Preview
JACK HUMENY
Thursday, November 27
Merlot
At first he may seem like just another singer-songwriter, perched on a stool in the middle of a cement floor, stranded in a venue in the middle of downtown while the traffic lights rev through a lonely, endless loop. Out the window behind him, tail lights chase each other up the hill. People drift inside, perhaps seeking nosh or whisky or a square of warmth in the late autumn night, and maybe they don’t notice that solitary figure with the guitar right away. But the singer keeps singing and the traffic lights keep spinning and maybe the whisky kicks in warm and sweet, and suddenly the intersection fades and the tail lights are stars and you’re transported across time, place and season to the "Field Behind the Plow."
As Eatonia, Saskatchewan musician Jack Humeny finishes that Stan Rogers number, he might chase it with a snatch of cowboy poetry, something where the humour even verges on corny, before plunging you into one of his own songs, one that rubs against the prairie stubble of darkness while exploring a bad dream. Then he might pull out a version of Don McLean’s "Vincent" that can bring pin-drop silence to a crowded bar at midnight. If you thought Humeny was just another singer sitting on a stool, you soon realize you were wrong.
"If people get an idea, if they come and see me, it’s not all western music, that’s right. Some people think ‘Oh jeez, he’s a cowboy. All I’m going to hear is cowboy tunes,’ but I do a lot more than that. I feel comfortable doing a lot of different kinds of music because there’s a history in all of them," the singer says from the Saskatchewan land his parents homesteaded 70 years ago.
Humeny’s familiarity with various aspects of history is lived. His typical day is not all music – before the sun drops he’ll have started some colts and patched a few fences around the place, maybe worked with his band and then driven out to take a look at the 1,000 acres of cropland he’s leased out to a neighbour to give him more time to write, ride and travel.
And it’s those things – that wind across the wheat, the snort of a broncy colt on a November morning, the percussion of pickup wheels on a gravel road – that arrive with Humeny and his guitar when he plays solo in a quiet room. His music is direct and heartfelt.
"Well, those simple things in life, like the sound of a well-made guitar and a good song together – some people make it more fancy but it’s hard to improve the sound of a guitar and voice together," he says. Humeny had an old guitar as he was growing up, but surrendered it to the call of corrals and horses for a time. About 18 years back, he started playing again.
He soon formed a small band that he tends to stick with when playing gigs close to his farm, but in the past few years he’s made numerous trips through the Prairie provinces as demand grows for his solo skills. He says that living where he lives is actually central – there are a lot of gigs within a five-hour drive in any direction. Private gigs for corporations involved in ranching and auctions are Humeny’s bread and butter, but occasionally he plays in public. Audiences were eager to take home a souvenir of their evening, so last year Humeny recorded …smell the flowers, a nice mix of his own stuff and some of those crowd favourites.
With equal time for his priorities – family, music and horses – in his life, Humeny considers himself successful. After each gig’s over, there’s no hanging around, drinking and living the high life on the road. Nope, within an hour of getting off stage, Humeny’s all packed up and heading back home, with tires on pavement for a soundtrack and the stars for company. He’s got to get back before dawn – there’ll be troughs to fill, hay to pile and another colt to start in the morning. |
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