OUTSTANDING FOLK MUSIC
Sask. artists in the Big Easy
In the waning days of January, a New Orleans hotel was filled not with the sounds of swinging jazz for which the city is famous, but with folk music strings and the earthy tones of roots and Americana.
Artists talked in conference rooms and played together on small stages or simply in stairwells throughout the building. Among them were some of Saskatchewan’s top folk performers, representing the province on an international stage at one of the world’s biggest folk music events of the year.
“There’s so many really good musicians out there, that you kind of need to give people a reason to want to work with you,” said Geoff Smith of Saskatoon-based band Gunner and Smith. “It is kind of all connected.”
That’s what the Folk Alliance international conference is for — to give musicians a chance to connect, perform, and create together in an exclusive space.
As in many years past, Saskatchewan and its artists have done everything in their power to catapult themselves onto the world stage through Folk Alliance. The annual conference has plenty to offer musicians, and to a province that’s so often overlooked in the international spotlight. “It’s so important to our music community … to have that kind of stuff,” Regina-based singer-songwriter Valerie Raye said. “We’re not going to become players in the international industry by sitting at home.”
At its core, Folk Alliance is a celebration of music instead of a competition. The annual event is referred to as a conference because it doesn’t function like a festival open to public performance — it’s a long weekend of performances and showcases designed for performers to get in touch with other performers and industry professionals from around the world.
When Saskatchewan — or more precisely Saskmusic, the non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the province’s musicians — sends musicians to the conference, they don’t go alone. Saskmusic is one of the partners of the Breakout West showcase along with similar organizations from B.C.,
Alberta, and Manitoba. Each province sends musicians to perform as part of the same showcase stage — with Saskmusic getting funding through Creative Saskatchewan for the endeavour.
“It’s the largest gathering of folk-music folks in the world,” said Brittney Macfarlane of Saskmusic. “We really try to build it up … we are always doing the outreach ahead of time, making sure people come see the Saskatchewan artists.”
Macfarlane travelled with Saskatchewan’s 2020 conference representatives — Gunner and Smith, Valerie Raye, Poor Nameless Boy, and The North Sound — to keep things running smoothly.
As Macfarlane puts it, the conference is a golden opportunity for artists from Saskatchewan to show the level of artistry from the province.
“It’s a really great event. It’s unlike any other one we attend,” she said. “Just with it being in a hotel, and (artists) pulling all the mattresses out of hotel rooms and holding their own little showcases … it’s really cool.”
Saskatchewan artists can apply to go to Folk Alliance through Saskmusic every year, but not everyone gets in. Some fortunate musicians, like Gunner and Smith and Poor Nameless Boy’s Joel Henderson, have gone multiple times.
For the people at Saskmusic, it’s a great win-win. Saskatchewan artists get the chance to build new relationships, and the province’s music scene gets more chances to be seen by the world.
“I think it’s just showing the artists are worth investing in,” Macfarlane said.
The first time Joel Henderson went to Folk Alliance, his musical project Poor Nameless Boy was at a much earlier stage. He’d put out some music, but was still relatively new to the scene outside Saskatchewan and Canada.
What he didn’t know was that a label that had heard his music sent a representative to Folk Alliance that year to speak with him.
“When I went down thinking no one was anticipating me being there … the label ended up coming out and I ended up signing with them, and that’s who I’m with still,” Henderson said.
What sets Folk Alliance apart, as Henderson describes it, is the hotel setting. Most festivals or similar industry events have showcases at venues scattered throughout the host city, and it can be a challenge to get to multiple shows.
With all the official venues in a single building, it’s easy for musicians and industry professionals to check out plenty of talented performers.
For Valerie Raye, who spent the bulk of her career performing as the rock product Val Halla, Folk Alliance was a chance to restart her musical career. With a shift to a more folk-roots style as a singer-songwriter and using her real name as her performing name, Raye said she was struck by all the musicians who were just there to collaborate.
Jam sessions in the lobby, musicians writing and singing and playing together in hotel rooms and side halls — and the eclectic instrumentalists like the harp player and the guy playing a saw just like in the classic bluegrass bands — made for a perfect step in a new direction for Raye. “It’s like starting over,” she said. “Everyone who had ever gone told me there’s no way to really understand what it’s like until you go and experience it.”
Being able to take part in the conference felt like an “instant vote of confidence,” Raye said — and a near-perfect way to show the music world a new image.
“At the end of the day, I’ve always been a songwriter … for me, going to Folk Alliance is at the heart of what I’m doing,” she said.
As the Folk Alliance conference continues to grow, new opportunities arise for delegates.
One of those is the International Indigenous Music Summit, a recent partnership with the conference that provides keynote speakers and artist showcases from prominent Indigenous musicians.
For Forrest Eaglespeaker and The North Sound, having the summit in the same space as the Folk Alliance conference made a huge difference for him on both a personal and artist level.
“As an Indigenous person, it’s very important to me to have access to certain things, a certain way of doing things,” he said. “Having the summit there was very grounding … and I think that is a big piece a lot of non-indigenous people may not necessarily understand.”
Eaglespeaker attended the conference for the first time in 2020 on the suggestion of a friend. He’d already been producing music for years through The North Sound, but he, like Henderson, left the conference with an agent to help bring his sound into the United States.
Eaglespeaker noted the ability to network with other like-minded artists gave him some additional perspectives on his own music, and ideas he could bring home with him to Saskatoon.
“There’s a lot of artists I’d seen that were also going that I’m a really big fan of, so I was really excited … to be a part of a global community,” he said. “I ended up coming home with a booking agent.”
With the goal of exporting The North Sound’s music beyond Canadian borders, this year’s Folk Alliance could only be considered a success for Eaglespeaker. And like other artists before him, he said he’ll try to go back again.
Outside the New Orleans hotel that hosted the conference was the heart of the French Quarter: restaurants, shops, bars, and all sorts of history to take in.
The conference might focus on making music and showing off talent, but part of forging new connections at Folk Alliance means spending time with them outside of showcases, too.
“One of the great things about Folk Alliance is you’re all just walking up and down these hallways and you meet the most random people,” Smith said. “I find you build friendships at this thing in a way that is hard at any other showcase, because you’re in it together for so much of the day.” Smith complimented Saskmusic for helping create a strong camaraderie among the musicians from Saskatchewan, adding that the whole event is “an experience you can’t really replicate.”
“Saskatchewan does an excellent job of supporting their artists to go and perform internationally,” he said. “I think for us, the level of support we get provincially means that when we go we definitely feel like we’re representing Saskatchewan.”