One of Prince George's most promising singer-songwriters has come back for a concert tonight to prove how promise takes many forms. It travels many directions and speaks in many tongues, but it's always available to those who create.
Corey Primus comes from a big family - a large part of it still here in his hometown - and music played a big part of their upbringing.
Like so many youth of that era, Primus left town after high school to pursue post-secondary education and his passion for song.
He put out the album Directs In A Foreign Tongue - an ambitious and lushly produced disc - but afterwards life, family and workaday professions took him off the path of the pop-rock-country troubadour and kept him from coming back to P.G. for more than brief family visits.
At Nancy O's tonight, he shows everyone that in those backrooms there was indeed music. Melodies and lyrical stories never abated. He crafted it, shaped it, and now he will present it live in an intimate concert.
He has an album almost ready to come out. The finishing touches are being painted on it, so he has the confidence to give a sneak peek.
Until now, they had been living on sheets of paper in a thickening stack between the covers of his songwriting binder.
He came to Prince George this past spring to record them in a local home they converted temporarily into a music studio. That full production value will be revealed when the album comes out, but for now he wants to hint at what is to come.
"There were two brand new ones, and a bunch I'd been meaning to record from over the years," he said.
Now he finally has those seedlings planted and the audience can help them grow.
It was such an auspicious recording session, his first since the Directions sessions in the 1990s, that a lot of filming was done and there is now talk of a documentary film to accompany the new package of music.
"Directions In A Foreign Tongue came from all my growing up here," Primus said.
"But for this project, even though it's been all those years since I've lived here, it again came from my roots in this place. And it made sense to come back here and engage those family members and all those feelings for this place."
To get that appetizer of the big release coming up in the next few months, get a seat at Nancy O's tonight.
Primus takes the stage at 8 p.m. Tickets are $5 at the door.
