Official Site of Jacquie Drew & the Crew- Calgary Country-Roots Band

Friday Duos at Delta

jacquie — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 02:15:32 +0000

Dave Glowasky (fiddle) teamed up with me a few weeks ago to play a couple shows at the Delta Bow Valley. The Delta enjoyed it so much, they asked Dave to play with me on a long-term basis as a duo, and then assigned us as their regular Friday “happy hour” (5-7 pm) act. Wohoo! CLICK HERE TO SEE A VIDEO of Dave and I performing a brand new tune called Lovestruck that I wrote for hubby Valentine’s Day.

I have one last solo show at Delta on May 1, then we start the regular Friday duos May 10, where I’ll be performing first sets on piano, second sets on guitar — so I’m really going to cover a wide range of material — wohoo!

Welcome, Jim!

jacquie — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 04:08:50 +0000

Had the first rehearsal with our new bass player — what a talent — and a fabulous harmony singer too! This smiling friendly fellow is best known here in Calgary for his 30 year stint as “Benny the Bear” on the “Buckshot” TV show (which I used to watch as a kid!). Jim came highly recommended by the other guys in the band – specifically our fiddle player Dave Glowasky knows him well — so it’s funny how the new guy feels like old hat already. Ace!! Can’t wait for Stampede 2013! We also shot a new “band photo” today — which is loaded on the ABOUT THE CREW page.

Calgary Song Complete

jacquie — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 18:46:26 +0000

Howdy all! I’ve completed writing my new song about Calgary — pending very minor revisions to lyrics — which I usually tweak as I’m singing. I am deciding when to debut it, and the band hasn’t had a chance to really learn it yet, but we’re starting to work on it! It’s very energetic, and has lots of references recommended by you, the people of Calgary. In fact, it’s so energetic, I am finding that, like this fair city, it gets your heart rate going, and keeps making me want to speed up — ha ha — and I have to try to keep it under control as I’m playing it or I literally can’t get the lyrics out clearly!

I will be relying on my drummer to keep me on the mark and settle the tempo. The last song I wrote that had that quality was Savannah’s Song, which was about an energetic horse, and yes, that song sometimes runs away on me too. So, why shouldn’t Calgary’s song feel a bit like a runaway horse – Same- same, correct? If you live here, you know what I’m talking about!

Yahoo!!

Cowboys Show Announced

jacquie — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 23:33:44 +0000

The Crew – this time with a 5 piece band that includes a couple new faces — Dave Glowasky (our new fiddle player) and Dave Hamilton (amazing guitar player)….will be performing our brand of country, rock and roots music this Friday, March 15 at Cowboys Night Club in Calgary, $10, tickets available here:

http://cowboysnightclub.ticketleap.com/cowboys-country-concert-series-featuring-jacquie-drew–the-crew/

And now that we’ve got lots of new tunes — here’s a great chance to hear them!

Also, we are booking now for Stampede 2013– yahoooooo!! CLICK here to inquire.

Song for Calgary

jacquie — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 01:00:27 +0000

I am working really hard on my song for Calgary — and I’ve gotta give kudos to mayor Naheed Nenshi for re-tweeting my endeavour to help me get more tweets of suggestions, thoughts etc. of what should go in the song from all kinds of Calgarians. Here are some of the suggestions:

Chinook Arches, white hats, Glenmore Dam, Stampede, volunteers, maturing as a city, strong people, sidewalk pancakes, spolumbo sausage, peace bridge, Team USA costuming (?), multicultural, progressive, anything to do with green/sustainable/etc, Truckballz, chinook winds, sunsets by the river, lighting the tower, hail storms, the 88 Olympics and our cool mayor….

Thanks to everybody who contributed so far!

I’ve already got the melody and a lot of the story now. That’s usually how I write a song — get the “big picture” and rough lyrics, then fine tune it for a long time to get it where I’m comfortable. I think you’ll all be surprised how much I can work into this tune– and remember it’s NOT going to sound like a tourism ad, but it WILL give you the flavour of what this city is about!

Remember, if you’ve got suggestions– I WANT THEM!!! I plan to perform this song with the Crew on July 4 at the big Stampede First Flip event, downtown — it’s open to the public, so I expect you to BE THERE! YAHOOOO!

More New Songs

jacquie — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:14:16 +0000

Wohoo! Just finished up today’s rehearsal with the guys — they loved the new tunes, of which there are now 7 since the beginning of the year. Here’s the low-down:

The Boss is a Woman — a driving country-rock -blues
Be Surprised — a rootsy ballad about life changes
Galaxy Girl – a cosmic retro swing tune
Money — a driving rhythm/ blues tune
Lovestruck — a pop country ditty
Anything & Everything — romantic ballad — well, we just had Valentines’ Day!!
Monkey Dance — the melody was so perky I made this one a kids’ song

Yahoo! I’m pressing onward — the guys have fun helping me work the arrangements. Also, I’ve got a singer in the band (Scott Muirhead, the drummer) whose voice is deep enough to sing “I Found Love” with me and he’s awesome at it. We’ve kicked up the tempo a few notches and that tune (originally recorded in a very slow tempo on my Rolling Wind album) is becoming a nice country swing.

Other new songs (written late last year, and yet to be recorded include):

Exception to the Rule – inspiring pop tune
Superficial World- pop/rock/roots feel

This doesn’t include about 20 other tunes I have yet to record — but so what? It’s good to write a ton so you can whittle down to your favourites. Onward….may the muse stay with me awhile…I will try to take advantage of her while she’s here!

And if any of you has song ideas or stories, let me know!

New Songs

jacquie — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 22:17:14 +0000

Having fun writing new tunes — Three since the beginning of the year…yahoo! A standout one that we’re having fun with is called “The Boss is a Woman” and really kicks butt!

Having new material gives the band lots of creative energy in rehearsals. Also we’re really excited to have added a piano player and fiddler in the last couple months, and this is giving a fantastic new element to our sound – a full, 6 piece sound. The piano player, Steve Bridgett plays both country and rock really well, and with the keyboard he uses, it can make us sound more country or rock, depending on the style/sound he chooses. The fiddle player, Dave Glowasky, is a real talent to — he’s known as the “Flamin Fiddler” and played the Calgary Flames games for years before leaving to tour Europe. He also plays mandolin, and has a touch that adds an authentic sound to the country we do, or a subtle rhythm to the rock/pop sounding material.

It also gives us way more options for duo/trio configurations if we want to go that way. The best part is that everybody SINGS….so we have some fantastic harmonies going on! 2013 is going to be an awesome year.

New Music Coming in 2013

jacquie — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 21:39:19 +0000

Happy New Year! The Crew and I had a great show at the Calgary Winterclub last night — what a great place and energetic crowd. There were a couple of neat highlights:

Gary got me a cool new Sennheiser wireless system for my guitar, so I had a lot of fun wandering the room while playing. This was especially great when tossing songs to the guys in the band to sing…which leads me to the next highlight…
Everybody SANG! Yahoo – right out of the gate the background vocals were awesome — and then everybody sang lead at least once. What a great chance to switch things up. Kudos to Scott Muirhead, Andy Ferraz, Jason Hornby and Steve Bridgett. This was a first-time 5/5 achievement!
The kids! It was an all-ages party, and there were tons of fun, cute kids who dance, dance, danced all night… so of course we had to do the Chicken Dance, during which I put in my “best performance in a poultry related role” ha ha! Next time however, I will nix the leather pants!!the band.

Since in the past few months, venues and event planners have been looking for a mix of rock/pop in with the country, all the new tunes I’ve been learning have had an influence on giving me new ideas in my songwriting. Which is good – because learning all kinds of new tunes keeps my brain fresh. Anyway, there’s lots of new music coming — hope we’ll see you down at one of our shows real soon!

Merry Christmas

jacquie — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 03:30:26 +0000

Howdy folks! Blew out my pipes last week singing about 13 hours over 3 days — which then turned into a good cough/cold this week, so I’ve been glad to have a bit of a break! The next few shows will be private functions, but I’ll give you a heads-up if you sign up to the email list as to when the next public show will be.

If you want to have a Christmas laugh, have a listen to my original XXXMas song — makes a good stocking stuffer! Merry Christmas, and I’ll see you again in 2013!

Full-Band Country-Rock Shows Coming Up

jacquie — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 21:28:48 +0000

Just a quick post to let you know I’ve added quite a few new tunes to my MUSIC LIST – yes, lots of new Canadiana and rock tunes. I’m diversifying I guess – and some of these tunes were ones that I have loved over the years, and have special memories for me. If you’ve listened to my CD’s you’ll know that while I do write in the country style, I also cross over into pop and rock, even in my own writing — so it probably comes as no surprise. So we’ve evolved where we can do a mix show of 50/50 country – and rootsy-rock.

Our next shows are going to be bigger and better than ever– we’ve added a keyboard player to the band (Steve Bridgett)- and he sings great too! So that makes a 5 piece — and we’re going to be doing some great dance shows in Cochrane at the end of November– November 30 and December 1 at the Stageline Saloon. Yahoo — look forward to seeing you there soon!