the Hill, I'll Fly Away and a new version of Hallelujah Trail. The five-piece band sings close, pitch-perfect harmonies and all five players are virtuosos on their instruments, which include, banjo, bass, guitar and fiddle. Young local talents also had a chance to shine and I caught a few tunes by Shayne Arney, younger brother of Dallas Arney both of whom sang before a very enthusiastic Sunday crowd. The event was a near sellout once again and the Flinton festival, which has been growing steadily since it began, is continuing to attract fine talent and an appreciative audience from far and wide.

Blue Skies in Clarendon

Photo: H'SAO were one of the headliners at the Blue Skies Festival in Clarendon.

Blue Skies Music Festival artistic director Joel Leblanc finished his three-year long stint last weekend by presenting a line-up that successfully fused the desire of festival goers for some of the old-style folk tradition that the festival was known for in its early years with an impressive variety of different musical styles and personalities coming from all corners of the world; including Africa, Australia, and northern Canada.

The 38-year-old festival still draws some people who came in the first year or two, and their grandchildren (and perhaps great grandchildren) come as well, so the task for an artistic director is to bridge a massive age gap.

Joel Leblanc did it this year by making the assumption that any kind of music, no matter how introspective or how loud and electronic, can be listened to by anyone as long as the music is performed with integrity, skill, and rhythm.

So, some teenagers ended up being exposed to 59-year-old Canadian/American folk singer Ferron, who accompanied herself on guitar even though she was hindered by a bruised finger (she is not a very good carpenter, so she said). Not only did Ferron sing some very moving songs from her vast repertoires, she demonstrating a biting wit, saving her best barbs for herself, but not sparing the audience either.

Among the other solo acts were Canadian Danny Michel and 20-year-old Australian Kim Churchill, who both used instrumentation and looping techniques to produce a big sound without a backup band.

Among the highlights of the weekend were H’SAO, an Afro R&B band from Chad via Montreal; Donne Roberts and his band from Madagascar/Russia/Toronto; Leela Gilday from Yellowknife; Inuit Throat singers Siqiniup Qilauta (Linda Brown and Heidi Langille); and Lehera with Sarah (an Indian/Swiss jazz fusion band). John Showman of New Country Rehab and Jaron Freeman Fox of the Opposite of Everything are very different kinds of fiddle players, but they both have the rare distinction of being lead vocalists who play the fiddle while singing.

A lot more can be said about the music at the 38th Blue Skies Music Festival but to sum up, Joel Leblanc went out with a bang.

He is taking over as Artistic Director of the Stewart Park Music Festival in Perth next year. Lucky Perth.