To say that Forget is a hub for roots music in the Â鶹ÊÓƵeast might just be an understatement.
Proof of this can be seen in the fourth annual Deep Winter Blues Revival held in the community, sold-out for a fourth year in a row.
Despite the lack of deep winter, the festival proved its draw when all the tickets to all the shows sold-out within the first two days of tickets being offered.
Combining live shows with community workshops hosted by visiting and resident artists, the Deep Winter Blues Revival proved an all access pass to roots Blues aficionados and neophytes alike.
Not surprisingly, the event is the brainchild of Forget resident and organizing whizzes Shannon and Don Shakotko, the owners of both the Happy Nun Resturaunt and Ananda Arthouse.
"We're very happy with the success of the revival," Shannon said. "But a lot of the credit has to go to the sponsors who support it."
"We are able to offer 50 tickets a night for the shows, at $50 each," Shannon continued. "With the amount of activities we have involved, and with the number of musicians who attend, we wouldn't be able to make the show affordable if weren't for the generous support we receive from the local business community."
Shannon tips her hat to the business who have helped out, as well as the government funds that are available to support cultural fare like the Deep Winter Blues Festival.
"Part of our mandate is to provide school concerts, to expose children to some roots music," Shannon said. "This year we had Kat Danser performing at Manor School, BC Read and George Tennent at Stoughton, and Kacy and Clayton performed at Lampman."
The annual show follows a pattern in selecting its performers, ensuring a female, a male, and a youth performer are always included in the line-up.
Kat Danser, who performed at Manor School, hails from Edmonton, but was born and raised in Saskatchewan.
Over the course of her career, Danser has developed a Swamp Blues style that is all her own, and has won accolades for her laid-back rhythms and thought-provoking lyrics.
Danser, besides performing at the school, and both nights on-stage at the Happy Nun, also hosted the workshop, "Colouring Outside the Lines: Blues for the 21st Century."
B.C. Read hails from Saskatoon, and has had more than 25 years of experience as a Blues musician, playing in Canada, the United States, and Europe.
Read, whose music has been used in television and the movies, has four albums to his name, and his most recent, '1,000 Miles,' was nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award.
"I heard about Forget and what goes on here through the grapevine," Read explained. "The roots music community in Canada is relatively small, so word gets around about places and venues like this one."
Read, who had performed at one of the Forget summer festivals with his band, the BC Read Big Band, was attending the Happy Nun for the first time with his invite to this year's Deep Winter Blues Revival.
"The audiences have always been good here, and it's nice to come to a place where the focus of the crowd is the music, and not the libations," Read said with a laugh. "Places like this are blessedly few and far between, so it's always great to get an invite out here."
Read hosted a community workshop whose focus was to teach musicians how to play with other, unfamiliar musicians.
"It can be a little hard at first, but after 25 years, you learn some tricks," Read said. "If I can share those and help a newer musicians get over some of those hurdles, then I've done a good thing."
Joining the Revival for their second year was duet Kacy and Clayton.
The pair, 17 and 15 years-old respectively, were well received by the Lampman School audience, and Shannon Shakotko had nothing but praise for the pair.
"They're so young, but they are really good with their music," Shannon said. "We were happy to have them join us for a second year."
"I think, on the school outreach, they're really good for helping students see what they can achieve," Shannon said. "They are the same age as some of the people they are performing for."
Also performing over the Revival was Juno Award Winning artist, and Forget resident and entrepreneur, Ken Hamm.
Ken's continued involvement in the community, and in the talented and growing music scene in the Â鶹ÊÓƵeast, is notable due to his continued work with artists around the country providing producing and editing assistance, as well as accompaniment and working on his own selections.
Hamm, out of his music store Village Music, ran a workshop over the weekend, introducing musicians to various blues guitar techniques like slide-guitar licks, intros, and turn-arounds, all in the blues sound.
With the fourth year now behind, all indications are that the fifth annual Deep Winter Blues Revival will take place next year, during the first weekend of February.
