Stanfest
brings Canso to life
Warm weather, hot tunes hook more than 5,000 music lovers
on opening night
By ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER
CANSO
Ten is proving to be a magic number for the Stan Rogers Folk
Festival, as the 10th anniversary edition got off to a rousing
start on Friday night.
The
festival in the remote Guysborough fishing town enjoyed one
of its largest opening night crowds yet, with roughly 5,000
attendees cramming the local sports field for an evening of
folk, blues, bluegrass, country and old time rock and roll.
The
weather gods agreed, and despite downpours earlier in the
day, the rain moved on in time for the evening’s mainstage
show, which started with a sort-of songwriters circle with
Oregon’s Kelly Joe Phelps and Nova Scotian RyLee Madison
(participant Luke Doucet was held up by flight delays in Ontario)
sharing tunes and tales.
Madison’s
good natured, rolling melody That’s Family seemed like
an appropriate ode to the Stanfest experienced, as shared
by performers, organizers, volunteers and listeners.
Phelps
countered with a dark ballad about a shoeshine man brooding
over missed opportunities with a bottle of Jim Beam, punctuated
with his dazzling blues fingerpicking.
"My
guitar didn’t come with all those notes," Madison
commented in awe.
Guitar
skills of a different kind highlighted a set by Karen Savoca,
as her guitarist Peter Heitzman coaxed all manner of sounds
out of his acoustic six-string, from clear bell tones to atmospheric
waves of sound. For her part, Savoca sang with a multi-textured
voice capable of pure notes and gutteral growls, digging deep
on Love Is A Hammer, but tempting fate when she sang "Grab
the clothes off the line, there’s a storm coming in."
If
anything, skies brightened for James Keelaghan, who bemoaned
the loss of his guitar by Air Canada by singing a romantic
song about rail travel on Harvest Train from his latest CD,
A Few Simple Verses.
The
rough velvet-voiced prairie balladeer had a working man theme
to much of his set, from a song about the Hillcrest mining
disaster to the story of a fire jumper in 1949 Montana who
must live with the death of his crew members who didn’t
take his advice in the midst of a blaze. Keelaghan has a way
of painting pictures of people dealing with life at its cruelest,
summed up by the mournful Hard Times.
Old-time
music got a lively retrofit from the next two acts, with New
York bluesman Guy Davis mixing classics by Mississippi John
Hurt and St. Louis Jimmy with originals like Chocolate Man
and Shaky Pudding, accentuating the lyrics’ sexy double
meaning and telling tales in forceful dramatic style.
Winnipeg’s
D Rangers tackled bluegrass with firey elan, in matching cowboy
shirts and with punk-like energy. Their barnstorming style
breathed new life into Del Shannon’s Runaway, while
an ode to their old $400 van which blew up in a field in Saskatchewan
ran on all eight cylinders.
Stanfest’s
coup of getting Pictou County country star George Canyon on
its stage, with longtime musical compadre Dave Gunning, was
heartily appreciated by the crowd, with (largely female) shouts
of "WE LOVE YOU GEORGE!" filling the air.
The
pair traded off on each other’s songs, with Gunning
telling heartwarming tales in Twitter’s Song and Saltwater
Hearts, while Canyon proved equally adept at stirring emotion
with Sacrifice, inspired by his coal mining grandfather who
succumbed to black lung disease.
Gunning
offered Canyon a hearty Canso welcome with the gift of a pair
of red flannel Stansfield longjohns, with "Daddy’s
PJs" emblazoned on the back. "I’m gonna slip
into these if you don’t mind," grinned Canyon.
Judging by the reaction of his female fans, they didn’t
mind.
Calgary
rock legends the Stampeders closed off the night with ’70s
stompers like Devil You and Sweet City Woman as the cool Atlantic
fog swept over the concert site. The trio had the crowd up
and dancing to Hit the Road Jack, while the less hardy took
the song as their cue to head back to their tents and trailers
and rest up for a full Saturday of workshops and mainstage
performances.
Blessed
with a day full of sunshine and ocean breezes, Stanfest attendees
got a world of music dropped in their laps, from the hot body-moving
African jive of Halifax’s Afro Musica to the spine-chilling
harmonies of Denmark’s Karen + Helene, who can enthrall
a crowd with the emotional range of their a capella voices.
A
powerhouse trio of guitarists and singers — Luke Doucet,
Matt Andersen and Garnet Rogers — shared licks and laughs
in the Song Swap on the Queensport Stage, with Rogers’
tale of middle-aged seduction in a festival tent fueled by
"Musquodoboit Valley pinot noir" a memorable highlight.
But
Doucet held his own with the tongue-in-cheek I Wish I Was
American, and Andersen’s full-throated wail on When
My Angel Gets the Blues served as another reminder that the
Perth-Andover native needs to get a new studio album out pronto.
The
distaff side of the equation also summoned up good times in
a workshop titled Les Femmes, with D.C.-born, B.C.-based Hayley
Sales playing off the sun’s appearance with All Roads
Lead to Jamaica, while Toronto firebrand Ember Swift explored
the politics of food on Witness.
"The
more I know about food, the less I want to eat," she
proclaimed as lunchtime approached, a reminder that food for
thought is as important as what you eat.
Entertainment
Reporter Stephen Cooke will be filing daily reports from the
10th annual Stan Rogers Folk Festival.
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