He’s billed as Alberta’s country road troubadour, and the sound of Jake Ian’s music feels derived from the dusty back roads of his home province. He’ll bring that sound to Yorkton, performing at Joe Beever’s on August 8.
Ian grew into the old school sound that he developed, a mix of folk, country and blues that reflects the places and people he’s singing about. Ian says it was a sound he naturally gravitated towards, and something that’s timeless entirely because it’s good.
“I grew up playing rock and roll and punk music, but things are classic for a reason... Old time instruments like a dobro or a pedal steel will always be great instruments, somewhere along the way I just enjoyed acoustic instruments as opposed to electric, I enjoy an organic sound and this comes through in the music.”
The songs themselves are rooted in the soil of Alberta, and Ian says he’s still influenced by his youth and his family farm in central and northern Alberta, a place where the rest of his family still lives and works.
“I took a slightly different path from the rest of the family, but I still like to sing about it.”
One of the traits of Ian’s music is specificity, he sings about places around him at home. He says that he’s proud of where he’s from, and the way that it influences his life and music, and if he’s going to mention a place it will be somewhere that means something to him.
“Why name drop a place that is not remotely close to us? Why not sing about places close to here and develop a niche like that? Guys like Lyle Lovett, he’s always singing about towns in Texas where he’s from... Why not sing about where you’re from?”
The most recent album, Ian’s fifth, were the strongest songs he had ever written, he says, which meant he felt the need to go all out with the studio process. That meant drawing from a wide range of prairie musicians, such as Grant Siemens, best known for playing with Corb Lund, and the keyboardist and bassist from Saskatoon’s Deep Dark Woods.
Those groups fit in with Ian’s work, and he says that with the community of artists who know and perform together it’s only natural that a Western Canadian sound is starting to grow.
“It’s a big area... but it’s still a small, close knit community. A lot of musicians play with each other and play on each other’s recordings. That lends itself to that sound. Back in Nashville in the ‘70s that’s the reason a sound developed, all the main guys were all the records, so it naturally developed its own sound. That has kind of happened in Western Canada, a lot of good roots music is coming from this part of the country.”
The tour is partially inspired by his pride in the album, Ian says, because he wants to bring the songs to more people and spread it around as far as he possibly can.
The tour has taken Ian from venues large and small, from playing at the Calgary Stampede to the Twin Butte General Store. Ian says that both have their positives, but he likes the smaller rooms. He says that he loves to play small towns because they don’t get the same amount of live music, so it means more to come through.
“I like playing small intimate rooms where people sit and listen to the words.”
Saskatchewan is a place where Ian loves to play, and he says it’s a laid back audience that fits what he’s playing. It’s his first time in Yorkton and he’s looking forward to returning to the province.
“The people are always super friendly and it’s a lot more laid back than Alberta.”
