Mark Allan
Special to The Record
The Comox Valley’s version of a supergroup will perform a special one-off concert Sept. 11 at Innisfree Farm and Botanic Garden.
Brodie Lee Dawson, Luke Blu Guthrie, Christy Vanden and Ashley Sykes will hit the stage at a picturesque site that has become one of the Valley’s music hotspots this summer.
Dawson was named Vocalist of the Year at the Vancouver Island Music Awards and nominated for Best Live Act two straight years.
She took her rich, powerful voice to OmniSound Studios in Nashville recently to record Wholehearted, her third album. Four singles – I’m Movin’ On, Will I Ever, Skip a Beat and Paycheck – have been released from the album so far.
Dawson, who performed recently with Desmond Day Larson at The Gardens at Anderton, describes her style as a mix of soulful, bluesy folk with a gospel funk, a twist of pop and a twang of old-school country.
She’ll reunite Sept. 11 with Christy Vanden, a bandmate in the electrifying and sadly defunct trio She Could Be Trouble.
A winsome singer and mesmerizing guitarist with an affinity for Stratocasters, Vanden is back in the Comox Valley after a year in Vancouver teaching and touring as lead guitarist and backup singer with Canadian Idol contestant Karen Lee Batten. She plans to release her solo instrumental album Unexpected Road this year.
Local boy Guthrie is deeply soulful and passionately committed to creating and sharing his music as a songwriter, guitarist and singer. An integral part of the local music scene for two decades, he artfully fuses folk, funk, dark country and rock and roll in an appealing, heartfelt manner that is naturally charismatic and by turns soothing and dynamic.
Sykes is a singer/songwriter who brings her southern gospel roots from the state of Georgia and blends them with the West Coast themes of her current life on the Strait of Georgia. She writes songs that soothe the soul. In 2018, she released her first studio album, Dissonance, which she produced with Corwin Fox of Hidden Well Studios in Cumberland.
Doors open at 3 p.m. for the Sept. 11 rain-or-shine outdoor concert at 3636 Trent Rd. in Royston, with music starting at 4, when the Innisfree Café closes.
Tickets are available online at https://bit.ly/3QOBlge. $5 from every ticket will support Innisfree.
There’s no limit to the number of tickets sold, so it might be a good idea to bring a chair.
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