EDMONTON JOURNAL, MARCH 16, 2007

CANADIAN COWBOY ROUNDING UP FANS

CALGARY MUSICIAN IS HEADING OFF OFFERS AS HIS ONSTAGE PRESENCE MATURES AND HIS TOUR SCHEDULE FILLS UP
by Peter North

It’s an enviable position for an emerging artist to be in: wondering where the next available hole in your schedule is. That’s exactly the situation Tim Hus finds himself in these days.
The Calgarian, who calls his sound “Canadiana Cowboy Music,” has so impressed audiences and promoters over the last while that he is going to be focused on the white lines of the nation’s highways for months to come, travelling from rodeos to soft -seat theatres.
Playing a two-night stand at the Early Stage Saloon in Stony Plain this weekend, Hus blew away buyers at the showcase for the Canadian Association of Fairs and Exhibitions to close out 2006. He has since landed bookings around the country, including a summer stand at the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition in Thunder Bay, which will sit nicely with his booking at the Dauphin Countryfest, Manitoba’s version of our Big Valley Jamboree.
“I’ll be making my first mainstage appearance at Big Valley this summer,” says Hus, who writes about everything from pipeliners and long-haul truck drivers to the bootleggers and bronc riders who owned the West a century ago.
Influenced by the clipped cadence of Stompin’ Tom Connors and the imagery of Ian Tyson, Hus likes to wrap his tunes with a bailing-wire bow that comes from the twang of a Telecaster.
Sonically it allows the singer-songwriter to get the immediate attention of any crowded barroom and cut through any racket he might be competing with at the start of a night.
“We’re please with how the audiences are responding. These are pretty good times for us and it’s a nice predicament to be in, trying to fit in all the offers to play,” adds Hus, who was one of the featured artists at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington last summer.
It was there that popular country broadcaster Alison Brock thought Hus really showed signs of coming into his own. “Tim has always been so real onstage and he writes about real things and situations, but he’s now got this poise and is able to interact more closely with his audience. He’s matured as a performer and when he does Danny Mack’s Canadian Cowboy, I’d swear it was written for him. It’s so cool to see his star rising,” Brock says of Hus, who has another big fan and friend in Corb Lund. “Tim’s awesome. He’s one of my favorite Canadian songwriters,” insists Lund. “Nobody captures the rough-and-ready frontier imagery better than him.”
Hus will play three sets featuring tunes from his latest disc, Huskies & Husqvarnas, starting at 8 p.m. The early Stage Saloon, which should be packed, is located at 4911 52nd Ave., in Stony Plain.

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