Musical nomads — Canadian folk-jazzers Po’ Girl have become accustomed to a restless existence

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Po' Girl with Luther Wright
Canmore Hotel
Thursday, January 8 - Thursday, January 8

More in: Folk / Country

Po’ Girl is hard to pin down — in every way. The music they make is usually dubbed folk, and it’s true in the same way that everything from Pete Seeger to Spearhead to Edith Piaf is folk. Founders Allison Russell and Awna Teixeira create a moody, jazz-flecked, blues-influenced, old-timey mélange that borrows from all these genres but is obligated to none of them. In its early years, the band also included Trish Klein from the Be Good Tanyas, and, a couple of years ago, there was a short-lived Po’ Girl alter-ego project called Salt. The fluidness of the band’s gestation echoes something essentially protean and on-the-move about the band members as well.

Although Po’ Girl has been around since 2003, the past couple of years have been a time of transition. After a rigorous 2007 touring schedule, which saw the band play four continents, 13 countries and spend most of their days away from home, Klein bowed out, leaving Russell and Teixeira to focus on moving forward. Having started their musical collaboration as a couple and seeing that relationship change along with the band, there was much to be done in the way of soul-searching.

“People think of touring as kind of being on vacation all the time, that it’s some sort of dream life,” says Russell. “The reality is that you spend all your time living in vans, sleeping on people’s floors, not always being able to get a shower when you want to. It’s hard, hard work, and you have to know when to stop and take a breath.

“But we’re all getting into our late 20s now; we’re growing up and starting to figure out where we want to be and what we really want to do with our lives. And in the last year or so, we’ve come to terms with the fact that we’re lifers. This music thing is going to consume us for the rest of our life. This is what we want to be doing, more than anything else. And so we’ve committed totally to it, to making Po’ Girl a success.”

Russell and Teixeira’s breakup has created a firmer foundation for the band — a thing that rarely ends up being the case, as Russell is the first to admit. “I mean, look at Fleetwood Mac — they all travel on separate buses these days. But we just morphed into best friends — more than that, actually. We’re family now. And that has translated into an intuitive, trusting, intimate musical relationship. It’s been an amazingly silken, velvet divorce. Nothing was lost, only gained.”

Having just recorded an album of songs written and honed on the road over the past year and more, Russell is eager to get out and perform them again, even with her misgivings about touring. Deer in the Night represents a good deal of what the Po’ Girls themselves have experienced — growing up, laying the past to rest, feeling hope for the future. These folks are nomads in their souls. Moving, and moving on, is at the centre of who they are and what they do. Russell feels confident that all the running is a running to, rather than a running from.

“We’re at the point where we’re building and creating our place in the world,” she says. “Awna and I both have this constant feeling of urgency; for both of us, this is a compulsion. You can spend a lot of time worrying about that line you walk, about when it stops being a calling and crosses over into pathology. But I’m not worrying about it anymore.”