Friends and local musicians J.F. Smith, Jake Parris and Deep Cedar (Lee Appleby) will be offering a singer/songwriter performance this Monday (April 24), showcasing original material.
Friends and local musicians J.F. Smith, Jake Parris and Deep Cedar (Lee Appleby) will be offering a singer/songwriter performance this Monday (April 24), showcasing original material.
The event is presented by Pine Tree Players and produced by fellow local musician Samm Bailey.
“We're going to have to bring everything we have to the table and it's exciting for sure,” said Parris. “Josh does a lot of rock ‘n' roll, he's an awesome solo guitarist and been playing a longtime in the valley. I just got back into the valley music culture when I came back; he has a completely different style to Lee and to me. We're all so different, none of us are going to be the same and all of us have a different views with each other's writing what will also be nice is that it will be like a big open mic.”
Parris had left the valley, but recently returned and taken up performing at local venues. When he came back to Canmore, it was young and old, folk and blues, offering a different vibrant music community to get involved with.
“When I came back to town nobody really knew me and I didn't really know anybody else beside a couple of people I grew up with, but it was cool to see the town from an outside view, so that made it easy to write because you were just watching the town and different people and I started writing an album,” Parris said.
He hasn't recorded it yet, but its called Honest Town and offers 100 per cent true stories from the valley.
“I've never really written anything that was 100 per cent honest, but it was a challenge for me to write songs that were 100 per cent honest that I could share with the people that I wrote about the people in Canmore,” Parris said.
With his singer/songwriter concert set coming from Honest Town, local audience members might find themselves, or someone they know, in one of Parris‘ songs. A couple of people have offered to help recording Honest Town, and hopefully after the showcase even more offers will come forward.
“Hopefully one day I can chip away it, 12 songs about people in Canmore. Each song has a story to it about the people, and talking about how I've grown in the last year out here,” Parris said. “A lot of people have influenced my music and I don't think they know that, so playing songs for them about a lot of these people, so it's talking about the growth, and writing this album, where I came from in the past and get to share that now with a local audience.
“It was the openness and being able to see the town from a third eye view and not being scared to be brutally honest and say it with words that are still sticking to the meaning that was a big challenge in my writing and for me it means being able to give back to the community. I love to volunteer in the community and when I was in between jobs this year all I did was volunteer like crazy and I got to meet so many cool people and meet the town face-to-face, and hopefully for the summertime I'll be able to put a spark into youth involvement for volunteering.”
Pine Tree Players Singer/Songwriter Series featuring J.F. Smith, Jake Parris and Deep Cedar takes place Monday (April 24) at Canmore Miners' Union Hall. Doors open at 7 p.m., show starts at 7:30 p.m. $10 at the door, with al ages welcome and cash bar. All proceeds go to the Pine Tree Players Education Fund.
