When a Longview-area guitarist was looking for a way to liven up his performances he discovered he had to look no further than his own home.
“It’s asking quite a lot of an audience to sit through one 40-minute set of instrumental solo guitar pieces, let alone two sets,” explained Jim McLennan. “A way to make it better for the audience was to have – if I could find a good singer somewhere … and I found a good singer in my house.”
After a roughly 20-year break from performing as a solo artist, the finger-style guitarist and arranger jumped back into the music scene a few years ago, recently produced an album and is now performing with his wife Lynda, a vocalist. The pair will perform at the Room Full of Sound concert at the Okotoks United Church Saturday evening along with Bruce Innes and the Original Caste.
With a musical background since childhood, Jim said his love for music never vanished over the years and after seeing an old friend about four or five years ago, they started to perform together. With a nudge from Lynda, Jim released an album of instrumental guitar pieces last year he had been holding onto for decades.
“Once you’ve done that and spent the money to actually have 500 CDs in your basement you need a way to sell them which is through gigs,” he explained.
Musicians often don’t like to promote themselves or call venues and ask to play, but having a CD to give them has made it easier to secure gigs, Jim said.
His album, Six-String Gumbo, features a mix of original compositions and pieces Jim arranged. CKUA Radio Network named the album CD of the week.
The McLennans have performed together on and off for years, but never so frequently, he said. For the past six months, they have been playing shows with a combination of vocals and instrumental music from Jim’s CD.
With a background in teaching music and conducting the Big Rock Singers for 15 years, Lynda said she has been enjoying this new opportunity.
“I’m having fun now as a vocalist rather than a director or a conductor because I get to experiment with my voice and see what it’s going to do or not do and I love pulling the pieces around to make them my own,” she explained. “So I’m having fun challenging myself in new ways that I haven’t had the chance to for, well forever really.”
Jim said it is difficult to pin the music they perform down to a genre, but it spans a few including old standards, pieces from the 40s and 50s, folk, blues and jazz standards.
The pair spoke highly of the Room Full of Sound concert series, the venue and the audience and hope to attract more people to the regular performances. Jim said it is more enjoyable to play for a crowd that listens to the performer and appreciates the music.
“When the room is really quiet, which this is, and people are listening you get that energy back and it’s one of those most inspiring parts of performing, that connection that you make with the audience, that’s where that buzz (I get) comes from,” he said.
A Room Full of Sound runs Saturday, Feb. 4 at the Okotoks United Church. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the show begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are available at the door or online at www.aroomfullofsound.com.
