One thing I always look forward to in December is the Highway 3 Roots Revue’s annual Lethbridge show because it features three of Southern Alberta’s songwriters Leeroy Stagger, Dave McCann and John Wort Hannam.
So I rushed back from an early Christmas in Calgary to catch their sold out, Dec. 14 performance at the Geomatic Attic.
The audience, including a lot of newcomers to the Geomatic Attic and several regulars, caught a great show of mostly new material, if only because an ailing John Wort Hannam wasn’t able to play their Dec. 19, Calgary show due to a blown eardrum.
Sick or not, Hannam toughed it out, beginning the show with crowd favourite “Church of the Long Grass” as McCann and Stagger added extra guitar and vocal harmonies.
While each musician played their own songs, the other two contributed to each one with Stagger playing mandolin on a couple of songs and John Wort Hannam playing banjo on a couple of others.
Dave McCann followed it up by playing “Wooden Wings” from his new CD ”Circle of Light.”
Leeroy Stagger focussed on new material from an upcoming CD including the beautiful “Something Beautiful.”
After that, Hannam told a story about forgetting his 18th wedding anniversary while on tour and played a song he wrote right after a phone call with his wife and talked about calling her back and playing the new song he write, which I think as called “How On Earth Do You Love Me.”
Dave McCann played to that theme with a song called “You Can’t Have it All.”
After that, Leeroy Stagger talked about the highlight of his year— leaving his newborn son with his wife's parents and going to Chicago to open for one of his idols Steve Earle. He told a story about walking around the city and seeing homeless people sitting in front of big box stores.
“ I knew each of them had to have a story,” he said, playing an excellent new song “ I Love Living In America” telling a few of their stories.
McCann told his own story about recording an album in Nashville a few years ago and almost getting mugged at a gas station in East St. Louis if it weren’t for the gas station attendant drawing his own gun at the muggers, which inspired McCann to and play one of his older songs “Standing in the River.”
Which prompted Stagger to observe he takes up a lot of hobbies, the lasts being fishing and can’t help thinking of McCann’s song whenever he goes fishing. He finished up his part of the first set by playing one of my favourites “Stormy,” which he wrote about a biker.
The trio ended the first set on a Christmas note.
