Country fans won’t want to miss the finely-crafted tunes of Justin Sutton and North of 49, who take the Showdown Dance Hall stage on Aug. 31 as part of WPCA World Chuckwagon Finals entertainment.
Showtime is 8:30 p.m.
Sutton has made a name for himself in the Alberta country music scene with his authentic approach to the genre.
His debut album, recorded with producer Bart McKay, has received plenty of recognition and airplay on hundreds of radio stations worldwide, with standout track Greyhound landing more than 40,000 streams on Spotify alone, according to his website.
“Drawing inspiration from traditional country music, blues, and southern rock, as well as contemporary artists like Colter Wall, Cody Jinks, Sturgill Simpson, and Tyler Childers, Sutton’s music is a raw and authentic representation of the genre.”
Originally from Moncton, New Brunswick, Sutton now lives in Sturgeon County north of Edmonton.
“No one in my family really played. My uncle would play at camps in New Brunswick a bit, and I kind of picked it up from that,” he said.
“A family friend then gave me a guitar. I stuck with it, and then around the time I was 16, a couple of older guys were starting a band, and asked me to play. So I started with a blues/rock band back in high school in Moncton,” he explained.
“I was really into classic rock, and the blues. And then once I dug deep enough into it, I was back to country,” he said, adding his folks had always been fans of the genre as well.
“So I heard it growing up, then tried to do my own thing for a bit, and then I ended up back in it.”
For Sutton, it’s the storytelling richness of country music that is most compelling.
“The stories, and the lyrics, are what always bring me back. With my songwriting, I also like to tell a story with each song.”
It was around the time he first started playing guitar that his skills in songwriting also started taking shape, too.
“I could barely play my instrument, and we were trying to play in this band. And I was writing at the same time,” he recalled with a laugh. With the songwriting, it’s typically a melody that comes to mind first.
“It will be in my head, and then I can throw some words to it — some ideas I have stored in my head,” he said.
“I can’t really force anything. I wait until it comes to me. I think that I can come up with better stuff if I wait until something really strikes me.”
Sutton’s vocals suit his tunes perfectly, but he explained singing in itself kind of came about almost unexpectedly.
“Since I was writing songs for that rock band, I would pretty well, at that point, have to sing them,” he said. Over the years, his gift for performing has flourished, and it’s all just part of journey he certainly doesn’t take for granted.
These days, he’s preparing to release a full-length recording.
“You never know what you are going to leave with,” he said of the recording side of things.
”I think you have to have an open mind. If you just have a set (concept) in your head, things can go off the rails pretty quick. So being able to be flexible, and to kind of experiment, definitely helps.”
He’s also pretty much at home onstage with his band, too.
“It’s not nerves so much - unless they have me singing the anthem, then I get nervous! So I don’t really get nervous anymore. It’s just exciting, and it never gets old — that sense of excitement onstage.”
For Sutton and the band, at the end of the day, there is just nothing like the life of making music.
“It’s in my blood to write and to play music. It’s one of those things where, if I didn’t do it on the business side of things, releasing singles and getting on the radio, I’d still be doing at home — just for myself.”
