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Blackie and The Rodeo Kings mark 25 years in Vernon

The trio will play the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre Sunday, Nov. 13
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Blackie and the Rodeo Kings will play at the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre on Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. (Submitted photo)

A band on tour to celebrate its 25th year as a group will be stopping in Vernon for a mid-November show.

Blackie and the Rodeo Kings will play the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre Sunday, Nov. 13, at 7:30 p.m.

Currently on a cross-Canada tour, the band has released its 11th studio album, O Glory.

Colin Linden, Stephen Fearing and Tom Wilson originally came together to record what was meant to be a one-off tribute to Canadian songwriter Willie P. Bennett. The result was High or Hurtin’: The Songs of Willie P. Bennett. The band had no plans to make a subsequent album, but then something unexpected happened.

“When we play together and sing together as Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, something magical happens. We haven’t asked ourselves what it is all these years and we’re not going to start now,” said Fearing.

Now 20 years later with 10 albums, one Juno award and several Juno nominations, Blackie and The Rodeo Kings have evolved into one of the most celebrated roots-oriented bands in North America.

“25 years later, we’re still digging in for the sweet spots. Making friends with the ghosts of poets and harmonizing with the voices in fields and swinging for the fences,” said Wilson.

The Rodeo Kings will be joined by special guests, Juno award-winning Digging Roots (which won Aboriginal Album of the Year in 2010) and 2018 Polaris Music Prize-winning Terra Lightfoot.

Digging Roots, a husband and wife duo, blend folk-rock, blues and hip hop with traditional Indigenous music into a genre-blurring sound that is all their own.

Lightfoot is a roots rocker with a “rockabilly” voice and a blues soul who has released four albums, including the Juno-nominated Adult Alternative Album of the Year for her third album, New Mistakes. She has toured across North America and Europe with the likes of Willie Nelson, Bruce Cockburn, Blue Rodeo, The Sadies and Emmylou Harris.

Tickets are $40 for adults, $38 for seniors and $35 for students and are available by calling 250-549-7469, or online at ticketseller.ca.

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Brendan Shykora
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Brendan Shykora

About the Author: Brendan Shykora

I started as a carrier at the age of 8. In 2019 graduated from the Master of Journalism program at Carleton University.
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