by Scott Roos
pics by Scott and Deanna Roos
Indigenous country artist Berk Jodoin recently played an inspired set to a very sparse crowd at the EARCandy music festival in Prince Albert. Along for the ride were Romeo Klyne (harmonica), Stacey Sprinall (backing vocals) and Jodoin’s fourteen year old daughter Milly Jodoin on bass guitar.
It was a stop in a series of shows that served to promote his recently released full length which he’s entitled Half Breed. The record is very much meant to be a think piece featuring a series of hard truths that Jodoin feels need to be told.
“Everything we write and everything we record is true. I'm adamant that if we don't talk about history, if we don't keep history at the forefront it's bound to repeat itself. If we don't talk about the bad things that happened, if we don't keep them on the tip of our tongues, it's gonna happen again because people are going to forget about them. So I think what we're doing is very important,” explained Jodoin in a brief interview with NSMZ after his Prince Albert set.
Jodoin took the size of the audience in stride. To him, what’s more important is whether or not the message he brings with every show was impactful to those in attendance. If the message carries on after a show even if only to a handful of people, Jodoin feels like he’s done his job and that’s admirable.
“We're storytellers. When we take a gig it's not to make people dance and drink. I want to make people think and I want to make people feel things. That's my goal every time I step on a stage. If I can make one person feel something during my set or talk about one of the issues that I sang about afterwards say when they are at home with their wife eating supper and they talk about a Starlight Tour or a missing and murdered indigenous woman or a residential school then we did our job. And we do our job quite well if we keep the story going,” continues Jodoin.
As a result of this approach, Jodoin is becoming a very important and essential voice in Saskatchewan drawing much needed attention to important issues within the indigenous community. Not only that, but he’s also an extremely talented singer-songwriter; his enlightened and thought provoking approach makes him a must listen live whenever he’s at a venue near you. NSMZ will be catching up with him more next month and we are looking forward to doing so.