The Last Prairie Waltz: Bringing the spirit of The Band home to Prince Albert

by Scott Roos

photos by Blake Sittler

There are certain records that, regardless of how many times you hear them, still manage to make you stop what you're doing. The Last Waltz is one of those records. Originally released as the soundtrack to The Band's legendary 1976 farewell concert, the album and accompanying film captured something that has proven remarkably difficult to reproduce: a room full of ridiculously talented musicians, many of whom had already established themselves as legends, getting together to play some ridiculously good songs and, perhaps most importantly, having an absolute blast doing it. Bob Dylan. Van Morrison. Dr. John. Neil Young. Joni Mitchell. Eric Clapton. Muddy Waters. Ron Wood. And, of course, The Band. Nearly 50 years later, that spirit is coming to Prince Albert.

The Last Prairie Waltz arrives at the E.A. Rawlinson Centre on Thursday, Oct. 22, but calling it simply a tribute to The Band would be selling the whole thing considerably short.

Because while the music of The Band is the foundation, the idea behind Last Prairie Waltz is considerably bigger: bring a bunch of great musicians together, throw some of the genre boundaries out the window, give everybody an opportunity to play, and see what happens.

And in Prince Albert, that means putting together a collection of musicians that represents just how deep the city's music scene actually is. Producer Heidi Munro has a particularly personal connection to the city. She spent roughly 25 years in Prince Albert, working throughout its arts and music communities before eventually moving on. So when it came time to build a Prince Albert cast, she didn't exactly have to start from scratch.

“Well, I spent 25 years in Prince Albert,” Munro says. “So I had a pretty good pulse on the arts community there.”

That pulse is reflected pretty spectacularly in the lineup of largely local to Prince Albert talent. Munro and musical director Scott Patrick will be joined by Rich McFarlane, Dean Kushneryk, Mick Gratias, Ross Folkersen, Brenner Holash, Connor Newton and Lauren Lohneis, with guest appearances from Eliza Doyle, Scott Roos, Jaynaya Trudel, Dennis Adams, Doyle Ironstand, Shania Cabilao, Paul Lomheim and LJ Tyson. If you're familiar with the Prince Albert music scene, you probably recognize a fairly ridiculous amount of talent in that sentence. And that's before you consider that these musicians don't all necessarily inhabit the same musical neighbourhood. That's one of the things that makes The Last Prairie Waltz concept so interesting.

“The point of it is to bring community together, to bring different musicians that don't necessarily, you know, even for us, it's kind of like, well, who would we like to have to play on the show that you don't normally get to play with?”

That's a pretty simple idea. It's also one that doesn't happen nearly often enough.

Musicians have a tendency to become creatures of their own scenes. Country musicians play with country musicians. Jazz musicians play with jazz musicians. Rock musicians play with rock musicians. Singer-songwriters play with singer-songwriters. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with any of that. But what happens when you throw all of those people into the same room? Apparently, The Last Prairie Waltz.

Patrick saw it happen during earlier productions of The Last Prairie Waltz.

“The beauty of it was seeing the musicians come to the first rehearsal and playing the music,” he says. “And then they're meeting people that they've always seen play or they've always admired, looked up to or whatever, and they're getting to play with them.”

That's the magic trick. The show isn't simply recreating The Last Waltz. It's recreating the feeling of The Last Waltz - that slightly unpredictable, everybody-on-stage-together celebration where the music is the thing that connects everybody. And that also means every Last Prairie Waltz production is going to be different. That's not a marketing gimmick. It's baked into the concept. The cast changes from community to community, meaning the songs may have the same basic DNA, but the personalities, arrangements, voices and chemistry are constantly shifting. People who saw the Saskatoon production and then attended another performance, Patrick says, noticed exactly that.

“They said it was like the same in the way that the vibe was the same and the energy of the show was the same, but different because obviously you had different people there.”

Which is kind of brilliant. If you see the Prince Albert show, you're not seeing the Saskatoon show transported north. You're seeing the Prince Albert Last Prairie Waltz. And considering the talent pool available here, that's a pretty exciting proposition. Of course, creating a show like this is not remotely as simple as getting a bunch of musicians into a room and saying, “Okay, everybody knows The Weight, right?” Patrick is responsible for the musical direction, charts and arrangements, and because the cast changes from show to show, the work changes with it. Every show brings a new set of logistical challenges. And Patrick is quick to point out that he's not doing it alone.

“I'll just make one correction on that,” he says. “I don't do it alone.”

Munro handles the bigger picture - what the show should look like, who should be involved and how the various pieces fit together - while Patrick works through the musical details.

They consider which performer might best bring a particular song to life, whose voice or personality suits a guest spot and which instrumentalists deserve an opportunity to step forward. In fact, Patrick has intentionally expanded the original show's opportunities for individual musicians.

“When I first started working on the show, I thought that they had a lot more solo opportunities in the actual Last Waltz, but there weren't really a lot,” he says. “So that's kind of increased and some of the songs are extended a little bit. We've given room for everybody.”

That means audiences aren't simply watching a backing band work its way through a greatest-hits package. The musicians themselves are part of the show. And, yes, there are some pretty spectacular songs to work with.

“The Weight” is there. “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is there. “Ophelia” is there.

“Cripple Creek” is there. And if you've ever heard those songs played by a full band with a serious horn section, you already know where this is headed. The original Last Waltz also featured artists outside The Band's immediate orbit, and Last Prairie Waltz follows that model, bringing in different voices and perspectives rather than limiting itself to a strict recreation of the original set. That includes original music from Prince Albert artists as well.

And that detail is important to Munro.

“We didn't want it to be just another, well, for lack of a better term, a tribute-type show,” she says. “We wanted it to really highlight being Canadian and the musical heritage in our country.”

It's a distinction worth making. There are plenty of tribute shows where the objective is to recreate an artist as accurately as possible. The Last Prairie Waltz isn't really interested in doing that. It's interested in taking the musical spirit of the original and allowing Canadian . and specifically Prince Albert, musicians to put their own fingerprints on it. That also explains why someone like Brenner Holash can wind up taking on the Dr. John's material.

Or why a fiddler like Jaynaya Trudel can bring something completely different to the stage.

Or why LJ Tyson gets an opportunity to perform original material with this particular collection of musicians behind him. The goal isn't to make everybody sound like somebody else. It's to find out what happens when really good musicians are given the room to be themselves inside some very familiar songs. And, according to Munro, that can produce some pretty powerful moments.

“There’s certain things that happen on stage that you can feel - such an electricity in a room, in the whole room,” she says.

Then she pauses and adds something that, honestly, might be the best description of the entire project.

“I think communities need that.”

She's probably right. Because for all the talk about the songs, the musicians, the arrangements and the history of The Band, Last Prairie Waltz ultimately seems to be about something considerably more basic. People getting together. Musicians playing together.

Audiences singing together. And a community recognizing the remarkable amount of talent that already exists in its own backyard. Patrick says the sheer joy and energy coming off the stage is difficult to replicate anywhere else.

“You're going to get wrapped up in that multiple times during the show,” he says. “Even I get choked up at the end of the show.”

And if you're wondering whether that is simply promotional hyperbole, there is apparently some pretty compelling evidence from previous performances.

Munro recalls one audience member who took the unusual step of writing to the production afterward.

“She said she hasn't seen her husband cry in as long as she could remember,” Munro says. “And he sat there and cried and they didn't want it to end.”

That's about as good an endorsement as a concert can get. Particularly one built around songs that have somehow managed to remain completely timeless. Because that's the other thing about The Band's music. You might think you don't know it. You probably do. As Patrick puts it, when people ask which songs they'll recognize, the answer is pretty simple.

“You'll know them.”

He's not wrong. And on Oct. 22, Prince Albert gets the opportunity to hear those songs filtered through the musicians who make up its own remarkably eclectic musical community.

It is a show built around The Band, but it isn't trapped in 1976. It's Canadian. It's local. It's collaborative. It's deliberately a little loose around the edges. And most importantly, it's alive. That may ultimately be the best way to describe Last Prairie Waltz.

It's not an attempt to put The Last Waltz behind glass and preserve it exactly as it was.

It's taking the spirit of that night. It'a all about the collaborations, the unexpected combinations, the great songs and the feeling of watching a room full of musicians simply enjoy making music together and giving it a new life. This time, in Prince Albert. And if you're lucky, you might walk out of the E.A. Rawlinson Centre on Oct. 22 having heard a song you've known for 40 years in a way you've never heard it before. Which, really, is what a great live show is supposed to do.