When most people think of Saskatchewan they think of two things; wide open fields and old grain elevators that you can see for miles. At one time, every little town and railway siding had a wooden grain elevator but, sadly, over the years many of these old structures have closed down, fallen into disrepair, or been completely demolished.
For Saskatchewan musician Jeffery Straker, many of these old elevators have become great concert venues.
“I started this last summer. I launched my last record, it’s a pretty prairie themed recording, and I was asking myself ‘how do you launch a prairie themed record,’ and I was, like, what about shows in grain elevators,” exclaimed Straker.
The shows take place inside on the driveway scale where approximately 70 people can sit comfortably on lawn chairs.
“There’s a scale there and some of the audience is actually seated on the scale. These are the only shows where I get to weigh my audience, it’s actually quite fun, it’s part of the schtick,” chuckled Straker. “We set up at one end and people sit on their chairs across the drive of the elevator and the acoustics in there are incredible!”
Straker’s grain elevator tour will take him to the Southey on June 18th at 7pm, two shows in Ogema and Horizon on June 21st, Elbow on June 26th, Val Marie on August 9th, and he’ll wrap things up at the Sukanen Pioneer Village on August 10th.
His shows in these old wooden grain elevators have not come without some challenges and unique situations.
“one of the funniest things that happened was last year. We did two of the shows in Southey and the elevator was full of yellow peas at the time,” explained Straker. “Those old things kind of creak in the wind a bit, the boards aren’t exactly tight together and every now and then yellow peas would rain down on the audience and people loved it.”
Listen to our full interview:
His latest album is titled “Great Big Sky” and it dives into life on the prairies including a tribute to the Touchwood Hills where Straker grew up and a song about grain elevators titled “More than 2×4’s and timbers.” The album, produced in Nashville, just won him a very prestigious award.
“It actually won a Canadian Folk Music Award about a month ago,” beamed Straker.
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