Greetings Jennys fans! We have a contest for you!

The Wailin Jennys will be performing at the Mod Club on Thursday, September 28th and wed love your help spreading the word! Heres where the contest comes it...

The first two people to email their friends with the below reminder and CC jill@festival.bc.ca will win a pair of tickets to the show!

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Hello!

Just wanted to send you a note that The Wailin Jennys will be playing at the Mod Club (with special guest Ndidi Onukwulu) in Toronto, Ontario on Thursday, September 28th! Dont forget to get your tickets! Tickets are available from www.ticketmaster.ca or call 416-870-8000.

Concert review

Everyone knows Winnipeg has an embarrassment of riches, at least where homemade folk and roots music is concerned. But leave it to the ladies to raise the bar even higher. Everyone knows Winnipeg has an embarrassment of riches, at least where homemade folk and roots music is concerned.

But leave it to the ladies to raise the bar even higher.

Winnipeg’s Wailin’ Jennys ǃ

Concert review

It's always nice when Winnipeg is included on a band's world tour schedule. But it's even better when the group playing town is one of our own returning home after touring the world. Home's worth Wailin' about for sweet-sounding Jennys

It's always nice when Winnipeg is included on a band's world tour schedule.

But it's even better when the group playing town is one of our own returning home after touring the world.

Last night, The Wailin' Jennys made a triumphant stop in their hometown to hold a CD release party for their sophomore offering, Firecracker, dazzling a crowd of 850 at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre with their unique brand of contemporary folk.

Since the female trio have taken their show on the road -- spreading their sweet sounds from Australia to Europe -- soprano Ruth Moody, mezzo Nicky Mehta, and alto Annabelle Chvostek have become a dangerously precise musical force; the group is best known as a vocal trio, but each member is a master at a variety of instruments, providing every song its own distinct spark.

ImageWhat all songs have in common, though, are gorgeous three-part harmonies. Moody, Mehta and Chvostek were each given a chance to show off her dynamic voice during solo spots, but when they sang in unison they had the ability to send shivers up your spine.

They started things with Firecracker's opening track, Devil's Paintbrush Road, a poppy number with Moody on the bodhran (an Irish frame drum), Mehta on harmonica and Chvostek plucking a violin. Local journeyman Gilles Fournier was along for the ride, handling double bass.

They did their first of many instrumental changes (Moody on accordion and Mehta and Chvostek on acoustic guitars) for Avila, a melancholy tale about the dream of peace.

Their showed off their incredible vocal prowess during an a cappella version of Bring Me a Little Water Silvy before shifting back into up-tempo territory with Beautiful Dawn off their debut album 40 Days.

"This is a song about being in the moment and trusting that's where you need to be," Mehta said before the haunting ballad Begin, featuring Moody's ex-Scruj MacDuhk bandmate Jeremy Penner on violin.

Firecracker tracks Starlight, a mid-tempo shuffle written about Saskatoon police officers leaving aboriginal men outside of town to walk home in the winter, and Long Time Traveller followed before press time came during the uplifting gospel number Glory Bound.

4 out of 5

It's a slow burn to success for folk trio

With their new album Firecracker, the Wailin' Jennys' career is exploding. Four years of hard work and lengthy tours by the local folk trio are paying off. They've earned attention and acclaim in folk circles around the world. It's a slow burn to success for folk trio
Work pays off for Wailin' Jennys With their new album Firecracker, the Wailin' Jennys' career is exploding.

Four years of hard work and lengthy tours by the local folk trio are paying off. They've earned attention and acclaim in folk circles around the world. They've even made fans out of luminaries such as Garrison Keillor and Bruce Cockburn.

"We've taken a bunch of small steps that you can feel when you've gotten to another level," says Nicky Mehta, 34, who handles mezzo vocal duties alongside bandmates Ruth Moody (30, soprano) and Annabelle Chvostek (32, alto). Each member of the Jennys is a multi-instrumentalist.

Following the release of the 13-track Firecracker -- their second album -- in the spring, the group was invited on a special Independence Day edition of Keillor's nationally syndicated radio program, A Prairie Home Companion, that was also broadcast on PBS television's Great Performances series.

With a radio audience of four million and untold numbers watching the tube, the show gave the Jennys access to an audience it would have taken several trips across the U.S to reach live. And the impact was immediate.

The day after the show aired, Firecracker shot to No. 2 on the Amazon sales charts, right behind the Dixie Chicks and ahead of Johnny Cash. The band's debut album, 40 Days, came along for the ride and hit No. 4. They also made the Top 5 on the Billboard bluegrass chart (quite a feat for a non-bluegrass band).

A few weeks later at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, Cockburn checked out one of their workshops and approached the group about working together.

"He said he picked up Firecracker in the States and told us it was one of his favourite albums. It was so bizarre and surreal because we're big fans.

"At the Edmonton Folk Festival he invited us on the mainstage to sing three songs with him: 'Night Train,' 'If a Tree Falls' and 'Mystery,' one of his new songs," says Mehta. "He was a sweetheart, and to get the approval from a legend is really exciting."

The excitement continues for the group tomorrow when they finally get to hold a hometown release party for Firecracker, which came out June 6. After three solid months of shows in Canada, the U.S. and Britain, the Jennys will celebrate with friends, family and fans at the Pantages Playhouse in their largest local show ever.

"I'm sure if I have nerves it will be because of that room," says Mehta. "It's really exciting. I saw one of my favourite concerts in that room, Jane Siberry in 1988 after she released one of my favourite albums, The Walking."

It's a considerably bigger venue than Sled Dog Music, where the trio got its start in 2002, when Mehta and Moody hooked up for a one-off show with Cara Luft. The three solo artists clicked instantly and became an official unit.

Their debut was released in 2004 and went on to win the 2005 Juno for best roots/traditional album. Luft accepted the award with the Jennys, but had actually left the group to focus on her solo career only months after the album's release.

With a string of touring commitments they couldn't cancel, the remaining Jennys quickly recruited Montreal's Chvostek.

"She's a very artistic person in many different mediums -- she does experimental stuff for dance groups and worked in the cabaret scene so she brings a different sensibility to the group and lots of influences we didn't have before," Mehta says.

The success of 40 Days --which has sold more than 40,000 copies -- could have pressured the group to try to duplicate its sound. But with a new member they could explore different territories, Mehta says.

"I think in this case we pushed the envelope with more of an edge, and thematically the album is darker."

The Winnipeg show is part of a cross-country jaunt, which will be followed by a two-month U.S. trek before a trip to Europe.

"For the next two years we're constantly on the road," says the singer.

Rant 'n' Roll column

The Wailin' Jennys new album, Firecracker, was officially released on June 6 but - although the folk/pop trio played a mainstage show at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in early July the record has yet to be officially "launched" in Winnipeg. The Wailin' Jennys new album, Firecracker, was officially released on June 6 but - although the folk/pop trio played a mainstage show at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in early July the record has yet to be officially "launched" in Winnipeg.

That all changes this week, when Annabelle Chvostek, Nicky Mehta and Ruth Moody hit town for a round of shmoozing with local music-biz types, followed by a gig at Pantages Playhouse Theatre on Sept. 22.

In the three-and-a-half months since Firecracker

Lighting the Fuse

Have just found Canada’s female answer to Crosby, Stills and Nash. Would love to go into more detail, but that would prevent me from listening to them. Dear Wears The Trousers Reader,

Have just found Canada’s female answer to Crosby, Stills and Nash. Would love to go into more detail, but that would prevent me from listening to them.

TTFN,
Your critic.

P.S. Did I mention they were wonderful?

P.P.S. It seems they started out working in a guitar shop in Winnipeg. Their previous album, 40 Days was a Juno award winner, after which they lost founder member Cara Luft to a solo career. Remaining members Nicky Mehta (mezzo) and Ruth Moody (soprano) met Annabelle Chvostek (alto); the result is Firecracker.

P.P.P.S. You want more? Alriiight. Firecracker was produced by David Travers-Smith (Jane Siberry) and is a quantum leap from 40 Days, which, though equally lovely, was a little too twee in places. Firecracker is aptly named; each song literally fizzes with moments that raise the hairs on your arms, whether it’s Nicky’s beautiful solo on the lament Begin (“when are you going to learn things sometimes turn instead of turn out”), the rolling country-folk melody of Things That You Know or Annabelle’s haunting rising octave changes on Apocalypse Lullaby when she sings “earthquakes break the walls / oceans rise, empires fall”. You may have noticed that I’ve been able to pick out songs written by all three; each member contributes four songs, lending additional weight to the diversity and talent on offer. The only traditional arrangement is the stunning a cappella Long Time Traveller.

The icing on this particularly tasty cake is the way their voices blend together. On Swallow they are so much a bird on the wing you can practically feel the rushing wind through their feathers, while Starlight finds them “shatt- ered under midnight” and it’s almost unbearably sad. Then there’s the finale, Prairie Town, as perfect an evocation of longing to lose your origins as you’re every likely to hear and one of the best songs I’ve heard inǃ_ well, ever really: “when it rains it snows in this prairie town / and we just watch it fall to the ground / and wait for love to come around”. Ah, me, that was it, I was undone.

Recent live shows in the UK and throughout the US appear to have had the same effect on the crowds as Firecracker has had on me. It’s genuinely difficult to be critical of anything here, it’s simply magnificent. If there’s any justice, Nicky, Ruth and Annabelle’s acoustic assault on the plastic people will conquer; in reality, we may have to settle for the best-kept secret north of the Great Lakes. I deny anyone not to drown in this achingly beautiful record; it’s what your CD player was invented for. Now, please, leave me alone, I need to hit repeat.

4.5 stars

The Wailin' Jennys and Firecracker are now available on iTunes for your downloading pleasure!

WJs Turn Famous Canadian Troll Into a Fan

A few years ago, singer/songwriter Ruth Moody gathered a trio of female musicians together for a one-night gig at the back of a Winnipeg guitar shop called Sled Dog Music. A few years ago, singer/songwriter Ruth Moody gathered a trio of female musicians together for a one-night gig at the back of a Winnipeg guitar shop called Sled Dog Music. At the time, Moody was the lone woman and lead singer in Juno-nominated roots band Scruj MacDuhk.

“I just wanted to sing with women again,” she says. “We were only going to sing for one night, but we sold out and had another show.”

Audiences, it seemed, couldn’t get enough, so the women continued playing together as the Wailin’ Jennys and they haven’t stopped since. They toured, first Canada then the US, eventually making their way to the UK and Australia, and somewhere in the midst of it all, they cut 40 Days, which won a Juno for best album by a traditional/roots music group.

They’ve also been making new fans at every stop. It turns out that even music legend Bruce Cockburn has been smitten by their sound. After hearing the Jennys sing in Winnipeg, Cockburn approached them about accompanying him during his main stage performance at Edmonton’s Folk Fest, after which, he confessed to feeling “like a troll among angels.”

It was a flattering description (for the Jennys, anyway), considering Cockburn’s role as an elder statesman in Canadian folk circles.

“These are the things you don’t ever forget!” Moody exclaims. “It was an honour to sing with Bruce ... the last few years have been so exciting, and this was like the icing on the cake!”

In a day when loud music dominates the charts, the Jennys are content to stay true to their pure, melodious harmonies and traditional acoustic instruments.

“Should we be more upbeat?” Moody muses. “We don’t play party music. People come to listen to the three part harmonies. They seem to be interested in what we’re doing. We have a quiet, open connection with our audience.”