Get in the mood for some blues at the Slice on Oct. 25 at the Slice with Sedona, Arizona based folk/ blues musician Neal Virgil Brown and old friend Papa King Cole .
Brown is touring in support of his new book/ CD “Almost Famous in Alberta and other True Stories.”
Though he never actually lived in the province, while he was starting his musical career in B.C in the mid-’90s, CKUA took an interest in his music and gave him a much appreciated boost.
“I was living in Seattle and running coffee shop and trying to sell it for years. When I sold it I had the money to make a CD and tour,” said Brown, visiting his sister in Comox on Vancouver Island before taking off for a gig in Port Alberni.
Brown grew up in Vernon B.C. then in the ’80s started touring the U.S. with a rock band “the 57s, then toured Europe in the ’90s before settling down in Seattle, before touring with a tight group of friends and becoming a surprise hit in Alberta in 1999 thanks to the support of CKUA.
“I reached out to Holger Peterson at CKUA not expecting to hear anything, but he started playing ‘High Heel Shoes’ a lot,” he said.
Around the time he started touring in Alberta, he fathered a daughter and stepped away from the music business to raise her.
“We played all over Saskatchewan, B.C. and Alberta. We only got as far east as Winnipeg,” he said.
Now his daughter grown up, Brown decided to step back into music and literature, and then Covid hit at the beginning of 2020.
“I’m not an author, but I got thinking about those days and started recording stories into my phone, and that became the book,” said Brown, who has fond memories of touring around Alberta with Lethbridge born Hammond B3 organ player Jack Velcker on his “Midnight Chrysler” tour named after his old car, a 1962 Chrysler-Imperial Crown -Southhampton, in support of his CD “ Smoke Rings,” including stopping in Lethbridge.
“ I remember playing Caroles back then, which is now the Slice,” he said.
“Jack had played with people like Amos Garrett and Shari Ulrich. Jack’s Hammond B3 filled up any room with sound. It was like sonic wallpaper. Every night we had to load this organ into the trunk of this car. But it had these really old, custom blown glass tail lights. You can’t get them any more, so we had to be careful not to break them otherwise you’d be driving with no taillights,” Brown related.
“I don’t have that car anymore.,Now I drive around in an old Prius,” he said.
He is looking forward to playing with Papa King Cole again in his first visit to Lethbridge since the “Smoke Rings” tour.
“I play in an open tuning like Joni Mitchell, so you get all these different textures,” he said, noting he’ll be playing a solo set, then a set with King Cole and bassist Doug Freeman.
“ I’m going to have a trunk full of guitars including my dad’s old banjo an a Gretsch Falcon, ” he said.
“ I’ll play some Pete Seeger songs and I have a really interesting version of Oh Canada,” he said.
The show runs from 8-10 p.m.. Admission is $10
— By Richard Amery, L.A. beat Editor
