Terri Clark saying thanks with tour
Terri Clark says thank you to public with her Back to My Roots tour
It’s always nice when you can take a break, relax and get away entirely from your work.
You know, do something completely different.
So on this particular day, what’s supposed to be a day off for Canadian country star Terri Clark from her current cross-country tour, she’s spending it talking about herself. That’s nice, right? “I spend two hours every night talking about myself,” the Alberta artist says with a laugh.
“I’m definitely going to be sick about talking about myself in November after 41 of these, but I’m really enjoying it.”
The 41 of these to which she’s referring are the dates on this current tour, which is a strippeddown, solo acoustic evening titled Back to My Roots.
It finds the likable Clark singing, playing and talking with the audience about her music, as well as the path she’s travelled — from growing up in Medicine Hat to making her way down to Nashville, the chart-topping North American singles, the trio of Juno Awards and being welcomed into the Grand Ole Opry.
Although she has done some unplugged shows previously, this concert format is a first in her two-decade-plus career and it’s allowed her to switch things up and keep things interesting, for herself and her fans.
“I just wanted to do something different,” she says of the reasoning behind it.
“I’m not promoting a new record, I’m not promoting a book or a TV show or anything. This is basically the journey and the walk and the retrospective of my entire career and a big thank you to the people across Canada.”
She calls it the “most authentic, pull-the-curtain-back” experience she’s ever had and admits she’s feeling reinvigorated by it, calling it “gratifying and humbling.”
A great deal of that, she says, is due to the audience in front of her and the interactions this kind of show allows for.
“Every night feels like the first night, it feels fresh, it’s not gotten stale or old or tired feeling for me yet, because every audience is unique and individual and have different responses every night,” Clark says, noting that this tour has taken her to places she couldn’t even find on a map and has seen her playing high school gymnasiums in small, rural centres.
“And the show is a little different every night, too. I don’t say the exact same thing or say the exact same thing the same way.”
That’s spurred, as well, by the Q&A session that follows every show, with Clark taking questions from the audience for anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour.
Despite being an artist who has always admittedly said it like it is, Clark says removing the buffer has made for a much more intimate experience and allowed for a deeper connection.
As to the inherent danger in giving the crowd a metaphorical loaded gun to ask her anything they want, she laughs again.
“Well, that’s why we have a moderator,” she says. “We’ve had some spirited question-askers depending on the level of alcohol in the building.”
She says for the most part people have been very “respectful” with some “unique” questions including “a few marriage proposals, which get them nowhere.”
Of course, things could get a little more interesting when she heads back to her old stomping ground, including for a show Thursday night in Calgary at the Grey Eagle Event Centre. Is she worried? “I don’t really know. Maybe if somebody out in the audience is from my graduating class, I don’t know. I’ve seem some of those across the country, I’ve seen some yearbooks.”
Likely she’ll see a few more by the time the tour wraps up in Vancouver in the middle of the month.
After that, Clark has a couple of one-off dates before the end of the year and she’ll also return to something that really is different from her work — talking about other people’s careers.
She hosts a radio show titled Country Gold, which is syndicated and airs on more than 100 stations in the United States, and appears on CFCW in Alberta.
The program allows her to explore C& W from the ’80s and ’90s, the music that influenced her and shaped her career and that scene that she was part of.
As to her own music and when she’ll return to that, she says fans can expect her first batch of new material since 2014’s Some Songs some time next year.
“I don’t know that I’ll make a whole record, it might be an EP,” she says, noting how much country has become a singles-driven format lately.
“I’ll probably start recording something next year at some point. It won’t be early next year, I’m still in the writing process … It’s all dependent on having the songs.
“But, yeah, I’m going to go back in and start recording some stuff next year. Whether it gets played on the radio or not, or goes gangbusters, it’s something I have to do for me.
“I’m creative and I have to keep creating.”