By Jeremy Luc Hachey
The 24th edition of Roots and Blues Festival has come to pass. This celebration took place in the idyllic setting of Salmon Arm, British Columbia on the weekend of August 19th through the 21st.
Not many cultural events happen in this small city along the Trans Canada Highway. That’s why I usually make a point of either volunteering or attending this event every year: It’s a great weekend-long family friendly party that brings together musicians from all around the world.
Music journalist Peter North joined the festival in 2014 as Artistic Director. North has written about folk, blues, bluegrass, and country music for the Edmonton Journal. He also co-produced the CBC roots show Country Beat. He has also booked artists for several venues around the Edmonton area.
The festival has made some changes to accommodate parents and families. One of those changes included a big pile of sand near the Main stage.
Shred Kelly’s stoke folk was a must see. The always exciting band from Fernie last played the festival in 2012. During their song “I Hate Work”, the band included some lines from “At the Hundredth Meridian” to honour Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip, who were playing the last show on their Man Machine Poem tour that weekend.
An amazing discovery was Locarno a band that mixes a groove heavy mix of Mexican Folk, Cuban Son, and Latin Soul. This band is a project of JUNO award winner Tom Landa. Their latest album, “Luz y sombra”, came out in November 2015.
The magic really happens at the workshops, where members from several bands are scheduled to play together. Here are Joey and Dave Landreth of Bros. Landreth, Tony Dekker of Great Lake Swimmers, Miranda Mulholland and Andrew Penner of Harrow Fair, and Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland of Whitehorse, all together on one stage!
Check out below a playlist of most of the artists that played Roots and Blues Festival 2016. See you next year for the 25th edition?
Good morning!
Hello
Hi you two. Anyone want to change “for” to “from”, in “The always exciting band for Fernie last played…”?
I was going to mention that.
Good morning! Listening to the playlist now, and discovering some new-to-me music. What a great way to kick off a week!
i would correct it but I am on my kindle so I don’t have admin access
I was able to log in (at last!) and make the correction. And good morning!
Great write up and photos, Jeremy!
The stable of Our Basement writers/photographers increases! Thanks for this post, Jeremy. I especially like the bonus playlist, and that picture of your son (?) running towards the pile of sand. Sand, ya! It’s pretty awesome.
Hi loweeda, yep that’s my youngest. Fun tilt run as soon as he saw the sand. I have pictures of him making sand angles as well. thanks!
oh yeah, Shred Kelly says hi to everyone.
fun looking little festy there, funhog.
Is the Peter North, music journalist, mentioned in the article, different than the Peter North, pornstar? (Spryfield’s most infamous export) Fun to think that maybe after he retired from porn he started writing for the Edmonton Journal about music.
Hi everyone! Hi Shred Kelly!
Fab post Funho/ug/Jeremy! Yay!
Hiked up in the alpine with my oldest yesterday.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJri0irjqhx/?taken-by=jeremyhachey
the Saturday of Ness was Shred Kelly followed by Yukon Blonde
it was pretty great
Good morning everyone!
Hello! Anybody here?
hello
Fun article funhug and a fun time was had by all it seems. 🙂
I know the big pile of sand was probably intended for the kiddos, but it looks like it would have been fun for adults too!
thanks darbar! It was a fun time.
Hi Guys!
This time next week I will be on my way to Johannesburg, South Africa!
I know it doesn’t have anything to do with Indie Music, I’m just excited!
@marie_curious Yippeee!
wow, that’s amazing, marie! that’s a big trip–of course you’re excited. How long will you be there?
Very exciting marie_curious!
I thought that too, janet athanasiou, about the sand.
I’ll be there for 10 days, camping out under the starry African sky and travelling through Kruger Park, Durban and Swaziland.
I had more bike adventures of the negative kind last week. The camping trip that we planned on taking bikes to was last week. Since my bike was stolen, I borrowed a bike from a friend. The dude bought a bike rack off a friend of his and tested it on his car with his bike and it seemed fine. We rented a van for the trip and put the rack with our 3 bikes on it with some work. All packed up and ready to go we drove about a block and hit a bump in the road and rack with 3 bikes went flying. Put the bikes in the basement and headed off bikeless. Every other car on the highway had bikes reminding us that we didn’t. Ugh…
We haven’t fully assessed the condition of the bikes yet but there are definitely some scrapes and a bent tire. I am thinking I will take my friend’s bike to the shop to get it checked out for her.
@darbar… Argh! Sorry to hear it about the bikes. I hope there is not too much damage.
It looks like minor damage at this point. I am very glad it happened driving slow on a residential street not on the busy highway. That would not have been good.
@Darbs…. it could have been a bike explosion if on the highway.
@DarBarSpecial, I’m so sorry to hear about the negative bike adventure, I hope the damage is minimal!
Glad it wasn’t worse Darbs. We’ve had some close calls with our bike rack, although just with bikes coming loose, not the whole rack coming off. It’s the strap-on kind, attached to our Corolla.
Comments aren’t working for me presently. Test test…
Yeah, commenting is hit and miss. Had to do my last one twice. If you get “you’re commenting too fast”, wait a couple of seconds after typing and before clicking Post.
Work dammit!
It must just not like what I had to say in my other posts. hehe
I give up with what I was trying to post. Thanks about the bike. Hopefully we work it out in the future.
Aww…Gene Wilder died.
yeah. 83. A year younger than my dad
So sad. I’ll always remember him as Willy Wonka, though my first Gene Wilder movie was Haunted Honeymoon. It doesn’t get a lot of streaming action or replays on TV, but my parents would rent it when I was a kid and we would watch it and re-watch it a bunch of times.
Young Frankenstein was one of my favs.
Hello everyone.
Boy, Darb, you sure are having a streak of bad luck with bicycles. Heart goes out to you.
I think I am on 3 years of just plain bad luck now. Hehe. Bikes seem to be an issue this summer though.
Just dropped $400 for parts for my down hill pedal bike….for brakes! I remember now why I stopped down hill biking a few years ago.
Holy Moly!
Remember Silver Streak?
I don’t think I ever saw Silver Streak. It looks like a classic Wilder/Pryor film though.
Darb – Silver Streak was filmed in Canada on the Crowsnest CPR line in BC. Same type of equipment (on the exterior shots) as we rode in on our Tracks on Tracks tour. Amtrak and American railroads refused to allow them to film here – probably due to the “getting up on the roof of the train” scene, but CPR allowed it. It was supposed to be a train ride from LA to Chicago, but the arrival skyline was Toronto!
Cool background info Lee. Thanks 🙂
@Lee, I’m going to have to watch that again now to see if I can recognize the scenery 🙂