Bluegrass sensation Jake Vaadeland set to make holiday stop in Brandon
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A Saskatchewan-born bluegrass singer who’s headed to Brandon this week said his favourite part about touring Western Canada is the connections he makes while speaking to people after a show.
Jake Vaadeland and his band the Sturgeon River Boys have been on tour since Nov. 27 and are scheduled to play a holiday-themed show at the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
This will be the band’s second time in Brandon after performing at Lady of the Lake in 2022.
Saskatchewan bluegrass singer Jake Vaadeland has been singing since he was three years old and learned how to play guitar and the banjo in Grade 12. (Supplied)
“That makes me very happy to know that I’m out there doing something … and that I’m trying to make people happier and send them home with a smile on their face,” Vaadeland told the Sun on Tuesday.
Vaadeland and the band have a shelf full of awards to their credit. This year they earned their first Juno award for traditional roots album of the year and a Canadian Country Music Association award for alternative country album of the year. In 2024, the band won a Western Canadian Music Award for roots artist of the year.
The Brandon show will feature music from the six-track EP “Goodness Gracious, It’s Christmas!” that the band recorded live during a holiday tour last year.
“Instead of going in the studio and recording those songs, which we weren’t going to do, we had the recordings right there with the audience in them and experience and the energy and the Christmas spirit,” Vaadeland said.
He said the EP is a glimpse of what people can expect to hear at the show without spoiling it and includes classic carols like “Jingle Bells,” “Run Rudolph Run,” “Silent Night” and “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem.”
“I really wanted to do one that I feel hasn’t really been circulating much anymore, and that was ‘Beautiful Star of Bethlehem,’” Vaadeland said, adding that it’s meaningful to him because it was a song most farmers in his hometown near Big River, Sask., would sing at the church when they finished working with the cattle or breaking hay.
He likes to cover Christmas music, such as “Go Tell it on the Mountain” and “Blue Christmas,” and make it his own bluegrass version by changing the tempo, so it’s authentic to his style.
Vaadeland and the Sturgeon River Boys have been touring non-stop for five years across the U.S. and Europe, but he loves coming home to Canada.
“Going province to province is kind of just like being at home,” he said before his show at The Plaza Theatre and Venue in Shaunavon, Sask.
“When we play these bigger shows now, four or five years later, it’s nice to see them full of people that have been supporting since Day 1, and so (we) can always trust a Saskatchewan crowd to fill the room up, which is always nice,” he said.
Vaadeland said both sides of his family are musically talented and could sing or play the piano or banjo.
He started singing when he was around three years old and favoured Johnny Cash songs because that’s what his parents listened to. At his first paid gig at age three, he sang “I Walk the Line” by Johnny Cash and The Tennessee Two with his dad on guitar, and someone came up and gave him a toonie.
Jake Vaadeland and the Sturgeon River Boys are scheduled to perform at the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium on Friday at 7:30 p.m. (Supplied)
His passion to become an entertainer grew in high school when he studied American bluegrass singer and guitarist Lester Flatt.
“That’s when I decided to learn guitar because I didn’t just want to be a banjo player, then I wanted to have my own show and be on the road,” Vaadeland said.
He moved his Grade 12 high school studies online and spent three hours every morning writing music to pursue his career in entertainment full-time.
He met a few other musicians in Saskatchewan and formed the Sturgeon River Boys in 2021. They have since played 100 to 150 shows per year.
“I’m very grateful … that I was able to make that passion of mine come true and bring this type of entertainment back on the road again,” Vaadeland said.
He dreams of performing all over the world and is heading back on tour in Europe in the new year.
But before then, he’s looking forward to spending the holiday season with his relatives on a farm in Big River and in Cut Knife, Sask., where he has set down roots now.
» tadamski@brandonsun.com