Skip to content

Songwriter set to perform in Kelowna

Songwriter Steph Cameron will return to the road for a string of tour dates in Western Canada
8646782_web1_stephcameron

Acclaimed songwriter Steph Cameron will return to Kelowna as part of a tour through Western Canada.

Ahead of her Oct. 12 performance at Fernandos, audiences are getting a new video for That’s What Love Is from her latest album Daybreak Over Jackson Street.

The song “describes some of the loneliness we can feel in spite of the deep connections we have with those we love,” said Cameron. “It describes the heart as an empty room that waits longingly for the one it loves to walk through its doors and give the room meaning.”

Cameron arrived on the scene like a bracing gust of fresh musical air with her debut record Sad-Eyed Lonesome Lady, receiving unanimously enthusiastic reviews. No Depression termed it “a stunning debut,” while Exclaim! noted that “Sad-Eyed Lonesome Lady delights from start to finish. Cameron is the real deal.” The record also made the coveted longlist for the prestigious Polaris Music Prize in 2015.

Out now via Pheromone Recordings, Daybreak Over Jackson Street navigates subtle changes in stylistic terrain. If the debut felt as if it emerged fully-formed from the bohemian streets of Greenwich Village circa 1963, then the extra maturity of this album gives it more of an early ’70s Laurel or Topanga Canyon atmosphere.

Like her debut, Daybreak Over Jackson Street was recorded at elite Toronto studio Revolution Recording with producer Joe Dunphy. It retains the sparse template of her first record – one voice, one guitar, both recorded in intimate fashion and to tape.

Many of these new songs feature a more mature Cameron looking back upon earlier turbulent times.

“As I get a bit older I’m able to recall my youth from a different perspective. Many of these songs draw their content from the life and relationships I had in my youth; to people and places, particularly East Vancouver.”

She describes “Daybreak Over Jackson Street” as a song “about living in an impoverished neighbourhood in an urban setting. That song acknowledges some of the elements of life in a slum.” A similar locale, East Vancouver, permeates “Richard,” a haunting ode to a troubled comrade left behind – ‘a hotel is a real sad place for living’.

Having spent some time living in The Kootenays, the great outdoors appears in Cameron’s “That’s What Love Is,” a lovely and gentle tune featuring a circular guitar pattern and such atmospheric imagery as ‘late at night when the coyotes call, the dogs whimper and the leaves fall’. Then there is the fast and breezy “Little Blue Bird,” one ‘sitting in the snow, staring at the stars dreaming of the railroad cars’.

Daybreak Over Jackson Street has also attracted the enthusiastic attention of U.K. folk music specialist label At The Helm which is releasing it in the UK on November 10. A UK and European tour will follow in 2018.

LIVE DATES

Sept 29 – Saskatoon, SK – Capitol Music Club

Oct 2 - Calgary, AB - The Ironwood

Oct 3 - Regina, SK - O’Hanlon’s

Oct 4 - Winnipeg, MB - West End Cultural Centre

Oct 6 - Brandon, MB - Lady of the Lake

Oct 12 - Kelowna, BC - Fernandos

Oct 13 - Rossland, BC - The Flying Steam Shovel

Oct 16 - Quadra Island, BC - Herriot Bay Inn

Oct 21 - Edmonton, AB - The Almanac