Calgary musician Carter Felker is excited to bring new music and a new CD to the Slice, Thursday, June 16.
He finished recording “Even the Happy Ones Are Sad” in September 2020 and finally is able to to release it June 14. He released his debut CD in 2016, but wasn’t in a hurry to go back to the studio.
“I wasn’t really impressed with the studio experience then and didn’t want to go back any time soon. Then my pedal steel player JJ Mayo told me he was going to Moncton, New Brunswick for a year, so said I’d better make up my mind. So he found a studio and an engineer and recorded it in 10 days in 2020,” Felker said, noting the CD wasn't really delayed, he just went through several different engineers before he was able to finish it.
The latest single form the CD “Nothin’ But Net” was released on May 13.
He noted while the CD is country music, there is also a nod to ’70s pop, his big influence John Prine and his own weird sense of humour.
“ I love ’70s pop like Albert Hammond and Harry Nilsson so there’s pedal steel and glockenspiel on the CD,” he said.
“ And I have weird sense of humour so there’s things like mouth slaps and sleigh bells too, ” he said appreciating comparisons to Ridley Bent and Tim Hus.
There is also a huge debt to renown songwriter John Prine, who passed away from Covid complications in 2020.
“ He always came across as an ordinary guy. While there’s guitar shredders who I’d like to play like, John Prine made it seem like I could play guitar too,” Felker said, adding he keeps his music authentic.
“ I’m not trying to be a superstar or mysterious. I’m a five foot seven troll-like guy. I want to be me and be accepted for it,” Felker chuckled.
He noted he doesn’t really practice guitar.
“ When I pick up a guitar, my practice is to make music and write songs,” he said, adding the CD is a mix of older sings he has been working on for years and songs he wrote during the pandemic.
“ I wanted to put a few of them on the first album, but I spent a lot of time working on them.others I wrote during the pandemic,” he said adding he was inspired by a lot of people he knows and stories he heard for the lyrics.
“I’m inspired by a lot of personal and interpersonal stories,” he said.
“ ‘Hard Times’ is about when I moved to Calgary to ‘make it big’ and went to an open mic, but everyone was better than me so I went home and cried and didn’t play music at all for two years,” he said.
“And the first line of ‘Refuse to Dance,’” was a friend of mine at a wedding who took off her wedding ring and the rest of the song wrote itself,” he said.
“‘Nothing But Net’ was inspired by a meme I saw on Instagram about different perspectives, like how a phrase means different things. To a fisherman, nothing but net is a bad thing, but to a basketball player it‘s a good thing. And the rest of the song wrote itself,” he said.
“I love it when that happens. I tend to let songs happen that way. You can’t force these things,” he said.
He is excited to play a lot of shows around Alberta this month, playing the major north and south centres like Calgary, Red Deer and Edmonton and east west communities like Lethbridge and Medicine Hat and smaller communities like Vermillion.
“Then in September I’m going to Brandon and Winnipeg and back,” he said.
For the Lethbridge endow he’ll be joined by upright bassist Curtis Glas and pedal steel player JJ Mayo.
“ It’ll be a lot of fun. It’s a great band. I can still seep on floors. I could go home after most of the shows, but I might stay around and have a few beers with friends,” he said, adding, he is joining forces with Starpainter’s Joel Stretch who will be opening shows in Calgary and Lethbridge.
In addition to recording his own music, other artists are recording his songs including Del Barber, who added “Everyday Life” to his 2019 Juno nominated CD “Easy Keeper” and local artist Shaela Miller who included “Good Woman” to her latest CD “Big Hair, Small City.”
“A lot of people are recording that song including the Torchettes. I’m surprised so many women are playing that song let alone so many of them,” he said.
“I love Shaela. She’s a good friend and she’s crushing it and I’m really proud of her. I’m really honoured when other musicians want to record my songs,” he said.
He is looking forward to being back in Lethbridge. He was last here in March.
“ I’ll be playing the album and a few other songs and I’ve got mercy— CDs and T-shirts which were actually made in Lethbridge,” Felker said.
Carter Felker and Joel Stretch will be playing the Slice, June 16.
— by Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
