STORY CONTINUES BELOW THESE SALTWIRE VIDEOS

HALIFAX, N.S. — The arrival of the Halifax Urban Folk Festival this week is something of a milestone as it’s one of the first major recurring cultural events that didn’t have to hit the pause button last year due to the constant ebb and flow of the novel coronavirus.

Granted, we had the Omicron variant in between instalments, and HUFF 2021 was largely a local affair due to travel constraints, but it’s a relief to feel that sense of continuity returning to the Nova Scotia arts scene, with Halifax Fringe, FIN Atlantic International Film Festival, Celtic Colours and Nova Scotia Music Week looming on the horizon.

This year, HUFF goes international once more with guests like Jake Clemons highlighting the strong solo work he creates when he’s not on the road playing sax for Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Grammy Award-nominated Nashville rock songsmith Aaron Lee Tasjan and Austin-based roots powerhouse Bob Schneider.

The shows at the Carleton Music Bar & Grill, Brightwood Brewing, New Scotland Brewing, Berwick’s Union Street and the Halifax Grand Parade also provide a great chance to catch up with some of the region’s finest songwriters, like Adam Baldwin (whose superb new Concertos & Serenades is due Sept. 23), Kim Harris and Reeny Smith; Newfoundland’s Sherry Ryan and Mick Davis; and Maritime hip-hop trailblazers Wolf Castle and LxVNDR.

Full show and artist details are available at www.halifaxurbanfolkfestival.com.

Kicking things off at HUFF’s Carleton headquarters on Sunday night is a Halifax-based band that’s an ideal act to ease attendees into a week of acoustic, electric and electronic sounds. Horsebath began as a shared ride between Toronto and Montreal between Guysborough native Daniel Connolly and Ontario-raised Keast Mutter that evolved into a musical road trip that veered through classic country and folk songwriting before gathering up a rhythm section that propels the duo through its new recordings which is between the final stages of mixing and mastering.

Early exposure to Horsebath came through whimsical videos of Connolly and Mutter singing honky-tonk hits on the Margaree Valley farm where they worked for a couple of summers — who can resist the sight of two lanky troubadours crooning Ernest Tubb’s Thanks a Lot to a pony? — but the five-piece version is a horse of a different hue, opening up a world of possibilities for the talented pair.

“The songs are just evolved and now they have a bit more life to them, and a bit more spark,” says Mutter on the back porch of Agricola Street’s famous Jam House with Connolly and bassist Etienne Beausoleil. “We’re just happier with the music now and more excited about how it’s fresh again.

“And we’re able, now that this record is almost done, to let go of it and and just be proud of it.”

Last December, Horsebath showcased its amped-up incarnation with a Rock ’n’ Roll Circus show at the Marquee Ballroom, complete with burlesque dancers and the presence of a local fanbase that the band hopes to grow across the country once the record is released. The road is a natural place for Mutter and Connolly to be — a cross-country road trip documentary made with artist and filmmaker Enora Sanschagrin is also in the works — and they definitely hear it calling.

“That’s something that Etienne always says; no matter how many people are in the crowd, we always bring as much as we can and really, most importantly, try to enjoy it,” says Connolly. “And when we are driving with each other and enjoying it, and full of that kind of love for music, it radiates into the crowd, and they give it back to us.

“It’s this thing you build together. And each performance is different, but we bring the heat.”

Heat is also what comes to mind when you watch the video for Everything Is Fine, the latest single by Toronto songwriter and HUFF headliner Skye Wallace, with a title that recalls the always appropriate meme of a cartoon dog sitting in a cafe with everything around him in flames. There’s also the presence of Wallace herself, sporting a rubber mask similar to the Creature From the Black Lagoon as she reaches out to the listener with words of empathy, “Are you struggling? Are you buckling under the weight of it all?”

“Alex (Marusyk) and I wrote it in the winter of 2021 when things were kind of extremely bleak,” says Wallace via video call, with her monster mask sitting on a shelf behind her. “This was the feeling that I was feeling, he was feeling, that everybody was feeling at the time.

“I think that’s the throughline to this whole record. I’ve often taken songwriting from a storytelling seat or some kind of narration, but this is the first full record that’s autobiographical and speaking about my inner introspection and feelings.

“So it’s definitely a challenge; I know a lot of people who do that so well, but for me, this was a big dive into that.”

The record in question won’t be out until later in the fall via Six Shooter Records, presaged by Everything Is Fine and the earlier single Truth Be Told, and Wallace gets to showcase its endearing rock and power pop vibe with a full band show at the Carleton on Friday, Sept. 2 before joining the opening song circles for Tasjan on Sept. 3 and Schneider on Sept. 4 (both backed by the Halifax All Stars).

“I started out in folk and, especially because of the pandemic, I’ve been able to get back into the introspective part of songwriting,” explains Wallace, who developed her more electric side on stage and is eager to be back on the East Coast, where she has family roots in Newfoundland.

"So, I’m ready. I think rock music is a really cool vehicle and I like the frequency that it’s at. I really do think that it’s still about telling those stories, and feeling those feels through rock music is something that I’m really interested in and excited by.”

A HUFF artist who’s been at the heart of rock and roll performance in its most triumphant form is Jake Clemons, who was last in the Maritimes a decade ago as the fresh face in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, filling the sizable saxophone shoes of his uncle, the late Clarence Clemons on Moncton’s Magnetic Hill.

In that time, Clemons has evolved impressively as a songwriter in his own right, and he performs a sold-out show with his band and guest Adam Baldwin on Tuesday as well as on the Grand Parade with Dear Rouge and Mick Davis for the free HUFF finale show on Saturday, Sept. 3.

On his latest album Eyes on the Horizon, Clemons takes on an involving, activist role with calls for awareness, enlightenment, regard for democracy and community to a vibrant musical soundtrack of rock, soul, punk and folk.

“My approach in general, and my hope, is to be an artist that’s able to bring people together,” says Clemons from his home in Montreal. “And to help people recognize that the divisions that we have aren’t necessary, and that the values that we need to fight for and stand for are universal and aren’t one sided.”

Clemons underlines his humanism on the single We, the People, and a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Democracy, while collaborating with Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello on Consumption Town and Canadian folk star Allison Russell on the new release Born Like Me, an impassioned Black Lives Matter anthem.

Common sense and empathy shouldn’t have to come from a political standpoint, and Clemons is looking for the weak spots in the ideological walls that have been erected between communities and cultures to let the light shine through.

“I was very, very particular with the rhetoric, especially on a song like We the People, to be speaking from a position that’s on the side of humanity,” explains Clemons. “Not holding a political bias per se, but just recognizing what’s inherently wrong and inherently bad, and that we should all be able to stand on one side and observe that and recognize it as what it is.

“That was the general hope for the record; it wasn’t to be a political record, necessarily, but to speak about the current state of things, what’s happening in the U.S. and really globally. And just to address the human factor of it, because these divisions are destroying us. We can all hopefully agree on righteousness and stand on the side of what is inherently good.”

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