J.J. Shiplett has been in Prince George before, as dating a hometown girl will sometimes do, but he has never plied his craft here.
That changes on Friday night when Shiplett performs at CN Centre opening for his friend and collaborator Johnny Reid in their country music extravaganza. Like Reid, Shiplett is sorta country but a lot more as well, and packs a wallop with his voice. He could easily be compared to Bruce Springsteen or The Sheepdogs as much as anyone on the Nashville scene.
It was Nashville where Shiplett travelled to create his latest batch of songs, and Reid was right alongside him helping him with production. Songs like Higher Ground, Darling Let's Go Out Tonight and the power-country single Something To Believe In now stand as testament. It's outlaw country, and it's whipping him up quite a posse since it came out.
Something To Believe In "definitely came to life in ways I didn't expect. For me, I love the guitar solo in that song so I'm looking forward to getting out on stage and letting it rip," he said, on the phone just before sound check on the first night of the tour. He, Reid, and the rest of the roadshow have about 40 dates on the schedule and Prince George is only
No. 4 on the long cross-Canada list.
"We've been working through ideas and details, and we're about to jump off a cliff into the water, but we've been staring down too long. It's time to make our move," he said about how the first few nights on stage would probably feel.
A lot of it will be new for him. He is a true troubadour, grinding out a music career on the club circuit, running all the bases from his Calgary home plate. No glamourous home runs so far for him. He's a road warrior, and having people carrying his guitar and setting his mic up for him is an unaccustomed luxury. It feels odd, he admitted, but it does allow him to focus on the music, just the music.
"If there's no substance and you're not putting your heart and soul into it, then what are you doing? I'm trying to put my heart on my sleeve," he said, and the lyric sheet of any Shiplett song will show you what he means. Not a tailgate or a spilled beer or gratuitous female anywhere. He produces stories and characters, conjuring a spectrum of emotions deeper than the Top 40 surface.
"The writing process isn't an easy thing for me. I tend to fight it quite heavily. But I begin to work on ideas and some take me a year and some come quickly, but I go by if I like it, if I like to sing it, if I like to pick up the guitar and just play a riff for myself, I trust my instincts on that."
The instincts have been honed since childhood. One could imagine them passed down to him in his DNA. His father played music, and his favourite uncle was in a touring band. "He was just so cool and I wanted to be him, so my dad gave me his guitar and showed me how to play some chords," and the rest just unfolded before he was out of high school. Soon, music was his career calling.
He noticed, though, that music was being cut back and given short shrift in schools. Students were getting ever increasing instruction in trades subjects and academic subject, but music and art was being strangled.
In response, he and collaborator Daniel Huscroft started a foundation to raise money for kids with a musical aptitude but without the financial means, since private lessons are the only options remaining for most youngsters in today's education system.
"Music so often gets thrown under the bus, even though everyone enjoys it," he said.
"Math and science is so important, but you have to have kids also focus on creating art. It is critical to life."
The foundation has to take a back seat on the tour bus. The work must come first, for a labouring musician like Shiplett.
His efforts are on display as one of the opening acts on Friday night at the Johnny Reid concert.
In addition to Shiplett, audiences will get opening act Aaron Goodvin and special guests
Natalie MacMaster, lage Diouf and others.
