Ladd & Lasses Wine, Women and Song poster in uptown Saint John (Elizabeth MacLeod)
Local chamber and folk band Ladd & Lasses and wine expert Craig Pinhey will combine their talents for the second Wine, Women & Song event on March 14th, as part of the Live @ The BMO Music Series.
The three-piece band, consisting of Hilary Ladd, Katie Bestvater, and Danielle Girard, came together in April 2017 when singer-songwriter Ladd was working on an album of songs she was going to record.
“I was just gathering the musicians to play on my album and as we were rehearsing and putting together the arrangements for these songs, everybody just kind of fell in love with them and we decided to be a band together instead of them just playing on my album,” she said.
The artists’ classical backgrounds blend with folk and chamber music to complement Ladd’s lyrics.
“It was kind of a natural progression,” explained Ladd. “I taught myself how to play the guitar when I was 16 with my mom’s classical guitar and a big book of folk songs chord charts. As I started to write my own music it just naturally came out as folk songs because that was how I could accompany myself.”
Ladd & Lasses perform all over Saint John; they put on an annual show at the Sanctuary Theatre and last year performed at the City Market during Christmastime.
The band released their first album She Wanders in 2018 and mostly play throughout New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. They are also set to perform at this year’s Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival this August. “We’ve showcased at the East Coast Music Awards the last three years in a row and that’s been pretty impact for our career, we’ve had some pretty interesting offers come from that,” she said.
Ladd has been working on new music and having discussions with the band about going in a new musical direction. “I’m speaking to pop producers about the songs I’m writing, so that is kind of scary and exciting because that is not a world I am familiar with at all.”
The Wine, Women and Song showcase was developed by Stephen Tobias, Executive Director of The Saint John Theatre Company. Ladd worked with Tobias back when he was running shows at the North End’s The Somerset pub. “He has done a lot of different things around the community for entertainment and theater and just performance in general,” she said.
Sommelier Craig Pinhey and Ladd collaborated on the wine samples to be offered through the performance. She suggested Pinhey pick a few wines he was really excited and she would pair their music to the wine descriptions to try and create an ambiance for people drinking them.
The band was originally supposed to play last year for the first Wine, Women and Song event, but had to withdraw because Ladd was due to have her second child. She shares her kids have been a fountain of inspiration in her songwriting; she has written a new song that sounds like a breakup song, but is about her two-year-old.
“I would say that they’re pretty all-consuming right now,” Ladd said. “I mostly write songs now that come out of a place of trying to grapple with all of the thoughts and feelings and emotions that come with motherhood, and trying to be myself in the midst of that.”
If you go, the performance will take place at the BMO Studio Theatre at 8PM.
