We may have recently lost her to bright lights and bigger venues found in Calgary, but musician Amelie Patterson knows where her roots are and is taking the skills she honed on Banff stages to the next level.
Patterson is taking part in CBC Music’s 2015 Searchlight contest with the entry of her song “Don’t Ask Me,” a haunting folk ballad most listeners would believe was penned by someone twice her age. But it’s easy to tease Patterson for being a fifty-year-old woman trapped in a twenty-something’s body due to her tastes for “good scotch, Van Morrison and The Band.
“I was thinking about how cool it is to be from a community and come from a community like Banff and Canmore,” Patterson said. “I was born and raised in Banff and there are times that I forget about that a little bit – it makes my head spin sometimes thinking that’s where I grew up and having a community that’s just so varied you can reach out anytime and there’s just someone there and so much going on.”
Patterson is also a Banff Centre alumnus, having taken part in a residency in September and October of 2014, and feels pretty humbled for having been able to take part in such an experience in her hometown.
“It’s not just your local community centre, it’s an international centre for art and when I was up there doing my residency I couldn’t have been more thankful to them,” Patterson said. “They’re definitely the first people I’ve encountered that took me seriously as an artist and it was an amazing, incredible experience; there’s probably something cool going on right now there as we speak.”
Patterson says the uniqueness and open space found in the Bow Valley helps breed people to be eccentric, enigmatic and interesting, but she’s also enjoying the perks found in her new city.
“I’m just trying to get to know it and give it a chance. I’m definitely not a city girl, but I’ve been really enjoying the music scene and people in Calgary are so friendly, it’s incredible,” Patterson said. “I find the thing for people to do in Calgary is go out, so the people I play for are so friendly and want you to be good and want to enjoy the show and that’s the city for me.”
Her friend, professional skier Tatum Monod, was the one who first told Patterson about the CBC Searchlight contest and pushed her into applying.
“My family always enjoyed my music, but it’s always been my friends that have pushed me and told me I have to do something with my music,” she said. “They already had a thousand people signed in and I thought whatever, but then I started reading about it and I think CBC has done a really beautiful job of recognizing that they can’t support all of these musicians because there’s thousands of entries.
“What I think is really cool is I get emails from them saying, ‘Don’t just pump yourself, go through and listen to these musicians and make a playlist and share it with your friends.’ They’re using a different platform for showing Canada how much talent in our music there is.”
Visit, http://music.cbc.ca/#!/play/artist/Amelie-Patterson/Dont-Ask-Me to vote for Patterson’s song “Don’t Ask Me.” The public can vote once each day up to April 13 for the first round of regional voting.
