The Heartwood Folk Club is getting set for the second show of their spring season March 9 with Tri-Continental, a band bringing blues, roots and world music together.
The group — which is made up of Bill Bourne, Lester Quitzau, Madagascar Slim and Michael “Barefoot” Treadway — will perform songs from their new album Dust Dance, which was just nominated for the 2019 International Folk Music Awards Album of the Year prize.
Heartwood member Wayne Brehaut stated in an email that the group formed in 2000 and blends the talents of the three accomplished guitar players, singers and songwriters into a one-of-a-kind blues-folk-world music mélange.
“As always, I’m always quite excited,” said Heartwood artistic director Peter Opryshko in an interview. “And quite concerned. Are we going to get a crowd, is the weather going to be alright?”
He pointed out members of the band had played in Athabasca before in different capacities, but never as a group.
“It should be good,” he said.
In an interview, Quitzau said he was excited to return to the Athabasca area.
Originally from Edmonton, the folk and blues guitarist said he spent a lot of time in his youth at a cabin in Baptiste Lake, passing through Athabasca on weekends on his way up.
“I’m sure it’s a small city by now,” he said. “I played (in Athabasca 10-15 years ago with May, my wife.”
He said he remembered the bakery where they always stopped for warm doughnuts, and the Burger Bar where they stopped for ice cream covered in strawberries.
Quitzau also said he had memories of looking longingly through the window of the hardware store in Athabasca at the Fender guitar they had on display.
“This would have been in 1970, the early 1970s,” he said. “I always dreamed of having an electric guitar, and that was a part of the whole playing music dream, drooling over this guitar through the window of a hardware store. They don’t sell guitars in hardware stores anymore, that’s for sure.”
He said music seems to be this thing that everyone connects with, an unwritten language. He said at this concert they will be featuring the new music from Dust Dance along with old tunes.
“We’ve taken a break, and this is sort of a new chapter for us,” he said. “We enjoy playing with each other more than ever … It’s something magical. Any opportunity to play, I cherish that. When we walk away from that, from a musical experience, we feel more enriched. We connect with something greater.”
On this visit to Athabasca, Quitzau will not be enjoying the local childhood favourites.
“My diet has changed,” he said. “No doughnuts or ice cream in my diet these days. I’ll just drive by and remember the sundaes with the strawberries, bright coloured stuff on it.
The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. March 9 at the Nancy Appleby Theatre.
Regular tickets cost $27 in advance and $31 at the door. Senior/student tickets cost $24 each in advance and $27 at the door. Children under 12 are free.
