Paul Tessier
For The Morning Star
Annie Lou’s song Grandma’s Rules For Drinking may have been written a few years ago, but the Vancouver Island-based singer-songwriter still performs it to this day.
It will be one of many folksy, old-time songs on Annie Lou’s set list when she and her band arrive in Vernon Saturday, Feb. 27 to perform at the Vernon Atrium Hotel.
Born Anne Louise Genest, Annie Lou’s first musical memory was listening to the song Snoopy vs. The Red Baron by the Royal Guardsmen when she was four years old.
“It was a favourite record in our family at the time. My parents were great music lovers, especially classical music. There was always music playing in the house,” she said.
The youngest of five kids, Genest’s parents didn’t mind their children having the Rolling Stones turned up loud.
“They always encouraged us to play our music,” she said.
Oddly though, there were no musicians in the family. Annie Lou actually didn’t start playing until her late 20s when she received her first guitar.
“I was living up in the Yukon and I fell in with some folks who had jams. They jammed in their kitchens and played songs that I loved: Neil Young, Bob Dylan and some old-timey songs. I was just captivated by it all and I thought, ‘Oh I can do that too.’ So I bought an old guitar and started practising.”
It wasn’t long before she started writing songs.
“Ani DiFranco was coming to do a show at the Yukon Rec Centre and the organization putting on the show was looking for an opening act – a girl band who played original music. I was starting to play with some other women and we decided to write some songs for the show. We opened for Ani DiFranco and the songwriting just kind of went from there.”
Annie Lou admits that it took some time for her music career to fall into place.
“It was a few more years before I got the focus of really starting to work on songwriting as craft and deciding to put out my own CD. That whole journey took about 10 years,” she said.
Along the way, there were bills to pay.
“Oh yes, I always had a day job,” laughed Annie Lou. “I did a bunch of things. I worked in a café and I got my baker’s ticket. Then when I started getting more into music, I left the café and started working at the women’s shelter in Whitehorse. It was the perfect situation because I got to job share with another musician.”
Songwriting continues to be Annie Lou’s passion today.
“What inspires me is those everyday stories and how to take what might seem like mundane experiences and make art out of them,” she said.
“Combined with the fact that we all struggle. Some of us have struggles that are much greater than others. Some have privilege, but we all struggle as human. It’s that human journey that really captivates me and inspires me.”
Annie Lou’s song Nine Bridges Down from her latest album, Tried and True, was inspired by the flooding in High River, Alta. in 2013.
“I built a story around that event. I’d met some people in Turner Valley who’d just moved there the year before the flood. They’d thought about leaving but decided to stay and lost everything. So that’s the story right there. There’s the song. I pretty much took their story and made a song out of it,” she said.
Annie Lou and her band (Sarah Hamilton, fiddle, vocals; Andrew Collins, mandolin, fiddle, vocals; Max Heineman, upright bass, vocals) perform for the Vernon Folk-Roots Music Society Saturday, Feb. 27 at 7:30 p.m. at the Vernon Atrium Hotel.
Doors open at 6:45 p.m. Tickets are $20 and $15 for members at ticketseller.ca, vernonfolkroots.com, the Bean Scene in Vernon, or at the door (if available).
