Preview
CAM PENNER AND THE GRAVEL ROAD
Saturday, September 13
Ironwood Stage and Grill
Shhh, listen. Listen hard in between the notes, words and spaces. When you listen to Cam Penner and the Gravel Road, listen for the in-between and you’ll hear the sound of the Manitoba sky, unfurled like all of creation, and a childhood not misspent, but perhaps spent too well in a tiny Mennonite town. Listen further and you’ll hear the youth who left home and moved to a hippie commune in Chicago, and the man who slept at the homeless shelter not out of need, but out of care. And in every one of these places, the boy who became the man learned to listen, learned the stories of 1,000 searching souls, and sang them back to that vastly unfurled sky.
Penner hails from Steinbach, Manitoba, a Mennonite town in a dry county where his parents were the local rebels who ran a dance hall and invited in bands. They were the ones who gave him his first guitar at the age of 12. When asked why music is now his life, the musician pauses and considers the choices that led him on his journey.
"Relief, maybe. A way to visualize yourself, (if you were) maybe not so good at spoken word, maybe trying to create a soundscape. I really think the Prairies and the place where I lived in southern Manitoba were a great thing to write about. I always see the sky as just so open, so your thoughts could be endless," the singer says from his Calgary home.
His family ditched the dry town, moved to Caronport Saskatchewan and then back to Brandon. Penner was 19 when he took off to live for a year in Chicago at what he describes as a hippie commune. While he was there, he worked at a women and children’s shelter, sharpening his desire to help those in less fortunate circumstances than his own. When he hit Calgary, he worked at the Mustard Seed, sometimes bunking down there to take care of the people who used the facility. It was at the Seed that he first worked up the nerve to sing for people as they were eating their meals. He benefited from the honesty of those who see the world through the culture of the street.
"Drunk or not, they wouldn’t care what they say to you. And if they loved it, they really loved it. And if there was live music, right on. People appreciate things when it’s not as easy to get."
Penner met his wife, Tabitha, who lends vocals to the band, and the pair travelled to Europe. When they got back, Penner hooked up with percussionist Adam Esposito and keyboardist Darren Bourne, both of Interstellar Root Cellar, and bassist Jim Atkinson. At first, Penner and Bourne were busking by the liquor store near the songwriter’s Inglewood home. Eventually, they teamed up for gigs and put out a well-received CD, Drive.
The group opened for Fred Eaglesmith in Canmore and the Canadian icon was so enchanted with their sound that he invited them to play his annual picnic in Ontario. Eaglesmith has also been talking up the band in his travels across the country.
Penner continued to busk for a while, playing about 20 hours weekly so he could spend time with Tabitha. The outcome of all the travelling, playing and living turns up in a well-cured set of songs on the group’s new CD, Get Up. The Interstellar players bring their unique sound to the album, as does popular local pedal steel player Charlie Veilleux. Penner is pleased with the mix of styles. "I think, ‘Why not the diversity?’ It’s great to see different elements all together in one room."
The album is subtly flavoured with a wistful sadness infused with an unflinching joy in living. Surely, Penner’s unique trail and experiences have helped him and his band create an album that has an almost "King of the Road"/"Sixteen Tons" honesty and simplicity to it.
Although he has also worked in group homes and detox programs, Penner has always been drawn back to the realness of homeless people, and that realness is the heartbeat of Get Up.
"I don’t know what drew me to it (working with homeless people). It felt like the right thing to do. Every day would be a different story, and there are so many stories to hear – everybody’s story.
"Sometimes it’s overwhelming, it’s too sad. Maybe it would be good to work at a warehouse for a while." |
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