Canadian country-folk artist, Sarah Jane Scouten is set to play at Clawhammer Press this Sunday. Her stop in Fernie is one on her 20-date tour across Western Canada.
Although Scouten currently lives in Toronto, she is familiar with the West Coast as she lived on Bowen Island from the ages of seven to 18. She planned her tour around being able to spend the holidays in B.C.
“It’s going to lead us just about up to Christmas time and then I was strategic in planning it to end on Bowen Island, where most of our family friends still live,” Scouten said. “There will be lots of warm and fuzzy feelings.”
Scouten is touring in support of her 2014 album The Cape, which was influenced by her roots on Bowen Island.
“I named it the cape after this area on Bowen Island, which was 600 acres of untouched old growth forest and we had just sort of used it as park land, even though it was private land, so as such it was totally unmonitored,” she said. “We would get lost there and it was so magical and so dramatic, there were jungle vines and soaring alpines. Maybe because I was a kid then and it seemed all the more Jurassic.”
The area has since been developed resulting in 10-acre lots with extravagant houses, which Scouten said didn’t benefit the majority of the community.
“It was just sort of sad for me to see that area that was so much of people’s hearts be used in that way.”
Scouten said she was influenced by old time, honky tonk music, giving her a country and folk sound, reminiscent of the Nashville sound of the 1950s. She completed a tour for the release of The Cape last year, but is touring with a different band this time around, and rearranging some of the songs to make them more unique.
“We’re doing different arrangements and the songs are maturing as we go. I keep changing the key, singing them higher, changing the arrangement to keep them fresh for me, and to make it relevant for the new band,” said Scouten. “This was a previous arrangement with another group of people and that was how we as a collective wanted to play it, but now we’re doing something different, and I want to have their input in it as well.”
She is touring with three musicians – Sly Juhas on drums, James McElemey on the bass and Ben Plotnick playing the fiddle.
Tickets to the show are $15 and can be purchased at Clawhammer Press. The show is set to start at 8 p.m. on Nov. 29.