When you think of the colours of Canada, one jumps out more than any other. It dominates the flag, it's definitive of the Mounties, the most successful NHL team in history wears it and so do our national teams of all sporting description. What's a Canada Day celebration without some scarlet?
The Heatwave festival starts this weekend and they have the vibrant national colour covered. Firstly, the band Red Moon Road is on the bill, and so is Scarlett Jane.
You'll notice there's that extra T in the progressive-folk duo's name, though. The Urban Dictionary defines "scarlett" as "an extremely hot, sexy, amazingly beautiful looking girl" who "either intentionally or not, makes all the guys at a party gather around her and ignore all the other girls, a la Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind."
This may well be the reality when Andrea Ramolo and Cindy Doire show up on the stages of the nation. The pair have bustling solo careers but love nothing better than to join forces whenever possible. When they do, the spotlight seems to swing their way.
Ramolo knows what the Prince George stage feels like. She's been here before on her own. This winter she was one of the headliners for the Coldsnap Music Festival performing from her most recent solo album Nuda. Six months later she completes the circle with Heatwave, bringing Diore along to meet the fans and introduce the repertoire they have as Scarlett Jane.
"While I was recording Nuda, she was also recording a new French album so we both spent the last year kinda delving into who we are as individuals, and getting back to those roots, reclaiming those voices. It's really fun to come back together," Ramolo said.
It was a long break from working as the duo. There is a pair of Scarlett Jane albums to now draw on, and new material starting to spark and smolder, but the Prince George show will only be their second concert since their respective solo forays. The first was in Timmins, Diore's hometown, at another Canada 150 outdoor event like Heatwave only that one was coupled with an international fireworks festival and opening for veteran music stars David Wilcox and Sass Jordan.
In Prince George they are on the July 5 bill with the Khast'an Drummers opening the show and the legendary Bruce Cockburn closing the night.
"We played an Ontario festival and we sat front row when he played. He was solo, he did a great job, and he's charming and he's funny and his repertoire is part of the Canadian canon," said Ramolo of Cockburn.
They are part of the distinctly Canadian genre that Cockburn helped create starting back in the Yorkville arts scene in the 1960s with the likes of Murray McLauchlan, Joni Mitchell, Victor Garber,Dan Hill, where the unlikely union of "Super Freak" Rick James and "Heart of Gold" Neil Young formed a band, the early workings of Steppenwolf were in motion, and a perfectly acceptable blend of poppy James Taylor, bluesy Buddy Guy and country outlaw Kris Kristofferson would be offered on any given evening.
That multinational musicality had staying power. It had resonance. It told the region of Canada that what mattered most in music was literate lyrics and fearless disclosure of the personal and national emotions. It can lean in and out of any one genre, no problem. The common denominators are a bit misty but the main foundation is telling a story for its own sake, not the sake of a hit single.
The twist of ironic intuition is, if you stick with that authenticity, the hits will emerge on their own legs. For Scarlett Jane it's the poppy Little Secret that opens the door to rockabilly-tinged Can't Come Back, the smoky portrait Stranger, the lusty Burning Up, the fiery We All Just Wanna Be Loved, the candle-lit ode Aching Heart or the smooth ballad Oh Darling.
Their songs don't stay pinned to one sound, but the tight connections between their voices and the interplay between their instruments makes for a Scarlett Jane experience that sits alongside even their own solo material.
Fair comparisons would be Blackie & The Rodeo Kings (alumnus Stephen Fearing is coming for Heatwave), Whitehorse, Lindi Ortega, local favourite out of Ontario Sarah Burton, or fellow Heatwave artist Rachelle Van Zanten.
It's not music that fits in the "background" category. Scarlett Jane doesn't demand a thing, but there is a magnetic pull of your attention. These are songs that draw focus, and after years of hacking and slashing through bars and nightclubs and international tours both Diore and Ramolo have a sense of where they best fit.
"We love festivals and soft-seater theatres, that's where our heart's at - venues and opportunities and experiences that really cater to us putting on the best possible show," Ramolo said. "For our type of songwriting, it's essential, we find, to have a crowd that really wants to hear the songs, hear the harmonies, hear the stories behind them. We definitely did too many a drunken bar. When you're playing other people's music that everyone knows, where everyone's singing along, they're dancing, they're getting their groove on, you're connecting to them on that level. But what we're trying to do with our music and our art is something different. We want to resonate on a different level, and engage in a type of communication. But we're not excluding drunk people - we welcome all."
