Del Barber w/Lucette April 26 @Mills Hardware

DEL BARBER
with guest Lucette
Thursday April 26, 2023 • 7pm door, 8pm show
Mills Hardware (95 King St. E., Hamilton)
GA 19+ • $20 (+SC/HST) advance

Tickets: https://delbarber-millshardware.eventbrite.ca/?aff=fb

With five Western Canadian Music Award wins and a plethora of nominations for JUNO Awards and Canadian Folk Music Awards, Del Barber has spent the past 14 years patiently shaping the folk music canon in Canada. Del’s previous six albums have been critically acclaimed and the latest, Stray Dogs, finds him bridging the past and present. Conceived during pandemic isolation at Del’s rural Manitoba home, the eight songs on Stray Dogs are drawn mainly from his large stock of previously unfinished demos and are given renewed focus and polish by producer and longtime bandmate Scott Franchuk. The acoustic-based Stray Dogs captures the essence of Del’s art, of which Rolling Stone Magazine wrote, “Like John Prine, Barber writes the types of songs his characters might listen to themselves.” As the follow up to his 2020 JUNO-nominated album Easy Keeper, Stray Dogs finds Del Barber bridging his past and present. Conceived during pandemic isolation at his rural Manitoba home, the eight songs on Stray Dogs are drawn mainly from Del’s large stock of previously unfinished demos, given renewed focus and polish by his longtime band and producer Scott Franchuk. From the first single “Meantime”—a show of support to his favourite venue in Winnipeg—to the heart-swelling closer “Just A Little Heat,” written with his father, Stray Dogs is a powerful reflection of the resilience we have all displayed over the past year. It also shows how Del has emerged even stronger, and how he truly deserves a place among Canada’s most celebrated singer-songwriters.

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Lucette is the moniker of Canadian artist Lauren Gillis, a soulful and emotive singer who self-describes her music as “country infused dream-pop”. Her two albums vary from dark folk and southern gothic tales to what Rolling Stone describes as “a bold expansion of Lucette’s melodic sensibilities...that avoid the rootsy clichés of Americana music.” Lucette’s first album, Black is the Color, was produced by Dave Cobb and led to her opening for Sturgill Simpson on his Metamodern Sounds of Country Music tour. Her song “Bobby Reid” was featured as the title track on the critically acclaimed Netflix special “Nanette” and the single “Black is the Color” was featured on “South of Hell” and “The Vampire Diaries”. Her second album, Deluxe Hotel Room, was produced by Simpson, whose no-nonsense instruction to her was, “Sing it like you mean it.” The two connected with the intent of making art, timeless yet fresh. Lucette has been touring since 2012 through the United States, Canada, and the UK with artists such as Joe Ely, David Ramirez, The Secret Sisters, and Netflix documentary star Rodriguez.