As Flin Flon and area gears up for Culture Days, Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, take time out to begin the celebration of Home Routes/Chemin Chez Nous 10th Anniversary Season.
The Home Routes tours have brought exceptional folk-roots performers to Flin Flon and the North for the past eight years (we missed the first season). The 10th anniversary season promises to be spectacular.
In the beginning, the artists would arrive in Flin Flon, have a meal and play their show in the family room at the Spencers’ home. They would stay overnight and head out again by lunch time the next day, because they had a long drive to their next stop, in Swan River.
In the first couple of years we had audiences of 35 to 40 people, all highly appreciative to the performers for coming all this way.
By the third and fourth years, the word was getting out and the audience was getting bigger.
We had a show by Meghan Blanchard from Prince Edward Island (some of you will recognize her from the Eastern Belles trio who were in Flin Flon last year with the Manitoba Arts Network Showcase Conference) with 53 people crammed into the basement! That was a bit too much and the decision was made to ask for two performances in Flin Flon.
Ann Ross and Doug McGregor stepped up to host the second night and the audiences were able to choose their venue and their date for each show. Audiences were still growing, though, and in each of the last two seasons we have had audiences of over 50 people at each home.
For audience comfort, we moved a couple of performers to Johnny’s Social Club. A serendipitous discovery of these events is that some folks prefer to come to Johnny’s for their evening out.
That has led to the latest innovation in Home Routes/Chemin Chez Nous programming. In this 10th year, there will be one “Home: and one alternate “Roots” venue available for each show. All other aspects will be the same: same cost ($20 per person), same months for performances (September, October and November, then February, March and April 2017), and same great entertainment value – but audiences will be able to buy tickets for Johnny’s Social Club (yes, seats are numbered) at the Arts Council box office in Northern Rainbow’s End.
At last check, only 12 of 75 tickets had been sold, so get on down to pick the best seats! The dates are this Friday, Sept. 23 at 183 Merton Blvd and Saturday, Sept. 24 at Johnny’s Social Club, 177 Green Street.
Bet you would like to know who is coming! Don’t worry, I’ll tell you. First up is Oh Susanna from Toronto. Suzie Ungerleider began performing as Oh Susanna in the 1990s, the name serving as a bit of an homage to the sounds of early 20th century roots music, folk, country and blues.
Suzie’s songs tell stories of troubled souls and rebels, longing and love, joy and pain. Songs of the hearts people.
She was born in Massachusetts but grew up in Vancouver. She left her job at a library after a cassette tape she recorded for $200 (for 50 copies) caught the ear of the music industry. She was recording alt-country before that was even “a thing.” It is very definitely a thing now.
Suzie recorded and released five albums between 1999 and 2011, was nominated for Juno awards in 2004, 2009 and 2011, and Canadian Folk Music awards in 2007 and 2015 (Solo Artist of the Year). Suzie won the CBC Great Canadian Song Quest in 2009.
Suzie Ungerleider was a great songwriter on the cusp of tremendous success with her new album project in 2011. She had an idea to do a record of cover songs, written by her friends.
She contacted some of them who just happened to be among the best folk-roots performers in the country, people like Ron Sexsmith, Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo, Joel Plasket, Old Man Luedecke, Keri Latimer and The Good Lovelies (these last two have already been to Flin Flon to perform).
The process of getting the songs together, honing them to Suzie’s voice and recording, began in 2012 and was nearing completion in the spring of 2013 when she received a diagnosis of breast cancer.
Production was halted as she had treatment and recovered. Now back in the swing of her career, she will present “Namedropper,” along with other songs, at Johnny’s Social Club, Flin Flon, this Saturday, Sept. 24. Doors open at 7 pm and music begins at 7:30 pm. Tickets at Northern Rainbow’s End. Listen to CFAR for some of the songs from the album.
