A multiple Juno Award-winning musician is bringing fans into his living room with his latest release.
Old Man Luedecke gets personal with listeners through the album Domestic Eccentric, featuring songs of life and family in toe-tapping folk tunes.
“For whatever reason this album is particularly personal,” said Chris Luedecke. “I had written a bunch of songs that were about family.”
The East Coast musician will bring those songs to the west with a performance for the Beneath the Arch Concert Series at the Flare ‘n’ Derrick Community Hall in Turner Valley March 11 at 7:30 p.m. featuring a combination of his latest recordings and some of his initial works. He will be accompanied by Newfoundlander Joel Hunt with the two playing the banjo, guitar and mandolin.
“It’s a pretty funny show,” said Luedecke. “There’s storytelling in between songs, stuff about family life and weird observations of the world. It’s not stand-up but there’s a fair bit of humour in the show.”
The poet and balladeer from Chester, Nova Scotia was recently nominated for two East Coast Music Awards, one for Album of the Year – which he won in 2014 – and Solo Artist of the Year.
What captures listeners are not only his moving lyrics, but his sing-along type of songs.
“It’s pretty toe-tapping, good time stuff,” he said.
What sets Domestic Eccentric apart from Old Man Luedecke’s other albums is that it’s more personal and was recorded in a cabin Luedecke had built close to his home.
“So often my home life is removed from my workplace,” he said. “I live in the country and there’s not a lot of musical activity, generally. I go home and I write songs and I leave. That’s the nature of the business.”
The cabin has become a place of inspiration in recent years.
“That’s where I do a lot of my writing,” he said. “I wrote a lot of songs in it and it sounded good so I thought it would sound good to record in.”
Luedecke made all the arrangement to have the album recorded in his cabin, but then the area was hit with a big dump of snow.
“I had to get a back hoe to plow the field to the cabin,” he said. “There was about four feet of snow in the field. There is no road to get back there, you either snowshoe or walk. It was a funny level of commitment to have to go through just to show up to work.”
A week was spent at the cabin putting the album together.
“We had photographers and different people dropping by to do different things on the record,” he said. “It was nice that my home became my workplace.”
Domestic Eccentric features 14 tracks, of which the song The Early Days is gaining a lot of popularity, said Luedecke.
The song tells the tale of being in line at the checkout of a grocery store with a cart full of toddlers when an old man in the lineup says ‘You’ve got to hold on, it goes fast.”
“It really struck a chord with people of many ages,” Luedecke said of The Early Days.
The song has a lot of meaning for Luedecke.
“It wasn’t clear we were going to get to have kids,” he said. “I had songs on my earlier records about maybe not having kids. It was a big thing in the relationship.”
To his surprise, Luedecke ended up being a father to three children in two years.
“Now it was worth devoting a record to celebrate that,” he said.
Sharing these moments in his life helps Luedecke better connect with his audience and he takes it a step further when on stage.
“Because of what I do a personal connection to the audience is actually paramount in a way and I can offer myself,” he said. “Any artist does offer some aspect of themselves, which resonates with people which is why people keep coming back. You get invested in them and they get invested in you.”
Tickets to see Old Man Luedecke perform cost $25 for adults and $10 for children and can be purchased at beneaththearch.ca
