ACT welcomes wailin' wall of sound

It's not Waylon Jennings - it's Wailin' Jennys It's not Waylon Jennings - it's Wailin' Jennys.

The Ridge Meadows Arts Council presents The Wailin' Jennys live on the main stage at the ACT on Oct. 9 at 8 p.m.

The Wailin' Jennys are an acclaimed Winnipeg acoustic roots trio, combining the talents of Cara Luft, Nicky Mehta and Ruth Moody.

"This is will be a terrific concert," says Robert Campbell, theatre director at the ACT. "The Wailin' Jennys have been on a rapid ascent in the folk world ever since their first 'one-off' performance together at Winnipeg's Sled Dog Music in 2002 and they have had great success on Country radio as well."

They are each recognized solos performers, but when the three sang together, the enthusiasm from the audience was so explosive and the word spread so fast, they were almost forced to form a band to keep up with the demand for performances and recordings.

Within months of their first performance, the Jennys were playing prestigious folk festival gigs across Canada and receiving serious media attention. They also released a self-titled EP, which charted at campus radio across the country.

Their performance at the Maple Ridge ACT will feature songs from their debut CD, 40 Days as well as other songs with the Jennys' trademark breath-taking harmonies, sweet folk/pop sound and impressive songwriting.

Released at the end of March, 40 Days has already received enthusiastic reviews. It prompted the Ottawa Citizen to declare, "There are now only four Juno nomination spots left open for next year's group album of the year." The Saskatoon Star Phoenix predicts "this trio could become the Dixie Chicks of folk." Meanwhile, the Jennys' single 'Old Man' received an impressive response from Canadian country radio, charting at #45 nationally and getting a great response from B.C. listeners.

The Wailin' Jennys feature alto Cara Luft, otherwise known as "Jenny Van Halen". She is known as much for her vibrant comical demeanor as for her powerful guitar playing. Born to folk-singing parents, her early exposure to traditional music combined with her self-directed love of '70s and '80s rock music has resulted in a fusion of driving acoustic rhythms and lively word play. She has played Lilith Fair and England's International Guitar Festival and her first full-length album was nominated for a 2001 Prairie Music Award.

Mezzo Nicky Mehta has been called a poet and songwriter of exceptional depth and maturity whose ability to "walk with sorrow" has made her music vital and hopeful; Mehta's songs reflect a wisdom sometimes hard-won but never uncelebrated. Her first album "Weather Vane" was nominated for a 2002 Canadian Music Award for Outstanding Roots Recording and she was recently counted among the most promising up and coming singer-songwriters in North America by the venerable Sing Out! publication.

Soprano Ruth Moody, former lead singer of the Juno-nominated roots act Sruj MacDuhk, rounds out the group with her pure voice and impressive multi-instrumentalism. A classically trained vocalist and pianist known first as an accomplished, versatile singer of traditional and Celtic music, her own writing shines in its diversity and maturity.

"This group is definitely one to watch in Canada," says Campbell. "I really encourage people to come out and see them here in Maple Ridge."

The Wailin' Jennys concert is the second concert of the 2004/2005 season for the Maple Ridge ACT.

The season includes international, national and regional artists from a variety of artistic disciplines. For more information, visit the website at www.artscentretheatre.org.

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Just an observation here; but every time a musical genre makes a resurgence, its purveyors tend to mill about in rather amorphous territory for awhile, flirting with different influences until one or a few of these "revivalists" gets it right Just an observation here; but every time a musical genre makes a resurgence, its purveyors tend to mill about in rather amorphous territory for awhile, flirting with different influences until one or a few of these "revivalists" gets it right. It's true that folk music, real, folksy folk music in the tradition of Kate and Anna McGarrigle, never actually died, but it took the Wailin' Jennys to get it off life support. Brilliant three-part harmonies combine with rich guitar phrasing on their debut full-length, 40 Days (Red House), and their live shows are rumored to be vivacious and thoroughly enriching. See them Friday, July 29, at the Rio Grande Zoo, as part of the "Summer Nights" concert series and Friday, July 30, at their AMP House Concert.

Thrillside Festival

My 30 years of enjoying music/folk festivals goes back to the first Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1974 in my hometown. But if I've ever had a better time at a festival than this weekend at Hillside, the memory has faded My 30 years of enjoying music/folk festivals goes back to the first Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1974 in my hometown. But if I've ever had a better time at a festival than this weekend at Hillside, the memory has faded. I'm tempted to call it "the weekend where everything went right," but out of caution I'll tone that down to "the weekend where everything went right as far as I could see."

The obvious place to start is the weather, which went from great Friday and Saturday to perfect on Sunday - the sort of weather capable of pushing good Hillside vibes straight through to exuberance.

I've quibbled with festival organizers at times in the last few years about not having enough workshops where various musicians interact on stage, or even about having too many spoken acts and not enough music at the intimate Sun stage.

No complaints this time, though. There were top acts from the folk festival circuit, including The Wailin' Jennys, The Bills and the Juno Award-winning Le Vent du Nord, plenty of music on the Sun Stage and no shortage of nifty workshops.

The toughest task at a music/folk festival should be deciding which show in any given time slot to go and see, from among rich offerings. That was the case this year at Hillside, but festival organizers tossed in one truly diabolical choice - between the big-name musical comedy trio The Arrogant Worms on the main stage at 8:00 pm Sunday and The Wailin' Jennys, one of Canada's most sought-after roots ensembles, whose solo concert was on the lake stage then.

As soon as they got on stage, the Worms called having to make this choice "tragic" - and then they proceeded to make jokes about whose audience was bigger and better. And then they took it one step further, creating the first " dueling audience" routine I've ever seen at a festival. They abruptly stopped singing when a cell phone went off and was answered by one of the Worms who pretended - we thought - to be debating just that point with one of the Jennys. Then, on cue, a huge roar went up from inside the Lake Stage, delighting the mainstage crowd with the realization that it was a genuine phone conversation. The mainstage crowd roared back to show it was bigger and better. Loud chanting followed as the two crowds - which couldn't see each other - duelled, prompted by their entertainers. A classic "Hillside moment," in my view, at a festival that put comedy on its main stage for the first time this year.

As for me, I ended up watching the Worms and buiying the Jennys' latest CD. You can't win with a concert choice like that, but I guess you also can't lose.

A wail of a trio

Blossoming folk group breaks into mainstream country radio Blossoming folk group breaks into mainstream country radio

Catch them at: Little Stage on the prairie, Fri., 12:30 pm; Snowberry Field, Sat., 12:45 pm (Cara Luft only); Green Ash, Sat, 2:30 pm (Nicky Mehta, Ruth Moody); Snowberry Field, Sun 11 am; Shady Grove, Sun, 3:45 pm

You’re being hailed as something a folk-pop supergroup, your first album is out on one of the country’s foremost folk labels and you release a gentle, acoustic version of a Neil Young song as your first single and video.

And what happens?

The Wailin’ Jennys’ cover of Old Man becomes a hit at country radio and gets added to the rotation at CMT, Canada’s country music video network.

Go figure, eh?

But what’s another curveball in the life of the Winnipeg folk trio comprised of Cara Luft, Nicky Mehta and Ruth Moody?

After all, this is a group that wasn’t even meant to be a group. So if country radio wants to help spread the word on this sweet-voiced threesome, then so be it. The road followed by the Jennys has been filled with similar happy accidents.

Still, being added to commercial country radio playlists across Canada is enough to give Mehta and Moody pause to think as they sit discussing their music in the caf_

40 Days sounds like a Juno winner

Wailin' Jennys debut disc sounds like a Juno winner Wailin' Jennys debut disc sounds like a Juno winner

Canadian roots and traditional musicians, take heed. There are now only four Juno nomination spots left open for next year's group album of the year.

And you'd better be on your toes if you hope to snatch the winning rug out from under the Wailin' Jennys debut disc, 40 Days.

You doubt my word? Catch the trio's sparkling harmonies and smart songwriting tonight at the Black Sheep Inn. Then we'll talk.

Cara Luft, Nick Mehta and Ruth Moody are the Jennys. They first teamed up two years ago at Winnipeg's Sled Dog Music for an impromptu show. It sold out, as did the second one, and the buzz started. The trio quickly landed a filled-to-capacity showcase at the North American Folk Alliance Conference in Florida. Folk festival gigs, an EP and a record contract followed.

This year they played the Folk Alliance again as well as South By Southwest in Austin.

Overnight success?

"No," says Moody."It' been pretty quick but we've had to work hard. We didn't know each other very well, so we had to grow together. We get along really well but we're very different from each other."

Luft and Mehta were both well on the way to carving out solo singer/songwriting careers while Moody, after four years as lead vocalist with the now-defunct Winnipeg-based Celtic band Scruj MacDuhk, was about to do the same, when they bumped into each other at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 2001.

All long-standing members of that city's thriving folk music scene, they knew of each other's work and promised to get together at some point.

The rest you already know, except that it was John Sharples, the Sled Dog's owner, who hit ont the name Wailin' Jennys. Good choice. You want to say, "Waylon Jennings" and have to think before saying the name aloud. Makes it stick in your head. Like their music,actualy,which roots quickly and deeply.

One Voice,the new album's opening track, is typical of the Jenny's supple arrangements and eloquent three-part harmonies. Written by Moody, the group's soprano, One Voice celebrates musical diversity and unity, each member's voice distinct but complementary, while also offering a vision of world harmony.

"I wanted to write something that would help unify people," says Moody, who studied classical piano and singing before sidestepping into traditional folk and celtic music. "I imagined people singing along."

Quite different in structure and style are Cara Luft's contributions to the album's mostly original content. Songs such as Untitled reveal Luft's one-time rock aspirations (Luft's guitar work rewards close attention) blended with the traditional British folk music she heard her parents, professional folk singers, perform.

Luft, an alto, admits to challenges in surrendering a solo for a trio career. "You have to learn about sacrifice and sharing."

Nicky Mehta's mezzo rounds out the harmonies. She studied dance and theatre before settling on music, has sung in R&B and Jazz ensembles and says fans tell her the Jennys' harmonies are "an emotional experience that leaves them with chills running down their spines. We can't take credit for that, it's just the way the voices blend."

Mehta's songs such as Ten Mile Stilts,poised and thoughtful, deal with issues of alienation, self-deception, the search for permanence.

With all this on their side, are the Jennys bound for fame and wealth? Moody, speaking for the three, is cautious. "As a folk musician, success is just even being able to get out there and perform."

Winnipeg trio laughing more than wailing

Women the toast of festival circuit Wailin' Jennys a new sensation
Women the toast of festival circuit

The first time it dawned on Nicky Mehta that she and her companions in the Winnipeg-based folk trio the Wailin' Jennys had bitten off more than they'd been expecting to chew was when she, Cara Luft and Ruth Moody won a showcase spot at the prestigious North American Folk Alliance conference in Jacksonville, Fla., two years ago.

Until then, the three young women had been steadily building careers as solo artists. Mehta, who had studied dance and drama before being bitten by the music bug, had just released a critically applauded album of original music. Moody, formerly with Celtic roots rockers Scruj MacDuhk, was establishing herself as a singer/songwriter of merit. Luft's first solo release had earned a Prairie Music Awards nomination the previous year. Performing together for the first time in a Winnipeg music store in January 2002 had been a bit of a lark, and even when the first show sold out and a second was booked, the singers had no idea they'd wind up becoming folk festival favourites - fast.

In February they were invited to play at the Folk Alliance, North America's largest annual live folk music market. "Our showcases were jammed, and the audiences were really enthusiastic," says Mehta on the eve of the trio's performance Saturday at the Rivoli to promote the release of their first solo CD, 40 Days.

"It had been a little over a month since we first sang together, and we were suddenly being offered festival spots across Canada and the U.S. It was bizarre. It was another couple of months before we understood just how full time the Wailin' Jennys would be."

In fact, the trio has been on the road so much the three artists have had little time to reord the transcendent harmony arrangements of their own tunes and favoured covers by other artists that constitute their ever-expanding concert set.

A six-track EP was quickly recorded last summer to meet the demands of festival audiences, but studio time over the past two years took second place to live performances.

"Besides, we needed the time to solidify our sound," Mehta continues. "It all happened so quickly, we didn't really understand what we were doing for a while."

Buoyed by the strong reaction to 40 Days, the Wailin' Jennys - the name was a humorous throwaway that stuck after their second performance - have hit the road again, and will be featured in just about every major folk festival across Canada this summer.

"Being in a group requires constant negotiation, an awareness of others' needs for self-expression," continues Mehta, who's planning to record another solo album - this time as a sid project - in her basement over the next months.

"I'm the least folky of the three of us. I'd like to explore other, totally different areas of music on my own."

Prairie Pride

The Wailin' Jennys get the folk out The Wailin' Jennys get the folk out

It's a sweaty mid-May Wednesday in Toronto when I call up Cara Luft at her Winnipeg home, but Luft, one-third of folk-pop trio the Wailin' Jennys, is bundled up in a wooly toque-and-sweater combo.

She's just returned from playing a show at the 'Peg legislature building in honour of Manitoba Day (don't worry-she didn't know the holiday existed either), and she's cursing the massive prairie snowstorm that's got authorities advising local folks to stay home.

The freak flurries are an appropriate backdrop, Luft laughs, since she credits weather extremes with maintaining the thriving Winnipeg music scene.

"Everything's so extreme here", she explains in her chirpy prairie cadence. "The winters are brutal, and the summers are pretty extreme as well."

"There's something about those extremes that encourages people to look beyond their surroundings. People say that Manitoba's friendly, and it's true-there's not much to do here, so we have more of a sense of community."

That strong sense of community, and the support system of arts funding exemplified by organizations like Manitoba Film and Sound and MARIA (the Manitoba Audio Recording Industry Association) have helped kick Luft's musical career into high gear.

The daughter of professional folk singers who daylighted as teachers, the Calgary-born Luft's been singing rootsy tunes on stage since she was in kindergarten. She played her first solo show at age 12 and was opening for local acts at folk clubs by 14.

But it was only after hanging out at a Winnipeg guitar shop called Sled Dog Music that she was blindsided in one of those wierd karmic moments that speckle pop music history.

Sled Dog's owner urged Luft to team up with two other local folkies - Celtic belter Ruth Moody of Scruj MacDuhk and backing-vocalist-turned-front-woman Nicky Mehta - for a one-night stand at his store in January 2002.

"We honestly din't think beyond that one night," offers Luft. "It was a weird process entering into a working relationship with strangers. We only knew we had a month to prepare."

"On top of learning and trying to memorize 20 new songs, you're trying to work with people you don't know anything about. You're spending energy just getting to know each other."

They clicked musically, winning invites to play sold-out showcases at folk fests and healthy airplay on the CBC, and set aside their solo schticks to become the Wailin' Jennys, but maintain musical autonomy by operating as a collective - each member receives individual writing credit and lead vocal duties for her own songs.

This sets them apart from that other Canuck roots-pop tri, the Be Good Tanya's, who've become post-O Brother music scene darlings. So do the Jennys' aesthetics. Their brand new 40 Days (Jericho Beach) disk showcases a far more contemporary folk-pop sound more in keeping with Joan Baez, the Indigo Girls and Lilith Fair-style campfire music than with the Tanyas' Americana new grass vibe. While the Jennys' songs may lack the same creaky backroads country soul, they benefit from the trio's strong vocals, which combine Luft's rich alto, Mehta's mezzo and Moody's angelic soprano into choirgirl three-part harmonies.

"There aren't a lot of harmony groups these days" proclaims Luft. "We're an anomaly, and people often tell us how great it is to hear women's voices in harmony."

The Jennys have become quite successful in a short time, considering that earnest folky tunes don't exactly have the insta-popular cool cachet of, say, disco-punk. Luft thinks it's related to their geographcal locale.

"The biggest folk festivals are on the prairies," she explains. "Calgary has the most folk clubs per capita of any city in North America - something like 10 or 12 that run year-round. I heard a rumour that it was because all the draft dodgers from Seattle and that area who came up to Calgary and started the folk boom there."

In perfect harmony

The Wailin' Jennys knew they had a good thing going from the start The Wailin' Jennys knew they had a good thing going from the start

Destiny, fate, karma, kismet - call it what you will. When the Wailin' Jennys first got together, the planets aligned.

"Our voices blended really well together," Jenny Ruth Moody said recenttly from her home in Winnipeg.

"I think we were sort of surprised. We hadn't expected it. It sort of has felt right from the beginning, that it had an energy all of its own. It just seemed like it was meant to be, somehow. When you come across something like that it's really worth exploring."

Things sounded promising from day1. The acoustic folk trio's first gig - even before a friend had suggested their colourful name - was sold-out. They recorded a five-song demo three weeks later in a living-room and wowed delegates at the International Folk Alliance convention. The demo, tidied up and bolstered by a sixth song, became their first album; it charted on campus radio across the country.

One can only imagine what will happen now that Moody, Nicky Mehta and Cara Luft have releases their proper, full-length studio album 40 Days.

"In a way it feels like the beginning. I think it's just going to have more impact," Moody predicted.

The new album, recorded and mixed over the fall and winter, finds the Jennys writing their own songs, singing their heary-dash melting harmonies and playing a roster of instruments: acoustic guitar, dobro, piano, bodhran, electric guitar.

It's a reckless prediction, perhaps, but this trio could become the Dixie Chicks of folk. The fact they're still getting better at what they do is almost scary. Recording the new album, their producer David Travers-Smith challenged the trio to stretch and grow as musicians. (He set a good example by working 18-hour days).

"It was really intense, but a really great learning experience for all of us," said Moody.

While the album features a bevy of backing musicians, including Norah Jones' band member Kevin Breit on guitar and mandolin, the Jennys didn't want to get lost in the mix, or to have things too polished.

"We were very adamant that it should represent who we are and what we do live," said Moody.

Although all three women have had independent careers and recorded their own albums, nothin is sacrificed in becoming a trio. They share the workload, they bring along their own songs. It sounds like the perfect combination of individual expression and group dynamics.

"The fact that we're more experienced and a little bit older makes us a better band because a band is about more than music," says Moody. "It's about traveling, its about compromise, it's about heloing each other through hard times."

Asked to describe her bandmates, she says Cara is exuberant and joyful.

"She's got an amazing personality. She's funny, and as soon as you see her on stage, you see all of it.

Nicky is strong, wise and balanced between introspective and outgoing.

Moody says the other two would say she was "sheltered as a child and I need to be eductaed on 80s pop music," she laughs. They'd also describe her as "a bit of a dreamer, probably a bit of a romantic. I can be a little spaced out. A lot of people say that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I think we tend to agree."