It’s hard to believe that downtown arts centre Casa has been here for five years, so they celebrated their anniversary with a party in the square with burgers , cake and local music on a sweltering Saturday afternoon, May 12. Inside Casa, local artist Aaron Hagan’s paintings of the construction of the building were on display. Outside, I missed performances by Taylor Ackerman and Dave McCann, both of whom I was looking forward to seeing, but caught Bryan Bradfield.
Bradfield is a regular fixture of the Lethbridge Folk Club open mics and events. This time, dobro in hand, he was all about music history as played a laid back set of stories and old blues and folk classics. He played a beautiful versions of Chet Atkins’ “Sleepwalk’ and several other songs not usually played on the instrument, but also some old Les Paul instrumentals.
I caught a show by of local country musician and his bassist, who I hadn’t seen for a while.
The 93-year-old musician has been keeping traditional country music alive for many years.
He delivered a crash course in classic country history. he played a medley of “Santa Fe Trail” and “Navaho Trail,” plus Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou” as well as a couple of Don Williams songs.