As Sunset Country Music Festival returns, Josh Stumpf continues to give back while chasing country music dreams

words and pics by Scott Roos

When Josh Stumpf and his fiancée, Mercy Glover, launched the Sunset Country Music Festival five years ago, the goal wasn't to build another summer concert.

It was to build something that mattered.

Since its inception, the annual festival has combined Saskatchewan country music with community fundraising, inviting fans to spend an evening on the Stumpf family farm near MacDowall while supporting local charities. Every year, the beneficiaries change. The mission doesn't.

Now entering its fifth edition on Aug. 22, the festival has become a fixture on the local summer calendar, and as Stumpf's own career continues to rise nationally, he says the event remains grounded in the community that helped launch it.

"If anybody isn't aware what it is, it's me and my fiancée, Mercy (Glover)," Stumpf said. "We put on this festival every year, and it's a one-day kind of event where we get a couple hundred people out to the farm. We try to raise as much money as we can that night."

More importantly, he says, none of the proceeds stay with the organizers.

"We do not save a dime. We do not profit on this. We give 100 per cent of the proceeds to charity. We pick a new local charity every year. We pick local Saskatchewan artists to try and give them more of an opportunity to be seen, and just try to give back to our community that gave so much to us."

This year's recipient is Hope's Home, an organization that provides inclusive childcare and support for children with complex medical needs.

"This year we've partnered with Hope's Home," Stumpf said. "All of the proceeds that we get will go to Hope's Home. We did a tour and a walk around there and it was really wonderful to see. They're looking to get some newer, updated equipment and different materials to use, and obviously they have staff to support too. It's really great, the stuff that they do there."

The evening itself promises more than just music. Guests can expect a beer garden, food from Buzfood, fireworks after dark and a lineup featuring Stumpf, Mercy, Prince Albert's Morgan Desjardins and Kieran Gardner.

"We'll have the beer garden set up, the food trucks come out, we'll get some fireworks going. It'll be a great time," Stumpf said.

While Sunset Country Music Festival has grown each year, so too has the profile of its founder. Just days before speaking about the festival, Stumpf returned from one of the biggest performances of his career after taking the stage at Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose, Alta.

"We just got back. It's been one crazy weekend," he said.

Performing before one of Canada's largest country music audiences was a surreal experience.

"I was so nervous. That was the most excited I've ever been for a show, but also the most terrified. I'd never played a stage that big before or for that many people."

The nerves were understandable. Festival performances of that scale operate differently than club shows or soft seat theatres.

"They call them throw-and-goes where it's more of a line check than a sound check," he explained. "You walk on, you've got 15 minutes to plug everything in, make sure everything's working and kind of just go."

Mother Nature eventually had the final word, with high winds forcing organizers to cancel the remainder of the evening after Stumpf's performance. Still, the experience represented another milestone in a career that has accelerated dramatically over the past few years.

That momentum is perhaps most evident in the songwriting itself.

While fans hear the finished songs, much of the work happens hundreds of kilometres away in Nashville, Tennessee, where Stumpf has become a regular visitor, collaborating with established writers and publishers in one of country music's creative capitals.

"I want to say three times... three or four times," he said when asked how many songwriting trips he has made. "I'm actually going back on Saturday. I'll be playing Whiskey Jam while I'm down there and then writing for another week."

Those trips are hardly vacations.

"Usually about a week," Stumpf explained. "I've got double writes pretty much every day—one in the morning, one in the evening—and do that pretty much every day until I come home."

The collaborative writing process has opened his eyes to just how many different ways a song can come together.

"We'll all throw out ideas," he said. "Sometimes it's a hook idea, sometimes it's just a concept, maybe a melody or a guitar pattern. Everybody kind of throws their ideas into a pot."

There's no single formula.

"I've done some writes that have taken eight hours, and I've done some where it's been an hour and you just bang it out. Sometimes we've started with nothing but a vibe. Sometimes we're dead set on one idea. Sometimes it's, 'I like the hook over here, the melody over there and the idea from over there—let's mash them all together.' It kind of just depends on the day and who you're writing with."

Those experiences, and the songs that have followed, have helped elevate Stumpf onto the national stage.

This year, that progress earned him two Canadian Country Music Association nominations: Breakthrough Artist of the Year and Fans' Choice.

For an artist who still calls Prince Albert home and continues to work while building his music career, the recognition is another reminder that years of hard work are beginning to pay off.

"Things are starting to shift for me where I'm starting to see some money coming in," he said. "It's been very nice. I can afford to take the flights and the hotels and all the rest. It's crazy."

Even with national recognition arriving, Stumpf's long-term goals remain remarkably grounded.

"I'd love to see myself owning a house and just still doing exactly this (singing country music)."

Perhaps that's why Sunset Country Music Festival has continued to resonate. While Stumpf's career may be carrying him to bigger stages, bigger audiences and songwriting rooms in Nashville, every August he returns home—to the family farm, to local musicians and to a community that believed in him before the rest of the country caught on. For one evening, the spotlight isn't just on Josh Stumpf. It's on Saskatchewan music, Saskatchewan artists and a Saskatchewan charity.

The fifth annual Sunset Country Music Festival takes place Aug. 22 on the Stumpf family farm near MacDowall. Tickets are $25 in advance through Eventbrite or $30 at the gate (cash only), with all proceeds supporting Hope's Home.

For country music fans looking for one last great summer concert, it's an opportunity to hear some of the province's brightest talent. For everyone else, it's a chance to spend an evening supporting a cause that will continue making a difference long after the final encore.

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