The Folk Club had an excellent turnout for a superb , rare Sunday night show at the Lethbridge College Cave, Sunday, Feb. 9 featuring Winnipeg based folk duo The Small Glories.
I caught the last few songs from Cathy Hawley and Henk Van Ginneken who harmonized beautifully on a couple of originals and folk classics including “Freight Train.”
The Small Glories were excellent, with The Wailin’ Jennys Cara Luft and JD Edwards cracking jokes and harmonizing beautifully.
In between songs, They cracked jokes and the exuberant Luft chortled while laying down some hot picking licks on banjo and guitar.
Edwards grinned and reminded me of Tyler Childers.
Musically they focused on their new, award winning CD “Assiniboine and the Red,” named after the two rivers running through Winnipeg.
They reminisced about co-writing songs on the album with talented cats like James Keelaghan, Ashley Condon and Bruce Guthro and recording with 54 40's Neil Osborne
The CD is a love note to their homes in Winnipeg and Calgary as Luft is originally from Calgary.
Their show was in the same vein. Luft mostly played banjo, but cut loose a few times on guitar.
“Long, Long Moon,” was definitely a beautiful highlight.
They had the audience singing along on “Sing,” and a couple of others.
“Winnipeg” was all about all of the things they love about living in Winnipeg.
“Alberta” served the same role for this province.
I really enjoyed “a cover of a cover by Stan Rogers” called “Witch of the Westmoreland.”
The second set opened with an up tempo song called “ Bring ’em Out.”
“ Now I’m in my 40s, I don’t really care what other people think, Luft chuckled, snorting with laughter.
“ Not that I ever did,” she added before launching into a catchy number abut a breakup called “Oh My Love,” which was a catchy highlight of the second set.
They introduced “Second Hand” by telling a story about touring Australia, and taking a box full of old ballet trophies off of somebody’s lawn, and giving them away to fans and promoters who meant a lot to them throughout the tour.
