Garret T. Willie
Thursday, June 20, 11pm
Old Market Square
FREE!
Garret T. Willie is an old soul masquerading as an uncommonly wise, weathered, witty and world-weary 23-year-old and he's about to give rock 'n' roll a formidable 21st -century kick in the ass. Hailing from Kingcome Inlet, off the coast of British Columbia, his Indigenous backstory also gives him more right than most to sing the blues – and at heart, Garret T. Willie is a rock ‘n’ roller – but he’d rather that not be the whole story.
Willie is the personification of an open book in the lyric sheet to his debut record Same Pain. What he offers the world is something it has genuinely been missing for awhile: a contemporary take on hardscrabble blues and the purest and rawest rock 'n' roll to follow its teachings thereafter. He’s studiously schooled in all the right source material, from Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King, and Muddy Waters to Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis to The Rolling Stones, Ten Years After, AC/DC, Stevie Ray Vaughan, George Thorogood, and everyone else who’s carried the torch into the present, with a little Johnny Cash and Hank Williams thrown in for some outlaw-country flavour on the side. And that’s why, on Same Pain, Willie can not only really rip it up on the guitar, but also with the gut-busting honesty of someone who understands that if you ain’t lived it, you shouldn’t sing it. At least that’s the way it is for him.
Willie has absolutely no interest in emulating the musical past, emulating his heroes. His interest is only in channeling every ounce of the classic blues and rock 'n' roll he venerates so deeply into something new. Bringing it into the now, hustling it towards the future and maybe leaving his signature on the wall for a few of the bored kids to follow in his footsteps.