PREVIEW
What: Terri Clark
When: Nov. 9 and 10
Where: Port Theatre, 125 Front St. Nanaimo (Nov. 9, 7:30 p.m.)
Cowichan Performing Arts Centre, 2687 James St., Duncan (Nov. 10, 7:30 p.m.)
Tickets: $45 ($60 for VIP seats)
Reservations: PortTheatre.com /Cowichanpac.ca
Nanaimo: 250-754-8550
Duncan: 250-748-7529
When Terri Clark takes to the stage at Nanaimo’s Port Theatre and Duncan’s Cowichan Performing Arts Centre next week, fans of the Canadian country music star will get the chance to see her like never before.
Intimacy has been the operative word during the two-time Juno Award winner’s Back to My Roots solo acoustic tour, which began Sept. 14 in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, and ends Nov. 12 in Vancouver.
Other British Columbia stops during a tour that sees Clark perform 41 shows in 50 days include concerts in Smithers, Quesnel, Fort St. John and Terrace.
Clark, who has 13 Top-10 singles under her belt, will be getting up close and personal with her Vancouver Island fans in an environment that is as interactive as it is intimate, she says. After sharing stories with the audience, along with her catalogue of hits from a career that has spanned more than two decades, she will participate in a Q&A-style session at the end of the show.
Fans of the five-time Canadian Country Music Association’s female vocalist of the year will see her perform stripped-down versions of hits such as Poor Poor Pitiful Me, Girls Lie Too and I Just Wanna be Mad.
Clark, who has sold four million albums worldwide and is the only Canadian female artist to be named a member of the Grand Ole Opry, has toured with a who’s who of country stars, including Brad Paisley, Brooks & Dunn, Reba McEntire and George Strait.
The dynamic, straight-shooting performer, who began her career playing for tips at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, a honky-tonk bar across the alley from Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium, has also collaborated with Vince Gill, Allison Krauss and Martina McBride.
“Every night feels like the first night. It feels fresh. It’s not gotten stale or old or tired-feeling for me yet,” the musician, from Medicine Hat, Alta,, recently told the Calgary Herald.
“I’m not promoting a new record. I’m not promoting a book or a TV show or anything. This is basically the journey and the walk and the retrospective of my entire career, and a big thank-you to people across Canada.”
Describing her current unplugged tour as her “most authentic, pull-the-curtain-back” experience, Clark said it was inspired by a desire to do something different.
When Clark isn’t recording or on the road, she hones her radio skills as part of Nash FM’s syndicated America’s Morning Show, and through short-form feature programming.
She also hosts U.S. radio network Westwood One’s Classic Country radio show Country Gold, a fan-interactive program that airs on more than 100 stations. It is highlighted by a focus on country music from the 1980s and 1990s that influenced her.
Clark has been receiving favourable reviews for her Back to My Roots shows so far.
The reviewer for the Maritimes-based Daily Musician said there wasn’t a dry eye in the house during her concert in Summerside when she performed the song Smile.
It was the climax of what was described as a “shining moment of the evening” when Clark talked about her mother, who died in 2010 after a battle with cancer. It earned the musician an extended standing ovation.
