Saskatchewan’s own Jeffery Straker, the singer/songwriter pianist from Punnichy with a sound reminiscent of Elton John, Billy Joel, and Rufus Wainwright, will return to the Moose Jaw Cultural Centre’s Mae Wilson Theatre on April 14.
“Well, what to say about the Mae Wilson? I love getting back there,” Straker said in an interview with MooseJawToday.com. “It’s been a couple of years since I’ve performed there, and it is hands down my favourite room to perform in in Saskatchewan.
“When I performed there for first time, years ago, I think I was the one who nicknamed it the ‘Carnegie Hall’ of the Prairies — and I stand by that. It’s magical, it’s majestic, it’s got a mood and a vibe to it that I think probably gives it the biggest personality in the province.”
Straker ought to know, as the now-Regina-based artist has toured all over the world since releasing his first album in 2006. He’s roamed Europe, South America, North America, and even Ghana in Africa.
“I’ve been lucky to perform lots of places,” he said. “I’d say the brunt of my touring is across Canada, but I also go into the UK, and the States. I’m just back from a run of shows in Florida, and in November I did a run of shows across the United Kingdom.”
Straker said that even when his audience doesn't know where Saskatchewan is, his Saskatchewan inspirations still connect. There’s a universality in the specifics, he said, that all people can relate to.
“I have a song, ‘One Foot on Main Street,’ that’s literally about growing up in a small town, and leaving it, but being cognizant that your roots are there.
“And when I first sang that song in the UK, then right across England, or in Florida, I was kind of curious, like, is this going to connect? And it did.”
It works, he explained, because there’s a greater theme there about spreading your wings and taking off from the place you started, while always having that reference point to look back at.
Straker’s latest album is Just Before Sunrise (2021). It helped him win Roots/Folk Artist of the Year at the Saskatchewan Music Awards two years in a row. He’s also won a Western Canadian Music Award, and in 2014 he gained a following across Latin American when his song “Hypnotized” won the prestigious Vina del Mar International Song Festival. Winning the Vina del Mar is notoriously difficult — the Chilean press calls the festival’s audience ‘the Monster.’
He is also known for adapting genres to perform sold-out concerts with symphony orchestras. As a classically trained pianist who can trace his teaching lineage back to Beethoven and Chopin, he is perfectly positioned to manage that fusion.
“I’ve always just wanted to tell stories through my songs,” Straker said. “I want to bring to life characters, places, and spaces through song. … So, to me, it’s never been about, you know, how big can the audience be, or what award might I win?
“What I thrive off is feeling a connection with listeners, and that can be in a house concert, to 30 people in a living room, or to a festival stage of 3,000 people, or (the Mae Wilson) in Moose Jaw, where there might be a couple of hundred people. That’s the payoff, and that’s what keeps me motivated.”
Straker is currently working on his next album, which he said is his most ‘roots’ yet. He plans to debut a song from that album in Moose Jaw. Called “Two-by-Fours and Timber,” it is ostensibly about Saskatchewan’s shrinking population of grain elevators, but Straker said that to many people it’s about the nostalgia of looking back at a way of life.
Don’t miss Jeffery Straker’s performance at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 14 at the Moose Jaw Cultural Centre. Tickets are available from Sasktix.ca or at the Cultural Centre box office.
