The Lethbridge Folk Club offered a crash course in French culture at the Lethbridge College Cave, May 14 for their last show of the season with Northern B.C. based duo Vazzy.
There was a lot going on on Saturday night, so I only caught a few songs which had an enraptured audience drinking in every word as Bryn Wilkin and partner Suzanne Leclerc took the audience back in time a few hundred years by telling stories about their songs.
LeClerc did most of the storytelling, explaining the history behind the songs. One was the interesting tale behind a mediaeval song about a young woman whose husband was away at war for so many years that she didn’t recognize him he returned with two other knights, so he asked him to answer three personal questions before she would let him in.
“It goes back to the 1200s. Originally it had 80 verses because that was a way of recounting history,” LeClerc said as her partner switched instruments. She played a plethora of percussion instruments and some jaw harp while Wilkin played a lot of fine fiddle, some banjo and some really wild instruments including an unusual 11 string instrument called a multi-oud.
The set I heard was mostly sung in French. LeClerc tried to get the audience to sing along with one of the songs about a paranoid man in French.
I wanted to stay longer but didn’t want to miss a Fort McMurray Fundraiser at Coyote Joes.
