An accomplished bluesman and a gathering of Alberta authors will highlight the next installment of First Saturdays in Okotoks on May 6.
The monthly festival of arts and culture revs up this Saturday with a John Rutherford concert at the Rotary Performing Arts Centre (RPAC) and a Live Lit reading event at Okotoks Art Gallery.
Rutherford will take to the stage at RPAC for a 7 p.m. concert. In his solo shows, like the one Saturday, the Calgary performer said he likes to bring along many tools of his musical trade.
“I use several different instruments: electric guitar, guitar, banjo and ukulele,” Rutherford explained. “Having a lot of instruments allows me to switch up the tonality and adds depth to a solo performance.”
The singer-songwriter said acquiring and mastering new instruments is one of his great passions.
“It’s something I can’t stop doing,” he said. “It may be a problem. I love vintage instruments. I just love old guitars, banjos, ukuleles and that sort of thing. I’ve collected quite a few over the years and have some exquisite instruments in my collection. I keep acquiring new things. I recently got a banjo mandolin. It’s a mandolin built on a banjo body so I am trying to learn mandolin all of a sudden.”
Rutherford developed an affinity for blues music early in life. He took lessons in blues guitar and went to a lot of concerts while growing up in Toronto. Later, when he came to Calgary, he became a fixture at the city’s vaunted blues venue the King Edward Hotel playing many shows there as a founding member of the band The Hoodoo Sons.
Rutherford said he was fortunate to play at the King Eddy during its glory days alongside many of the biggest names in blues.
“The stories are endless,” he said. “I can recite stories about getting up with Buddy Guy and having him let me solo my butt off for minutes on end. He would acknowledge that I had done my best. Then with his pinky finger he’d turn his volume up and play one note. I’d realize the soul and intensity of how he played and I’d recognize the level of what he was expressing could flood me over in just one note.”
Taking a humbling lesson from legendary guitarist Buddy Guy and wearing it as a badge of honour is as an expression of Rutherford’s deep love and appreciation for blues music. A local audience will get to hear his passion for the genre when he takes to the stage at RPAC Saturday night.
Tickets are $15 each and are available by calling the Okotoks Arts Gallery at 403-938-3204.
The Okotoks Arts Gallery will be putting on an event of its own from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.
A handful of Southern Alberta authors will read passages from their works in Live Lit hosted by Okotoks cultural and historical services team leader Allan Boss. He said he hopes to fit in his own reading from his recently published book “Identifying Mavor Moore” dealing with the legacy of an innovator on the Canadian cultural scene.
As a former drama producer for CBC Radio One, Boss oversaw a contest and series called “Alberta Anthology” that put him in touch with many of the province’s best writers.
He said he called on those contacts to help put together the lineup for the first of what he hopes are several Live Lit events.
“I started calling around and querying some of my writer friends,” he said. “One of those was Lee Kvern. Lee is an Okotoks author who has a couple of books out.”
Kvern’s second novel “The Matter of Sylvie” is nominated in the fiction category of the upcoming 2011 Alberta Book Awards. The writer said the authors involved in Live Lit are hoping it can be a springboard to many other things.
“We hope Live Lit will be the first of many readings and possibly mixed genre events for Okotoks in conjunction with First Saturdays,” Kvern said. “We want readings, works from songwriters and things like wine and book pairings. We want events that entertain and enrich. We want to make you laugh and cry and think. We also want to create workshops as well as writers-in-residence programs in conjunction with the talented Alberta and international writers that we have at our fingertips.”
Other authors who will be reading at Okotoks Art Gallery at the Station Saturday include Bragg Creek resident Barb Howard and Calgary poet Rosemary Griebel. For the full list and a description of other activities and Olde Towne Okotoks merchant promotions planned for May 7, go to the First Saturdays page at www.okotoksartscouncil.ca
