Connie Kaldor performs at the Salt Spring Folk Club on Nov. 9.

Connie Kaldor back by popular demand

A legendary performer whose music reflects her early life on the Canadian prairies will appear on Salt Spring for the next installment of the folk club at Fulford Hall on Monday, Nov. 9.

For close to three decades, Connie Kaldor has entertained audiences with original songs that contain elements of gospel, rock, country and western, folk, bluegrass and adult contemporary. She’s also recorded music for children, for which she has won Juno Awards in 1989, 2004 and 2005.

Born in Regina in 1953, Kaldor sang in the church choir every Sunday and grew up listening to Patsy Cline and the Beatles. She performed at the Regina Folk Festival as a teenager, but went on to study theatre in university. After four years performing with an avante garde theatre troupe in Toronto, she returned to music as her life’s focus.

According to Kaldor’s official website, in 1979 “she experienced an epiphany. She loved theatre but could live without it. She could not imagine living without making music.”

Kaldor then “packed her suitcase full of theatrical wisdom and independent spirit and set out to blaze a trail on the Canadian folk music scene.

“In a time when a female singer and songwriter was a rare bird indeed, Connie sang solo and played guitar and piano. She spoke directly to her audience, breaking down the wall that often separates spectator from performer with a seamless combination of musical skill and repartee,” her website states.

Dressed in leather skirts and cowgirl boots, Kaldor was part of a wave of Canadian talent, along with Stan Rogers, Ferron, Heather Bishop, Valdy, Roy Forbes and Stringband, that was forging a distinctly Canadian sound.

Kaldor has toured India, China, Europe and the United States and has appeared at most major concert venues in Canada. She has shared the stage with artists including Shawn Colvin, Sylvia Tyson, the Chieftains, Daniel Lanois and Tracy Chapman.

With her theatrical training, Kaldor’s stage performances are known as much for her engaging personality and keen sense of humour that emerges between songs as for her skilled musicianship.

Her dedicated fan base includes other folk musicians and critics as well as music lovers everywhere.

“Connie’s a great performer,” Canadian folk music matriarch Sylvia Tyson (of the ‘60s with duo Ian & Sylvia) is quoted in Billboard Magazine. “She’s had acting training, and she really puts drama into her performances. She also has a wicked sense of humour.”

“She’s tough and she’s tender. She sings with love and with anger . . . indecently talented,” says the Toronto Star.

The Boston Globe has called Kaldor a “masterful performer, wildly funny one moment, deeply personal the next.”

Opening for Kaldor are local musicians KC Kelly and Sandy Profitt. Profitt’s sultry vocals combine with Kelly’s steel slide guitar for an authentic blues sound that consistently delights audiences.

Reviews of Kelly’s 2009 release, Wild Care, have called him “a fabulous blues musician...a highlight and definitely a crowd favourite” and “a bluesman with a delta feel . . . a consummate songwriter as well as instrumentalist.”

Doors open at 6:15 and the show starts at 7 p.m.

Kaldor was invited back to the Salt Spring Folk Club by popular audience demand following her previous shows here.