They may be locals, but they’re not yokels. Lone Tree Road is an eclectic mix of different sounds and styles, with two fiddles, guitar, keyboard, mandolin and saxophone. They will round out this season of Stars for Saskatchewan on Sunday, April 26 at 2:00 p.m.
The band has an eclectic sound because it’s a varied group of performers, including JJ Guy and Scott Cornelius, both on fiddle, mandolin and vocals, Jack Dawes on sax and vocals, Glenna Switzer on keyboards and vocals, Hank Ukrainetz on upright bass, Grant Dutchak on drums and Ken Goodman on guitar, fiddle and five string banjo.
The group began as a three piece fiddle band about ten years ago, Goodman says, as a result of a fiddle camp in Tuffnell. Guy, Ukrainetz and Goodman were the three founding members, and the name came from discovering Lone Tree Road in Foam Lake, deciding it would be a good name for a band.
The repertoire ranges from jazz, country to bluegrass, and Goodman says it’s a band that goes where the members want to take it, with everyone getting a showcase for their individual talents.
“It’s just a combination of all the members of the band, what they like to do. When I first set this up, that’s what I banked on, for everyone to contribute a particular kind of thing that they do.”
Dawes says that the unique sound is one of the things that he likes about the group. Saxophone and fiddle isn’t an obvious combination and something Dawes says he has rarely seen before. Their arrangement of Night Train is an example of something that you don’t see very often.
“We have two fiddles and a saxophone playing an old blues tune, which I think is pretty unique.”
The different backgrounds of the different performers is what drive’s the band’s eclectic sound, and Goodman says that they are constantly learning from each other and trying out different styles.
“In some ways it’s a bit of a different discipline, you don’t play jazz like you play fiddle tunes, it’s a different kind of mind set which we all find really interesting,” Goodman says.
Dawes says that his background is an example of how different everyone is, coming from a background with largely jazz and rock background, and admits he had a snobbish attitude towards country music before meeting the other players, but by playing together he began to appreciate the genre and have a more open mind about it. Meanwhile, other band members grew up with the strong fiddle tradition in Saskatchewan, and Dawes says they help everyone appreciate their different styles.
The band has a wide range of experience, with Cornelius at the young end, at 16 while the older members have had around 50 years of experience playing. Dawes says that he’s watched Cornelius come up through fiddle contests from when he was ten, and the band is impressed by what he can do.
“He’s an accomplished young player, whatever you ask him to do he’ll do it... We haven’t given him anything yet that he couldn’t do,” Goodman says.
As varied as everyone is, the most important thing is that when they come together it sounds right, and Dawes says that when the band comes together it is something rare and special.
“There’s something about playing music that when everything comes together and it becomes bigger than the sum of its parts. The term musicians use is you’re cookin’... With the five of us on stage, there’s a chemistry that seems to happen.”
Goodman agrees, saying there is a real high when the band really starts to go, something that is picked up by the people on stage and the people in the crowd as well, leading to the best music they can make.
Lone Tree Road is at the Anne Portnuff Theatre on April 26 at 2:00 p.m. Tickets are available at Welcome Home Gifts or ticketpro.ca.
