There can be a lot of back and forth telephone calls and e-mails as one is putting together the line up of a multi-day concert event. Eva Levesque, organizer of Longview's fourth annual Music and Art Festival has found a small way to simplify the task. She put her own band, The Travelling Mabels, on the bill.
“ I have an in with them,” Levesque joked. “ I didn't have to go through their booking agent.”
The Mabels are extremely popular with local music fans and also features Lévesque's daughter Susanne and Lana Floen, both from Calgary. The trio will be bringing their distinctive brand of country folk to the stage Sunday at 4 p.m. as part of two full days of live performances in Longview's Centennial Park Aug. 20-21.
Complimenting the music will be appearances by many Southern Alberta artists who will be on site to meet with the public and sell their works.
“ It's something this community really looks forward to,” Levesque said of the music and art festival. “ It's very relaxed and has got 16 bands over two days. We've got a huge beer garden, the park is just filled with vendors and we've got a big 40 by 40-foot tent filled with artists.”
The festival gets going both days with vendors opening shop at around noon followed by the music acts beginning at 1 p.m. and continuing on until 9 p.m. in the evening. Admission is by donation and proceeds this year will go to High River's Heaven Can Wait Animal Rescue Foundation.
Other music acts scheduled to appear at the event include country rockers the Bobby Wills Band, five-piece classic rock act Kensington Road and a Calgary-based act known as The Hickeys.
Performing Sunday at 2 p.m. The Hickeys are a vocal duo comprised of singer-songwriters Heather Brooks and Michelle Baker. The act describes their music as, “ kinda bluesy, kinda folksy, kinda hickey.”
The duo formed through a mutual dissatisfaction with the musical path they were both heading down.
“ We were kind of tired of five piece bands and all the schedules that with go with that,” Brooks explained. “ Michelle said to me, ‘ How about just two girls and two guitars?”
Brooks was instantly on board with the concept and as the pair's music career has progressed she said she's been glad to have a performing partner with a similar background.
“ We're both from small towns,” she said. “ Michelle's from Tompkins, Saskatchewan and I'm from Vulcan. That's where the ‘ hick' part of our name comes from. We are musical soul sisters to each other.”
The close-knit duo's much-varied live playlist runs the gambit, from songs by Bruce Springsteen and The Eurythmics to tunes from country stars Sugarland. All of the selections are reinterpreted by The Hickey's and are punctuated by the duo's polished vocal harmonies.
Brooks said when group performs in Longview on Sunday they'll be giving the audience some of their original songs as well as their distinctive takes on popular hits that sometimes take the crowd more than a few moments to recognize.
The Travelling Mabels, the Hickeys and all the other acts descending on Longview this weekend for the festival are donating their time and energy to the event. Though some raise a coin or two towards furthering their music careers by selling CDs and other band merchandise on site.
