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Calgary Folk Club
Newsletter
Highlights in this edition:
■ April Concerts - Including Patrons' Night, April 29th!
■ Season 45 Preview!
■ Trout Fishing in America - Children's Concert April 16th!
■ Backstage with The Young Novelists
■ Backstage with David Roth
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Be Sure to Get Your Tickets!
Thanks to the support of our members and guests, every show in the first half of Season 44 sold out! Only two shows remain in the second half of season, so plan ahead to make sure that you don't miss out on any of the great music coming our way on these final dates! And if you're planning to invite friends or family to these shows, don't let their popularity put a crimp in your plans! Tickets for every individual show - including special events hosted by the Calgary Folk Club - can be purchased at
calgaryfolkclub.com, or by calling
1-888-655-9090.
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COMING
ON APRIL 15
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Trout Fishing in America 
Trout Fishing in America
is the long-standing and yet seemingly unlikely musical partnership of Keith Grimwood(bass) and Ezra Idlet (guitar and banjo). As individuals, they are about as different as one can imagine. Together, they blend seamlessly in a way that has captured the imagination (and hearts) of audiences of all ages for over three decades. Their recordings have garnered three National Indie Awards, multiple Parents Choice and NAPPA Gold awards, the American Library Award, as well as four Grammy nominations. Their willingness to make fun of our most annoying habits in one song, then touch our hearts with tender and passionate images of family life in the next is what makes the connection between Trout Fishing in America and their audience so real.
troutmusic.com
The Doll Sisters 
Hailing from the rolling foothills of Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, The Doll Sisters are a fiery Celtic Americana duo who weave haunting harmonies and stellar songwriting together to create an unforgettable experience for their audience. As skillful multi-instrumentalists on guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and bodhrán, Shelby and Jenna Leigh Doll tirelessly strive to push the boundaries of their musicianship. Fusing together influences from their rich Irish and Scottish heritage, as well as elements from roots and rock, they have created a signature sound that is uniquely their own, and which has drawn them comparisons ranging from Heart to Alison Krauss to The Civil Wars. Their Rankin-esque harmonies easily conjure up images of moonlit mountains and misty, rain-soaked hills, backed by the fierceness of Shelby's soaring fiddle and Jenna's rhythmic and adaptive intensity on guitar. The dynamism and connection between the duo captivates audiences, drawing them in from the beginning to the end. dollsisters.com
AND ON APRIL 16:
Children's Concert with Trout Fishing in America!
For more details on this special event, please keep scrolling to the Children's Concert feature!
APRIL 29:
Patrons' Night!
Come out to see and hear some of your folk club table neighbours strut their musical stuff at our Patrons' Night event. This extra concert evening is provided at no charge to our Season Pass holders, and promises to be an exciting evening for all. The closing set will be an opportunity to sing along in the old Colonial Boys tradition.
The evening lineup features: Diana Brent, Ted Glenn, Paul Palaschuk, Alan and Shirley Davis, Gold Gentlemen (barbershop), Dan Smith and Shannon, Joanna Drummond, Phil Hoffman, Dave Foster,
Verne Luchinski, and Pam and the Boys.
Invite your family and friends along to this lively, home-grown evening. Tickets for non-pass-holders are $10, and are available for purchase at the April 15th club, or at the door on April 29th.
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Congratulations to Pharis and Jason Romero!
The Calgary Folk Club would like to extend its heartfelt congratulations to Pharis and Jason Romero for taking home the 2016 JUNO Award for Traditional Roots Album of the Year, for their work, "A Wanderer I'll Stay." With this latest honour capping off a long list of accolades, it's certain that these stellar musicians have nowhere to go but up, and we wish them nothing but the best for the future.
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Get Ready for Season 45 - Lineup Season Pass Info!
We're excited to offer a preview of the Season 45 lineup!
Thanks to the dedication of our artistic director, Suze Casey, we're going to be able to bring you some absolutely stellar acts next season, and we can promise an absolutely stellar experience during the 45th anniversary year of the Calgary Folk Club. You'll notice that we have more names for you than were available in our last newsletter, including many of our exciting first-up acts!
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February 24: Jeffrey Straker (Saskatchewan)
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If you're one of the many folkies who would be eager to see every show on that impressive roster - and who could blame you? - you'll be able to find information about purchasing Season 45 Passes on the Tickets page of our website at
calgaryfolkclub.com. Current Season Pass holders have until April 29 to renew their Pass for the coming season, and can pay by post-dated cheque or e-transfer. Prospective new Season Pass holders are encouraged to submit post-dated cheques as soon as possible to ensure the greatest likelihood of securing a Pass. As we don't know right away how many Passes we will have to issue to new Season Pass holders, we cannot accept e-transfers for this purpose. Please see our
website for full details!
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Trout Fishing In America - Children's Concert April 16th!
Bring the family to this exciting family afternoon, presented by the Calgary Folk Club!
This is music for people who take their fun seriously.
For three decades, four-time Grammy award nominees Trout Fishing in America have been performing music that gets kids and adults alike singing and bouncing along, and have produced a pair of hilarious "Chicken Joe" children's books and their accompanying CDs.
The arresting physical appearance of the duo is also enthralling to youngsters: Ezra Idlet stands at a whopping 6'8" tall, with Keith Grimwood a startling 14 inches shorter than his bandmate. Playfully creative, their delightful and outstanding music has won multiple Parents Choice Gold and American Library awards, and been nominated for four Grammys. With songs like My Hair Had a Party Last Night and When I Was a Dinosaur, Grimwood and Idlet are "the Lennon and McCartney of kids music," according to Kathy O'Connell of NPR.
This event is hosted by the Calgary Folk Club and co-sponsored by the Dalhousie Community Association.
The festivities begin at 1:30 on Saturday the 16th of April- the day after the final concert of Season 44. For tickets and more information, please visit our
website.
But don't take our word for it. Friend of the club, Dan St.Yves, has an interview with Trout Fishing in America for the Calgary Herald. Dan writes:
- They are a popular American band that appeals to kids as much as they do to their parents.
- The duo have been nominated for four Grammy Awards, have won multiple Parents' Choice Awards, along with an American Library Award.
- Like many popular cartoon characters, the duo has a visual advantage that appeals to kids. Like the animated cat and mouse Tom & Jerry, "Tom" (Ezra Idlet) stretches the ruler to 6'8", while "Jerry" (Keith Grimwood) ascends to around 5'5 1/2". Interestingly enough Tom & Jerry was the original name of Simon & Garfunkel, also relatively popular musicians...
Trout Fishing In America will bring their widely popular and enduring act to Calgary for a special Children's Concert in collaboration with The Calgary Folk Club and The Dalhousie Community Association Saturday, April 16th, at 1:30 PM."
To read the full article, head on over to the
Calgary Herald's website
! And, of course, for more information, or tickets to this special event presented by the Calgary Folk Club, visit our website at
calgaryfolkclub.com
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Backstage with The Young Novelists
Calgary Folk Club:
So, this is your first performing in Calgary, and naturally your first time at th
e Folk Club - what are your quick impressions of the venue?
Graydon James: Just a really fantastic vibe. We do a sing along at the end of a lot of shows, and it always works - people always do sing. But we started it here, and it was like an immediate
fwoop!
They were just ready to sing. Such strong and good singers - it's really kind of amazing. You get like a church choir effect.
Laura Spink: Even when we just got here, like we arrived for sound-check - everybody was so organized, all of the volunteers.
GJ: That's not the experience for folk music in general.
LS: It was just so impressive, and there was a kind of buzz in the room. Everyone was doing their job, and they were happy to be there, it was really lovely. ... That was our first impression of being here - seeing this army of people who had this job to do, and for the overarching cause of supporting music, which is really awesome.
CFC: How is it, touring with a young child to look after?
GJ: It's pretty good, actually. It's something that forces you to tour a little differently - you have to see a bit more, you have to take a bit more breaks, which is probably a good thing.
LS: It is a good thing. When it's just the two of us, we'll drive eight hours straight, and stop for gas and just keep going, and not really necessarily take in each moment.
GJ: Yeah, or take in the city in any real way. It's kind of amazing to be able to actually see some of the places that you're going to. You kind of have to with a kid - they get up early, they want to see things and do stuff, and it's kind of an awesome thing.
CFC: Could you tell us a bit about the partnership with the Centre for Addiction and Mental health?
GJ: There's actually a company that partners musicians with charitable organizations - it's sort of a mutual benefit thing. You go around and spread awareness and talk about the cause, and the charity helps you with tour expenses. It kind of is a win-win for everybody.
LS: It's a trial basis - we're working to see if it's something that's beneficial for them, and for us. There's a lot of different causes that you can align yourself with, so the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health was something that really resonated with us - that was a cause we really wanted to support. ... Everybody knows somebody, or a handful of people. A bunch of folks from different shows have talked to us about their kids, or their uncle, or their dad, and I don't think I realized how much it would resonate with people. ... We have a public health care system in Canada where, if you get cancer, you have a lot of the care covered. If you're struggling with depression, you have to wait months to be able to get in to see a therapist, and that's not the way it should be.
GJ: It's kind of like a quiet epidemic. It's pretty widespread, and pretty ... debilitating.
CFC: Any final thoughts?
GJ: Calgary is amazing! It's my first time here, and I like it a lot.
LS: We definitely have plans to be back!
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Backstage with David Roth
Calgary Folk Club:
I was really interested in your ethos of embracing imperfection - where does that come from, and how does that influence your work?
David Roth: The words that are coming to my mind as you ask that are; "regaining permission." Somewhere along life's way, some exterior forces, whether consciously or not, give out messages of "you can't do that," or "that's only for professionals" ... I've never felt like a gifted person, but I know how to work hard. ... I've seen musicians ... beating themselves up for playing quote-unquote a wrong note, or just not doing something as well as they feel like they could have, and that couldn't be more opposite of what I believe music is. I'm not the person who sits around and practices for hours everyday - it translates into something that may be a little bit sloppy at times, but the tradeoff is something more spirited. Just more alive, and more human. ... I've been working with that concept for a long time, to remind myself to give myself the permission that I like to give others.
CFC:
As opposed to rote learning and muscle memory.
DR:
What contributes most to the art of folk music is life experience. If you wrote songs, you would write songs unlike anybody else in the world, because of the lenses through which you view it. Your life experience is going to cause you to see things differently, and that's the beauty of creating art. Art cannot be judged or compared, although people would do it.
CFC: A lot of your songs have something of a progressive bent, much like other folk greats you mentioned on stage - Pete Seeger, Woodie Guthrie. Did the genre and the subject matter dovetail for you?
DR: What really got me into folk music was listening to Peter, Paul, and Mary, and the late great Steve Goodman. Hearing a song like Don Quixote, by Gordon Lightfoot, there's a master's degree right there in social commentary, beautiful music, and incredible guitar playing. And I remember being drawn into that song by the guitar work of Terry Clements. I remember their names, because I memorized every note they ever played, before I even understood what they were writing about - the songs just drew me in musically. And then when I started getting a handle on what they were writing about, yeah, this resonates with me. And without generalizing, which means I'm going to, folk music has a cachet of being for 'everyman'. And 'everywoman'. The regular people of the world. You picked up on it tonight - I love it when people feel connected to each other, and feel that we have more in common than we have different. Yet, we get these messages in our media of our differences.
CFC: Would you like to comment on your four visits to the Club, and your experiences playing here?
DR: Very loving audience, one of the strongest audience communities of any of the places I play, because they come back every two weeks ... religiously. And it's as much to be here with each other as it is to say, "oh, so-and-so's playing here tonight." And it's less of a star system than in the states, where who's playing depends on who's going. Here, it's the club, and people are going to be part of the club, and I think that's beautiful. Not quite so evident in my country. ... [The amount of volunteers] speaks volumes, that that many people would come to support this, and help it happen, because it couldn't happen without this army of people doing all these things. ... People like here at the Calgary Folk Club make me feel at home, when I'm not home, and that's no small thing.
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Connect with Us!
Tune in to Alberta's vibrant folk music scene!
For concert videos, interviews with your favourite artists, and a wealth of information about your favourite Calgary Folk Club alumni and upcoming performers, come join the conversation on
Facebook,
Twitter,
Instagram, and
YouTube.
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