DETAILS

Ben Sures with Douglas Brothers
Ironwood Stage & Grill
Saturday, January 9 - Saturday, January 9

More in: Folk / Country

He’s been called Winnipeg’s greatest gift to Edmonton and living proof that big talent comes in small packages. Still, it’s a well-travelled secret how immensely talented and enormously likable Ben Sures is. The diminutive singer-songwriter’s latest disc, Field Guide to Loneliness, furthers his reputation as an adept, expressive guitar picker and a seriously funny, compelling storyteller in the time-honoured folk troubadour tradition. But it’s his ability to personally connect with a live audience that is Sures’s greatest strength and, perhaps, his greatest challenge.

“I wanted to find a neutral, lighthearted way to open the door to the intimacy of my CD,” Sures says. “I feel like [the album’s title] was a way of making it seem like you could come and listen to this and, even though it was super personal, you didn’t have to participate. You could just enjoy it.”

One of Field Guide’s tunes, “Used to Have a Raygun,” exemplifies his ability to transform an odd, personal story into something universal. “When I first hooked up with MySpace, I didn’t know that you didn’t have to have a complete dialogue with everyone who requested you as a friend,” Sures says. “I would ask, who are you? Where are you from? Why did you contact me, blah, blah,blah like a pen pal. This one woman wrote back and said ‘Dear Ben, I used to have a raygun,’ and over the next what would be the length of three pages, told me about this imaginary life she lead with this science fiction weapon she concocted in her imagination which she used to cope with everyday problems. She was a little socially awkward, so, in her mind, she would fire off the gun at someone and then suddenly she could talk to them. I basically turned the letter into a song. In the same way that ‘Any Precious Girl’ [off Sures’s 2003’s Goodbye Pretty Girl] gives a little inclusion or makes people feel like they’re a little less alone in the world, so many people can relate to it. You know, they’re a little shy, a little awkward and they have this magic device they can use.”

“Any Precious Girl” won the top prize in the folk category of the prestigious John Lennon Songwriting Competition and second place in another large international contest. After he won, people in the music community really started taking the songwriter seriously — including Sures himself.

“I was an issue with me, saying to myself, ‘OK, do you want to be a songwriter? Take yourself seriously and don’t hide behind humour,’” he says. “And it’s kind of freeing, because they both play a role now, and it’s more relaxed. I can be serious when I need to be serious or I can be light. I don’t rely on it, it’s not a defense mechanism anymore.”

In spite of the contest wins and accolades, Sures’s biggest challenge is to get people out to experience that personal connection in a live setting. To be sure, every little bit of extra awareness helps, but the growth hasn’t exactly been exponential.

“I kind of thought with that stuff that it would open up some performance opportunities,” he says. “It didn’t do that so much as it helped me get a few more fans, though, because people would check out the songs and it gave them a reason to come see me play. The biggest thing about it is, we’re so saturated with so much music both good and bad that you almost have to give people a reason for them to just check you out in the first place.”

If Sures himself had a ray gun, perhaps that climb would be a little less challenging. “It has been pretty slow and steady,” he concedes. “It really feels like it’s one person at a time.”