PREVIEW
What: Scotty Hills
When: 7:30 p.m. (doors at 7), Friday
Where: Providence Farm Chapel, 1843 Tzouhalem Rd., Duncan
Tickets: $20 ($10 for students); kids 14 and under are free
At one point during the recording sessions for his new album, Scotty Hills had a novel idea: Board a train and head for Detroit, the birthplace of soul.
The Cowichan Valley singer-songwriter began his train journey in Seattle. Four days later, he was casually playing music and chatting with his feet planted firmly in the Motor City, alongside two Michigan legends, including L.J. Reynolds of the Dramatics.
“I went there for some inspiration,” Hills said. “It was an exploration.”
He also spent time with an old acquaintance, bassist Tony Green. A bandleader who was a key contributor to records by Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, Green lives in a house that sits across the street from where Marvin Gaye lived prior to his death. It was with that house as a backdrop that Hills and Green spent one afternoon, drinking beer and trading stories.
Hills said he could scarcely believe his good fortune.
“Tony still lives in his old neighbourhood, literally across the street from where they shot the cover for What’s Going On.”
The spontaneous trip is a reflection of Hills’ personality when it comes to music. His is a sponge-like approach: The Saskatoon native sails effortlessly between jazz, folk, country and blues. But soul music is the best description of what he does on Nature Girl, his new EP.
Hills will celebrate the recording with a concert Friday in Duncan at the Providence Farm Chapel. He will perform solo, and while that won’t give fans an exact indication of the range he displays on the recording, it will put the spotlight on his velvety voice, which bears a striking resemblance to John Legend, at times. Remarkably, that is but one weapon in his arsenal.
The 38-year-old, who is studying jazz part-time at Vancouver Island University, handles most of the instrumentation on Nature Girl, playing bass, drums and guitar (he also arranged string parts for two songs). It was a skill he developed during stints in various groups, dating back to when he was employed full-time as a teenage drum sensation.
“I grew up in the Saskatoon blues-jam scene,” Hills said. “That was my church.”
It was during one of those jams that he met blues favourite, Nigel Mack, who asked Hills to join his band for a U.S. tour. Hills initially said no, as he was burned-out from touring.
“I had seen and heard things that no young person should hear,” he said. Eventually, he agreed to play with Mack.
“I did three tours with Nigel, and each tour was three months — all one-nighters. It was a really busy time. I was 19 years old, touring with 45-year-olds, but I could keep a basic beat, so I was playing all kinds of shows. I got good enough that I was playing in Chicago, backing up some of my heroes.”
Hills could never really stay away. After moving to Winnipeg, he aligned himself with a band, the Perpetrators, that did seven years of hard touring. Though he was employed as a drummer, Hills wanted to be a singer-songwriter. He recalled feeling like “a drummer who took his guitar on the road,” which caused a rift in the group.
“I would never tune my drums or even look at my drums. Any spare time I had, I would be in the hotel room writing songs on my guitar.”
He eventually split from the group, only to find out, months later, that the trio had earned a Juno nomination for blues recording of the year — for songs he had co-written and produced. Hills was out on his own by this point, spurred into a career as a solo artist after winning a radio-station contest in Winnipeg.
“In some ways, I don’t know if I’ve ever been in the blues genre. I was always heavily influenced by the blues, but I never really felt like a 100 per cent son of that music scene. I had so much more going on in my head that I didn’t want to suppress.”
More extensive touring followed once Hills moved to Calgary. Five years ago, he gave up playing for “the oil-and-gas, after-work crowd” and settled in the Cowichan Valley with his wife. Nowadays, he’s pursuing a career in music with the same joy he once did, albeit without the pressure of his earlier days.
He has a stack of new songs, too; Hills thinks they will be suitable for an album he hopes to record this year. Nature Girl — equal parts country, soul and folk — has given Hills a new direction to pursue.
“I’m dumbing everything down and simplifying in the hopes of really constructing this next full-length and seeing how it can develop and build from there, rather than completely go into crazy amounts of debt trying to keep a band on the road.”