Ladysmith, B.C.based snger/ songwriter Ryan McMahon plays a variety of venues when he visited Lethbridge.
He was last here opening for Burton Cummings at the Enmax Centre before embarking on a tour with Tom Cochrane. The previous visit, he was playing a house party, and the Geomatic Attic before that.
He returns to Lethbridge, Saturday, March 16, to play a show at the Lethbridge College Cave for the Lethbridge Folk Cub.
“ I’ve played a little bit of both,” said McMahon, en route to a gig in Field, B.C. with pianist Joel Spillette, who is joining him for the first tour of 2024 — 21 shows in 25 days all over B.C and Alberta.
“ B.C. and Alberta have always been my strongest markets,” he said.
He enjoyed touring for 15 shows with The Guess Who’s Burton Cummings on his last tour.
“Uncle Burton got nicer every gig. I hope some of the people who saw me then, will be at this show and see me stretch out a little and play more songs,” McMahon said, adding he also enjoyed the shorter tour of B.C with Tom Cochrane right after the Tour with Cummings ended.
“Tom Cochrane was so generous. After my first show he came backstage and said ‘kid, you’ve got a good voice, would you like to some on stage and sing a song with me?’ So I got to sing ‘No Regrets ’ with him each night,” said McMahon, who has been playing music for 25 years and is touring in support of his seventh solo album “Live Now.”
He never takes bigger tours for granted.
“I’ve played bigger shows. I was shitting bricks playing the Enmax Centre, then on this tour I’m playing wineries for 30 to 40 people and I’m playing for the Lethbridge Folk Club in Lethbridge. If you don’t tour, you don’t eat,” he said, noting there will be several iterations of the band on this tour.
“I’ll be playing most of the new album and going back to play some other songs people may want to hear,” he said.
“Most of it is as a duo. It‘s really stripped down and intimate. But there are some shows I’m playing as a trio. You really have to plan for it financially to take a full band on tour,” he continued.
“It gets harder as you get older. I go out for three weeks and get psyched for it. And then come home with a one week head cold before going out again,” he said.
He is enjoying playing with Spillette.
“He wasn’t on this album, but he was on the album before that. I’ve known him since I was 17. We’ve been pals for a long time,” he said.
“Live Now,” is McMahon’s seventh solo album and resulted from the pandemic.
“For the first part of the pandemic, I sat around the fire pit and got fatter and drank a lot. I was wondering what to do with myself. But for the second part of it, I started writing songs. There’s a lot of emotions in it, fear, joy. It’s about never taking anything for granted,” he said.
“Live Now” was produced by Jordan Pritchett and his partner Danielle Marie at Vancouver's Warehouse Studios. The album is a diverse 10-song collection ranging from hard-hitting roots rockers to heart-wrenching ballads.
He has released four singles and videos from the album “One More Fire,” “Feed Your Mind,” “Sometimes Life’s Amazing” and Lost and Found” since it was released in November. He is pleased with the response which has included some airplay on country music radio.
“It’s weird, because there’s no trucks or tailgates in my music. There’s some country in there. And some Americana and of course folk music. You can’t really pigeonhole my music. I’m inspired by a lot of people down south like Jason Isbel and Chris Stapleton and older songwriters like Warren Zevon, ” he said.
Ryan McMahon plays the Lethbridge College Cave, Saturday, March 16.
Steve Keenan opens the show at 8 p.m. Tickets are $40/ $35 for members and $10 for students.
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
