Saturday was sensational at the South Country Fair, July 20. The weather couldn’t have been better with mostly clear skies and a cool breeze
wafting through the air— what better way to spend a day like than than by listening to live music.
I arrived near the end of Sarah Burton’s afternoon set of electrified indie-rock and folk music on the east stage. She borrowed the Broken Mirrors’ drummer for her set. Plus Jenny Allen made a surprise visit to the stage to add extra vocal harmonies and, of course, her washboard.
They ended the set with Burton”s bluesy “My Man,” from her latest CD “ Fire Breathers.”
The problem with having two great stages of music is catching everything, so while I was listening to Burton and the first few songs from Corin Raymond, I missed most of Nathan’s long awaited return to the South Country Fair
.
I arrived at the south stage just in time to see them working up a pretty cool, folky version of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” which featured a theramin solo from Keri Latimer, who grew up in Lethbridge. They played a Steely Dan cover “Dirty Work,” which featured multiple vocal harmonies then ended with one of Nathan’s gritty folk songs.
“A true folk song should end with a body at the bottom of the river. This one certainly does,” said Latimer before giving a shout out o Murray Nelson in the audience for being her first guitar teacher.
One band I really wanted to see was Vancouver’s the Broken Mirrors, if only because the band members were playing with a variety of other acts of all genres from rap with CR Avery to the blues with Harpoonist and the Axe 
Murderer. As The Broken Mirrors, they incorporated a lot of their influences including jazzy time tempo changes. They sounded like a more jazzy, more indie rock influenced Sam Roberts and featured lots of beautiful Hammond organ licks from Tom Heuckendorff.
“You probably saw Tom play with Harpoonist,” observed the lead singer and guitarist Noah Walker.
“But we had him first,” he laughed adding they grabbed him from the Vancouver jam band scene as he jokingly called the his band “band whores.”
One of the more impressive songs called “ Servant’s Quarters” featured fleet fingered Chet Atkins fingerpicking not to mention lyrics from CR Avery.
Over on the south stage, Sarah MacDougall and a guitarist and lap steel guitarist played pretty , ethereal vocals. But I had to cut that short as the other band I had to see was High Society on the east stage, mainly because I couldn’t find anything about them online. 
They were my surprise find of the fair this year. They featured one man brass section Ashton Sweet alternating between baritone saxophone, trumpet and tenor saxophone. There was more beautiful bluesy Hammond organ and quirky vocals from Adam Farnsworth, rock solid drumming as well as soulful singing from Chelsea D.E. Johnson, who combined elements of Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin with a lot of Janis Joplin. They sounded like a deep south gumbo of jazz , soul, blues, gypsy music, blues and lightly seasoned with gospel.
To my surprise, considering
the number of children and families in audience, they brought out several burlesque dancers who performed tastefully on the dance floor in front of the fascinated crowd, while they sat back and grooved. One of many highlights was a spoken word, dark “slightly macabre” piece recited by Farnsworth called “Colouring the Obituaries,” while Johnson took a breath. They closed off the east stage for the day.
That gave me just enough time to check out the Mayoral workshop featuring South Country Fair mayor Marc Sadlier Brown, who held court with Linda McRae and Luke Thompson.
This was beautiful as all thee of them took turns singing their own songs while the band, including a fiddle player and a couple different instrumentalists played perfectly. Linda McRae’s “Bad Boy, Bad Girl,” was one of the highlights of this workshop as was Sadlier -Brown’s old Alien Rebels rockabilly song.
The evening on the South Stage was eclectic, to say the least. Ben Caplan did his best Tom QWaits impression as he did at the Owl Acoustic Lounge in Lethbridge, July 17. But this time, he had a fiddle player creating cool ambianc eand adding an exotic jazz feel. Winnipeg pop and folk musician JP Hoe did something different by not only having a string section on stage, but inviting fellow Winnipeggers Sweet Alibi on stage to sing haunting harmonies on the 
supremely catchy “Lions and Tigers and “We Could Start a War.”
Matthew Robinson and stand up bassist Paul Holden then sang Robinson’s song which won the South Country Fair Songwriting competition old pros category.
It was time to party after that as Queque Escamilla added a Latin flavour to trombone powered rock music coming across like Los Lonely Boys.
Crowd favourites, Edmonton Celtic rock band Captain Tractor made a long awaited return to the South Country Fair stage. The veteran Edmonton based celtic rock band got a huge crowd dancing with old favourites like “American Headliner” “Johnny’s Ghost” and a catchy song written by Jr. Gone Wild’s Mike MacDonald. They took a break after their song “Bastards of Strathcona County” to call out the “bastard” who stole a brace of “BFL” stage lights some time on Friday night, noting there is a $500 reward for their return.
After the one serious moment it was back to the fun as they played “Famous Last Words,” the title track of their most recent CD which was released in 2011 as well as a rousing version of “Last Saskatchewan Pirate.”
Interwoven accordion, fiddle and Mandobird ( An electric mandolin which looks like a Gibson Firebird guitar” added up to a whole lot of fun.
After a break, the main event, Shout Out Out Out took the stage around 1 a.m. for something entirely different— techno music powered by two full drum sets, a whole lot of keyboards and computers and much thundering bass.
12:10 Workshop - Sarah MacDougall, 
http://sarahmacdougall.com/, Minor Empire http://www.minorempire.net/ ,
Ben Caplan http://bencaplan.ca/
1:20 Sunparlour Players http://sunparlourplayers.com/
2:30 Magpie Ulysses http://magpieulysses.ca/
2:45 Workshop -Corin Raymond http://www.corinraymond.com/,
C.R. Avery http://www.cravery.com/, Nathan http://www.nathanmusic.ca/
3:55 Gordie MacKeeman http://www.gordiemackeeman.com/
and His Rhythm Boys
East Stage
Sunday East Stage ( MC -- Gillian Moranz)
12:00 pm Open Mic
1:05 Sarah Jane Scouten http://sarahjanescouten.com/
2:10 Sweet Alibi
Sweet Alibi http://www.sweetalibi.com/
3:15 Jaron Freeman Fox
& The Opposite of Everything http://theoppositeofeverything.com
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
